The Art of Forbidden Romance (Student x Teacher)

Chapter 9

I grabbed my willow tree painting from my trunk and my drawing supplies and made my way back to building C for Chuck's plein-air class. The classroom door was open and there were a few students setting up their paintings for the critique along the wall. I hung mine up at the end and found an empty stool.

Students filtered in and out of the room, dropping off supplies and paintings before dipping out again to grab more things. I looked up from my phone as Chuck arrived. He set his items down near where I was seated and then disappeared into the wash room. I heard the water in the washroom turn on and I turned back to my phone. Warmth creeped up my neck thinking about our interaction just a few moments ago.

"Hey, Win right?" I looked up. The cactus kid had just walked into the classroom.

"Yeah, uh," I said. "I'm terrible at names...."

"Zac," he said with a smile. "It's cool, I'm bad at names too."

"Zac, that's right. I promise I'll remember this time," I said. He set his stuff down next to me and set up his painting.

"Which one is yours?"

"The one on the end, the willow tree," I said, pointing. Zac walked over to my painting, observing it. He turned back to me and nodded his head approvingly.

"Have you ever done plein-air before?" He asked me, walking back over to where I was seated.

"No, first time."

"Hmm, I don't think it shows," he said. I smiled.

"I appreciate that." Chuck emerged from the washroom.

"We'll see what he thinks of it though," I said to Zac, nodding my head towards Chuck. I found Zac's cactus painting on the wall and we talking about his piece for a little.

"So I know a bunch of you have already put your pieces up, but I want to break this out into sessions," Chuck said, starting class. Everyone stopped their conversations and looked at Chuck. "We're going to start from the top of the list and work our way down in groups of 5."

Chuck listed off five students in alphabetical order. Those of us who already had paintings on the wall retrieved them and leaned them against the wall or set them on tables for the time being. The students Chuck called put their paintings up.

"Okay, so for this critique I don't want to hear 'I like it' or 'it's nice'. I am expecting you all to critique like you're in a level 400 class. This also does not mean to be rude," Chuck said. "Although you won't always receive criticism in a constructive way, in my class I expect you to give constructive criticism."

Everyone looked around, nodding in agreement.

"Okay, let's get started. Who's painting is this?" Chuck said, starting the critique.

Every thirty minutes or so Chuck would wrap up the critique and ask for 5 more students to put up their paintings. He gave us a 10 minute break half way through before we continued the critique.

When we had just an hour left of class there were still quite a few students left to critique. Chuck asked a few extra students to put their paintings up.

"We have an hour left, and about 15 students left. I'm going to ask that if you're not able to stay late that you put up your paintings now and we'll power through them. For those of you that can stay late, we'll continue the critique here. There isn't another class tonight."

More students put up their paintings and Chuck set to going through the critiques more quickly. Zac, myself and two other students didn't put up their work since we could stay late. The critiques went by quickly and students seemed eager to go, participating more than normal. When class was over students quickly grabbed their things. Paintings were placed in the drying racks in the washroom before students left.