Strangers I Remember: Miss SF Rockabilly

First off: Yes, I know it's been AGES since I've submitted anything here. This will hopefully be the first of many comeback art pieces. While this might seem like a pretty random piece to start with, this is something I particularly feel like sharing right this moment and it has a bit of a story behind it too. A story I've never told before, yet occasionally think about from time to time.

So, the girl in this sketch is partly a real person and partly from my imagination (I'll explain this in a bit). I met her during a visit to San Fransisco several years ago. Erm... Well... We didn't officially meet, but we very much shared an encounter.

It was a fairly warm summer day and I was walking about the city doing touristy things. Of course, one of the more popular touristy things to do in SF is to ride those famous cable cars. I found myself at the bottom of a hill where the cable car turntable was and saw an absurdly long line to get on. Just as I was approaching the end of that line, a lady told me that if I wanted to ride the car without the ridiculous wait, I could walk to the next stop just up the hill where there would be virtually no line by comparison. I did just that and saw that she was right (Super kind of her). Before making my way to the end of that line, I saw a rather cute busker playing the ukulele and singing what I believe were original songs. Since the cable car line wasn't very long and I personally wasn't in any rush, I decided to stick around and listen to her play. I found a lamp post to lean on and started to nod my head along to the cute little tunes. That's when I saw her...

On a bench, taking slow drags from a cigarette, there she sat in black jeans, a black button up shirt, and sported a black bandana around her perfectly-coiffed rockabilly hairdo. Her bold red lips and dark long lashes contrasted heavily against her fair skin. She sat with one leg crossed over the other, gently bobbing her head to the sounds of ukulele, likely out on a smoke break from one of the nearby shops. I caught myself glancing at her more and more, as her beauty was becoming difficult to ignore. Thankfully, I had my aviators on, so it wasn't immediately obvious that I was staring. To my surprise, she started to return the glances. Of course, this made me a bit nervous. Was there something in my teeth? Or some leaves or crud in my hair? I flashed a small smile at her to be polite and she returned it with a bigger smile. Holy hells... I thought smiles that pretty were only printed on magazine covers or featured in fashion blogs. Instead, this one was a few metres away and pointed directly at me.

I am admittedly quite painfully shy, so what I did next was a rather bold move considering. I decided to take off my shades to take in the sight of her without a tint. After removing the sole filter between us, her attractiveness skyrocketed. I was in absolute awe that such an individual would even bother taking a second glance at someone like me. After hanging my sunglasses off my jean pocket, I glanced up again to catch her giggling, resting her chin on her hand, while her bouncing foot took over keeping the rhythm of enjoying the ukulele music in the air.

At this point, our eyes were locked. I was smiling at her. She was smiling at me. It was nothing short of a cheesy movie bit. Despite the crowds, the noise, and the heat, time slowed for these two individuals caught in their very own moment. While I am normally horribly oblivious to circumstances like these, I was quite convinced at this point that she wasn't just smiling at me simply to be courteous. Maybe... Just maybe... This gorgeous human being might have had a slight interest in me. Enough of an interest to... oh, I don't know.. hold a conversation if I went over to introduce myself. So guess what I did...

Nothing.

I did nothing. Time resumed normal speed and our moment found its end. Almost simultaneously, the ukulele player ended her set to take a break as rockabilly girl put out her cigarette and return to work nearby... But not before flashing me one last amazing smile. I dorkishly grinned back before she turned and headed on her way. Before going off in my own direction, I pulled out a couple of bucks to hand them to the ukulele girl and thanked her for her tunes. I put my shades back on and got in line for the cable car, admittedly with quite a spring in my step.

Of course, a tiny part of me regrets not introducing myself to Miss Rockabilly, but the rest of me is pretty damn glad to have been able to enjoy that moment regardless. It's not often that I feel any significant amount of confidence, but that short yet sweet little scene had me beaming. I find myself thinking about it every now and then, and my self-esteem shines a mite brighter for it.

So that tale explains the "real life" part. The imagination part is that all the visual reference I have of her is what I remember. Unsurprisingly, my memory of her is vivid one, which is beneficial in that I have a clear idea of what I wanted to put down on the page, but a bit of a pain because I wasn't going to stop until I captured her perfectly. I literally spent hours on this, trying my damnedest to get her overall aesthetic just right. I ended up using one photo reference for the hairstyle because I had absolutely no idea where to begin when it comes to rockabilly hairdos. This is as close as I'm going to get and I'm actually quite happy with it. It's nowhere NEAR her exact likeness, but it's close enough that her image isn't just an occasional cameo in my memories anymore.

Thanks for being my muse, Miss Rockabilly. Thank you even more for the smile.