|| The sun rose against the raindrop smeared window panes of
Aly’s room. The light was a mere yellow at this point, like the colour of lemon
sherbet. It had been raining all night, Aly couldn’t sleep so had stayed awake,
hunched over her laptop researching the best art universities in the country.
She rubbed her eyes and peered at the alarm on her 1950’s-style dresser. It was
6:15am. Time for another cup of coffee, she thought to herself. She closed her
laptop screen and made her way in to the kitchen, clicking the switch on the
kettle for what must have been the 5th time that morning. She stared
wistfully out of the window while she waited for the water to boil. The colour
of the sky had changed now and was becoming a cornflower blue with hints of
lilac still fading as the sun rose. The clouds were a pure white and were
dotted about as if an artist had flicked their water-coloured paintbrush on to
a canvas. Art was the only thing that made sense to Aly, colour and shape and
light; art was her escapism. The kettle had finished boiling and made a beeping
sound making Aly jump a little where she stood, she’d been in her own bubble
looking out at the morning’s sky. Aly poured the steaming water in to her
favourite coffee cup and swirled it around with the tip of a teaspoon. Even
something as mundane as the froth contrasting with the almond colour of her hot
beverage sparked something magical in Aly’s mind; colour seemed to jump out at
her – even if sometimes there wasn’t really any there.
She wandered back in to her room cupping her mug of coffee
like it was her baby. Sitting on her windowsill and carefully placing her drink
down next to her, she got out her diary and started writing todays date. Most
of what Aly wrote in her diary wasn’t the typical thing you’d expect, she would
take it with her everywhere and scribble down anything and everything. She’d write
about her favourite artists and what their work made her feel, or she’d pretend
she was an art critic and write her own reviews. Her previous entry had been
about some work of Claude Monet’s. She thought to herself, just like her diary
which had mad scribblings and random words here and there, she always had to
write the date without fail. Monet’s work which was beautifully blended and
wasn’t the most structured of paintings, still had form and the compositions
were always attentively thought out. That was what Aly loved about his work, it
had suggestion of painting free and without too much study but at the same time
had SO much of it that it made his work speak to her in a way that caught her
attention more than when people were actually
speaking to her.
Without realising she had been sat writing for nearly two
hours, it was now 8:30am and Aly was rushing trying to find everything she
needed for college, arms flailing about with paintbrushes in both hands, her
phone between her teeth and one shoe still not properly on her foot. She
shouted bye to her mum and sprinted to catch the bus which should have already
set off four minutes ago, luckily it was still there. The bus driver sighed as
she smiled meekly at him and swiped her bus pass across the scanner and sat
down, still panting for breath. She gathered herself and started tying up her
patent purple doc marten that she had failed to do up as she dashed from her
front door. Being an art student, it was rare that anything Aly owned didn’t
have a splodge of paint on here and there, even when wearing an apron she
managed to get oils in places she didn’t think was even possible. There was a
slick of yellow acrylic still slightly sticky on her shoe laces from yesterday,
she noticed, as she did them up in a bow. Everyone always thought that Aly was
a little wacky, dress-sense and
personality, but Aly’s mentality was that if there wasn’t colour in the world
then there would simply be no beauty. Hence why she always wore colourful
clothes and dyed her hair twice a month, she insisted that this way of living
helped her with her work, “how can we find the light in someone’s art if they
live in black and white?” she would always say, it was basically her mantra.
The bus pulled up at college and Aly jumped off, speed-walking
inside. It was 8;59am and Aly only just made it up the stairs to her art class.
She shoved her stuff in the back computer room and pulled her ‘personalised’ apron
out, as Aly liked to call it, though she was probably in need of a new one as
the amount of paint on it made it almost a piece of art in itself. She got
herself set up with an Easel and the canvas she had been working on, a piece
inspired by Monet. He was her idol, her role model; she basically thought he
was an angel. Since she had discovered that art was her forte and life passion,
Monet had been her favourite artist. His work mesmerised her, it was pure
beauty and had something so subtle and ‘light’ about it that no other artist
could achieve. The pieces she was focusing on were the ones of water lilies and
Monet’s own garden landscapes. She sat at her desk, which was by the room’s
windows, eyes focused on the canvas in front of her. It was appearing to be a
lovely sunny day and the light glared straight on to her work, making the soft and
mellow colours pop. The creamy mint greens, muted violet, shell pink and the
bright but not too bright turquoise surrounded by a dark and dirty looking
olive shade, blended together, created such a luminosity that it made Aly start
smiling absentmindedly. After a couple of minutes of admiring what she had
started, she took out her paint kit and got to work.
She
studied the picture that was clipped up on her easel and started swirling together
the colours in her palette. There was a range of brushes on her lap, opting for
a very fine one she proceeded to gently stroke the canvas’s surface. A bit of
blue, a slight of yellow, a tinge of pink – every stroke mattered. Aly was
seated next to her favourite spot in the room for two hours as she painted,
painted and painted. Blinking, she swivelled her head around to see that
everyone else in the class had already left while she was still sat there,
although now with an almost finished piece of work. ||
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