Summer in France || 𝖩𝖤𝖭𝖫𝖨𝖲𝖠 ✔︎

six

"Alors. Thank you for coming everyone. Please take an easel and a palette, fill your jar with water and follow me into the garden." Marie-Louise opened the door to the storage room, waited for her students to gather their utensils and led the way outside through her gallery and her kitchen.

The voluptuous older lady, with a strong French accent, strutted around in a floral dress and a bright yellow kimono-style jacket with tassels hanging down from the sleeves and the hem. Her white hair was fastened into a big knot, topped off with two taxidermy parrots that made her head look like a bird's nest. She walked barefoot, not in the least bothered by the pebbles on the path that led them to a charming courtyard where Jennie's and her four fellow students set up in a semi-circle around her.

There was a pond with waterlilies and goldfish, pink flowers in the beds along the white walls surrounding the patio, and a large apple tree where parakeets were sitting on different levels of the branches, chattering away. Jennie tried to guess their teacher's age, but it was hard to tell with all the work that had gone into preserving her face. She looked at the other people on her course and felt nervous as she struggled to secure the easel at the right height. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing, apart from her. After the introductions, she'd learned that their group consisted of Brenda and Samantha, a mother and daughter from the UK, who were vacationing together, an American man in his late fifties called Graham, and a young French girl named Cherie, who didn't speak much English.

"Here, let me help you with that," Brenda, the mother in their group said. She loosened the screw on the back of the easel, lifted the board and secured it at Jennie's eye-height.

"Thank you." Jennie smiled at her. "I've never done any of this before, I'm sure you can tell."

"Don't worry." Brenda went back to her own easel. "Samantha and I aren't exactly professionals either. We've all got to start somewhere, right?" She looked around the courtyard. "It's beautiful here, isn't it? So idyllic... and the light is perfect for painting." She pointed out the shadows on the white walls.

"Well spotted, Brenda," Marie-Louise said. "We're going to start here because we have the perfect mix of light, water, shadow and color. They're all the basics you need to understand before we head out to the coast or into the fields." She looked around the group and smiled.

"There is no need to be nervous. Art is a beautiful thing. It's meant to bring joy and expression to your life, so please stop worrying if you are." She opened a bottle of red wine next to her easel and poured six glasses, which she handed out to everyone, including the young girl. "Let's have a drink to loosen up during our first class. Don't beat yourself up if you don't like your work, all you need to do is try, and try, and then try some more. You'll get better eventually. There's no judging here." She raised her glass and took a sip.

"Watercolor is not about perfection. It's about expression, and expression leads to inner calm. You might not understand what I mean right now, but hopefully, you will soon. Now, have any of you ever done this before?" She nodded towards the girl. "Except for Cherie here. She's been taking my course since she was nine, so please don't compare yourself to her." Brenda and her daughter Samantha raised their hands.

"We've done a couple of workshops," Samantha said. "We love painting, don't we, Mum?"

Her mother nodded. "It's the only thing we can do together without arguing."

"Excellent," Marie-Louise said, laughing. "If you two don't mind, I'm going to start with the basics." She picked up a pencil and held it up to the group.

Two hours later, Jennie stepped back from the easel to inspect her work, chuckling at her lack of talent. She had enjoyed it though, and felt excited at the prospect of coming back twice a week. The relaxed atmosphere and the friendly people in the group made her feel like she was part of something, and she hadn't felt like that in a while. At work, she had always been the leader and was never part of after work activities, like the weekly happy hour, teambuilding events, or birthdays. She wasn't a member of a gym, or a book club either. Even in her marriage, the sense of partnership had faded when she and Jaehyun stopped spending quality time together.