Drawn Love

Drawn Love-Chapter 7-One and only

“Some do drugs, others go out for a run, but in the end, we’re all just searching for that space, perhaps a hole, that gives us shelter from the terrible reality of the world.”

 

Jasper’s P.O.V

 

I stared at the white canvas and it’s rough surface. It was all too big in my opinion, but my art teacher wanted me to do it this big. I didn’t know why though. It wasn’t like I even knew what to do on the canvas. It was a rare occasion that I even looked at canvases.

They were a mystery to me. I didn’t even know how people managed to get something so big home or in their car. And how to use the wood thingy the canvas was supposed to stand on was rocket science in my eyes.

I felt ashamed not knowing what to do and being an artist. But I justified it somehow with the fact that I usually only drew on paper. When the mood hit me, sometimes I carved something out of wood, but in truth, the woodcarvings didn’t do justice to the wood at all.

It was sad really, to have to ruin the white of the canvas. It was so calming and relaxing, a bit hard on the eyes, but still. It was a shame to throw paint on it and disrupt the beauty of the canvas, but I had to do it.

I got up from my bed and took the canvas, taking off the see through wrapper from it. I ran my hand on the surface and felt the small rises and falls of it. Under my hand, it felt amazing.

I raised my computer chair to it’s maximum and turned towards me and from the computer desk. I placed the canvas so it rested on the chair under an angle and the top board was sort of attached to the part of the chair I leaned my back on.

I steadied the chair so it wouldn’t turn around and then put newspaper on the floor and on the computer desk, just in case I got it dirty.

I retrieved my case of paints from the bottom of my closet and after changing my clothes into something not so confining, namely a t-shirt and sweatpants, I squeezed out some colors. I didn’t have any clue to what I would be doing so I squeezed out some red, yellow, orange, brown, white and black.

The teacher said the theme was something unusual or abstract, other than that, we had complete freedom to do as we wish. So if I made a complete failure of this, I could just pass it off as something abstract.

I took the first brush that I saw and started rhythmically painting the canvas. I mixed in some brown tones, reds, oranges and yellows, throwing in some white occasionally to lighten the color and get another shade of it.

From the top angled of the canvas, I used my brush strokes to create a falling effect one would notice with big and heavy curtains that were draped somewhere on two ends. My brush stokes were going downwards on an angle and meeting in the middle.

By now, I had somewhat of a picture in my head. It was sort of blurry, but I still saw it. so the next thing I did was pulling out the small bottle of ink I had and a really thin, soft brush.

I dipped the brush into the black ink and, with a nervous breath, started on the canvas. At first, the shape in my head didn’t match with the one that I was creating on the canvas, but as I mixed the black paint and the ink, it was staring to look more and more as the picture I had in my head.

After I was done creating the shape, I noticed it was too light. The black needed to be, well, blacker. So I took the ink and after a while, I was staring into a black hole that opened my eyes to many possibilities and directions I could take my painting.

In the end, I decided to do what seemed natural to me.

I squeezed out some brighter colors, poured some water into a plastic cup and got to work. I wasn’t experienced with what I was doing, but to me it seemed all right. Inspiring even.