The 'Artist'

The eyes were big, always too big. She drew them out carefully, and then shadowed the dips near the imperfect nose, the undersides of the lids so that the result was a haunted expression, never staring directly at the viewer. She only ever shaped them that way when the eyebrows were deeply furrowed. Then the shadows lessened considerably, and the irises seemed fairly alight with some kind of internal fire. When her characters glared defiantly at her thus, their thin faces underscored with sharp cheekbones positively quivering with rage at some unknown cause, she too allowed her jaw to set grimly, her expression darkening as though seething in solidarity.

‘Looks a lot like you, doesn’t it?’

Of course, this intensity was real only to her. Anybody else saw flat, interesting doodles – maybe a little more than cartoonish, scribbled in the margins of her notebooks as she tried to balance listening in classes, and following those half-formed creatures in her head to only they knew where. They were faces, just faces, almost always turned to the front with only the eyes having in their repertoire a variety of expressions, of directions. She despaired of ever having them face sideways (the nose was the worst behaved when she tried and gave up). She attempted the rest of the body only once. It was a miserable failure, lending the face a childish quality that was not endearing.

‘I hate it so much sometimes,’ she complained to her friend as they snacked on coffee and cookies in the quad. She’d put away her notebook, but couldn’t resist running her pen over the tantalizingly bare skin of her bony ankles – it was a canvas in itself, never mind the fact that without the steadiness of a pad, her legs were often covered in little more than smudged patches of ink. ‘It becomes this obsession I need to fulfil, but nothing ever comes out right. Then I end up scratching it out, which is why I have to keep buying new notebooks.’

‘Just keep working at it, you’ll get better. All great artists practised, even Van Gogh was shit before he began eating yellow paint.’

‘That’s just it. I don’t want to be an artist for the rest of my life.’

Her friend shrugged, downing the coffee and grimacing. ‘So why do you keep doing it?’

How could she explain? Was it simply an itch that needed to be scratched? Or something more irritatingly poignant: a yawning hole that she needed to fill somehow before it was too late?

She yearned to complete a full portrait. Not in her regular style, but an actual likeness. Something so real that she could forever gaze at it and be proud of herself. Then she’d be able to stop the doodling over and over; the faces could coalesce into something of meaning. Most importantly, she could focus on what she was really good at, and leave this senseless scratching behind.

Because while it could have been a matter of letting go, the simple truth was that sketching hurt. She could remember every feeling that coursed through her when she drew a full face, a perfect face with the perfect expression: sensing her heart beat faster when she looked into the eyes, lingering on the fullness of the mouth, the soft shadows around the nose, the slant of the gaze so that her picture seemed to appraise its maker. And there were those moments of failure: her stomach swooping low and a weight that seemed to drag her down when she furiously tore the paper. Her actions always then belied what she felt – deep, deep melancholy accompanied by a blinding headache so that the only way she could feel better was to talk to another person.

This could often be near impossible: she hadn’t many friends. This wasn’t to say that she was not good looking, had bad manners or objectionable breath. But people were wary of her, of the way she stared at them when they spoke – not even maintaining eye contact, but roving over their features slowly so that it was highly unnerving trying to even greet her.

‘It’s weird. You keep looking at them, how do you expect people to feel comfortable?’

‘I can’t help it. They can be so beautiful when they’re just moving.’

‘…I worry for your mental health.’

‘Shut up.’

‘You’re doing it again! Stop staring!’

‘I like the way your lips shape words when you’re angry.’

‘Why the hell am I still hanging out with you, I’ll never be able to figure out.’

Eventually, people gave her a wide berth without trying to seem polite, and she was often seen forlornly sipping on her coffee alone or reading for lessons. The inevitable urge took over: she either scrawled what she saw around her in the margins, or began people-watching. Sometimes the two went together, and it was unfortunate how much more people began avoiding her after that.

‘Excuse me. D’you mind stopping?’

She gazed blankly at the girl in front of her, unable to formulate a response. ‘I- um-‘ ‘You’re being creepy. I’ve come over to tell you to stop. My friends are scared.’

Of course. That was why the girl had moved; for the longest time she had been talking, laughing with her head thrown back, exposing the long, bumpy line of her golden throat. The crook of her nose, the crinkles slowly indenting the sides of her eyes; all of that disappeared when she suddenly turned around. And oh! The face, that face, light fiery green eyes alight with anger, brows furrowed deeply downwards, mouth small and pursed into a pink line, hair tumbling forward so that she - staring up at the girl - wanted to lean closer to see how bright those eyes could be in the shadows it was creating…she wanted to draw and keep it forever and forever, make it her own…

‘Hey!’ A hand slammed into the table, and the girl leaned closer. ‘Are you even listening?’

She gulped. ‘I- I don’t know – you’re so beautiful,’ she ended hoarsely, still not able to look away.

The girl drew back slightly, her anger giving way to incredulity. She did not blanch, however.

‘Well, thank you. But that’s not reason for you to –‘

‘Yes, I know. I mean, I’m sorry. I really am, it’s just that I sketch but not very well and I observe people a lot and they fascinate me so I –‘

‘What’s that?’ the girl interrupted impatiently, gesturing to her book. She flushed and tried to hide it, but the girl had already snagged the end, flipping through the pages without comment.

‘I sketch,’ she said lamely, watching her. The girl’s upper lip drooped slightly over the lower.

The girl looked at her again. ‘Oh yeah? Draw me, then,’ she said, smirking.

Her mouth dropped. ‘Um.’

‘What? It’s the least you could do after making me so uncomfortable.’

‘Er. That is – o-okay. Sure.’

Now that the opportunity was at hand, she did not know what to do. Not once in all this time had anyone bothered to ask why she was observing them, and here was someone offering to be looked at, every line and dip and twist of the features, all to her heart’s content.

The noise around her in the cafeteria swirled till her head ached and her mouth went dry.

‘Could…could we go outside?’

The girl nodded. And in the quad with the sunshine sinking in that heavy hair and the breeze whipping their faces, she introduced herself. ‘My name is L-. I’m head of the photography club, if you didn’t know that.’

She looked up from the book, her special pouch out when she really wanted to work at a picture, her pencil and eraser at ready. ‘I’m B-. I’m…just me, I guess.’

L- said nothing more, but posed with a smile. Time passed slowly but to B-, it dripped like syrup: slow, sweet and so precious. She concentrated hard. There was no sound, except for the murmurs around them and L- occasionally humming a song B- vaguely recognized as ‘On Top of the World’ by the Carpenters. She looked up for reference, and found herself taking in L-‘s tilted head and quirked mouth, completely at ease. She stared as long as she could, following with her eyes the line of those lips and the curve of her cheek. She wanted to be able to have all of that for herself, down to the turned-up nose.

The scratching continued. L- yawned after a while, forgetting to remain cheerfully immobile. She tossed her hair over her shoulders, waved at passers-by, chewed on her nails, sang another Carpenters song under her breath. At one point, she got up, bought two cups of coffee and resumed her position. She was not reprimanded by B-, but the latter got increasingly frustrated, erasing continuously and drawing her pencil across the book in fast, furious strokes.

‘Aren’t you done yet?’ L- ventured after nearly an hour. ‘No!’ B- snapped, and then deflated at L-‘s expression. ‘I mean – give me ten.’

Some of L-‘s previous anger showed in her face but she was quiet. Ten minutes later, B- laid her pencil down. She did not say anything, just stared down at the book in her hands.

‘Well? Let me see!’

She pushed her book away before L- could get at it. L- sat back down, thoroughly annoyed.

‘I don’t see the point of staying here then, you selfish-‘

‘No, wait.’ She put her hand out. ‘Don’t go. I-I’m sorry, I just…I’m really, really disappointed in myself. I couldn’t…can’t show it to you. Not yet.’

L- looked at her.‘Are you crying?’

‘No,’ She said, ignoring the burning in her eyes. Her mouth dried fast and her head buzzed angrily.

L- appraised her with an unreadable expression, before sighing. ‘All right. It’s okay, I don’t really care either way. Let’s just talk. I want to ask you something.’

B- raised her head. ‘Yeah?’

‘Your drawings. Why do you only sketch the faces? Or do you keep your bodies at home because you’re secretly a pervert?’

B- grinned for the first time since meeting L-. ‘No. I get off on stuff online, just like everyone else.’ L- raised an eyebrow as though to indicate TMI, bruv, and B- flushed. ‘I can’t draw full figures. Especially the hands. They end up looking like a five year old’s first crayon art and it’s easier to stick to faces. I’m good with expressions.’

L- smiled. ‘Yeah. You are. But I think you’re scared.’

‘Of what?’

‘I don’t know. Stepping out from your comfort zone-‘

‘Nice cliché.’

‘All right, fair enough. Then of having to erase a line here and there, to draw over it and try to not repeat the same mistake. You’re very proud of your faces, I can tell, like they came from way inside you.’

B- frowned. ‘I did erase a lot when I drew you.’

‘You did, but you were pissed off. And you almost tore your page when you did that.’

They fell silent for a moment, L- sipping the cooling coffee and B- turning over in her mind what she had just listened to.

‘Being perfect takes a long time. Maybe even a lifetime,’ L- said quietly.

B- looked at her hands. ‘I don’t want to be perfect, I just –‘

‘Why do you draw?’

This too was succeeded by silence. Then – ‘Would you laugh if I said I had to?’

L- frowned. ‘No…but if you had to? Not because you want to?’

B- rubbed at her cheeks. ‘It feels like a mission I have to complete for myself. Like, I have to become really good at it so that something in me can stop…feeling empty? I dunno.’

A pause. ‘I have these characters in my head. Half-formed character sketches, more like. And I want to be able to see them take shape in front of me because…because they’re who I’d like to be. They’re nothing like me. And I can’t get them out at all from my head because I suck.’ This was accompanied by a sudden ripping of the grass in the quad.

‘I’m sure you’ll get better,’ L- offered gently, but B- shook her head again. ‘You don’t understand. I don’t want to draw for the rest of my life. I want to do…do something and move on to where I can feel happier with myself.’

The lovely crinkles around L-‘s eyes cleared in sudden understanding. ‘Is that why you stare at people so often? Because you want something real to stop this with?’

B- looked at her. The breeze blew strongly, lifting the hair now infused with sunshine off L’s neck. Her shoulders, exposed as they were, looked strong when she leaned back on her elbows and her upper lip was curiously pointed at the end. She squinted away from the sun, turning her head to the side.

B- smiled slightly. ‘People don’t know how beautiful they can be. And it’s not their features – it’s the way they speak, they move, from one moment to another. No one looks the same every second. There’s always this…twist of the expression, or like a movement of the mouth or eyes that gets me. I want to be able to draw that and keep it to myself. And…’ She sighed. ‘I suppose that would help me stop.’

L- sat up. ‘Let me. I can help you.’

‘What?’

‘Yeah, no, I’m serious! How about this, you get your pad out, I’ll talk someone into sitting down and pretend I’m photographing them for an assignment. I’ll get as many pictures as you like and then I’ll guide you when you draw.’

B- was slowly getting excited about the idea. ‘That’s a really good idea! Tha – wait a minute. Why are you doing this for me?’ she asked suspiciously.

L- waved her hand at her. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m that game-changer you see in the movies, the one enabling the unlocking of your potential or whatever. Can we go?’

‘I’m serious! You were ready to bite my head off for the same thing! What changed?’

L- rolled her eyes as though she was being extremely stupid on purpose. ‘I started talking to you, duh. Now come on!’ She pulled B- to her feet.

In hindsight, B- thought, she ought to have had L- as a pet that did everything for you, no questions asked once you proved trustworthy and harmless. She was suddenly (annoyingly) cute with people, the right amount of sincerity in her voice to woo a willing model, an attractive mix of snarky and hopeful with the unwilling.

In two days, she’d drummed up a list of people B- had observed (B- shamefully pointing them out while L- laughed beside her - like an idiot, she thought furiously), who’d sit for her over the week.

‘Pick the one you want, then pick the one you want!’

‘Stop that! You’re not making sense!’

‘Do you want me to tell them why they’re really being photographed?’ L- sang.

‘…please don’t.’

‘So pick the one you want, then pick the one you want!’

‘Oh, shut up.’

When the photographs were finally showed to her, B- had a hard time choosing. There was that boy with gleaming dark eyes, which always happened when he was considering an idea. A teacher whose stern mouth softened when a student had a genuine doubt regarding her subject. The cleaners who gossiped cheerfully on break, the coordinator’s sly face when someone forgot to register on the last date; a smirk here, a joyful laugh there, that thoughtful gaze while considering a tough question.

‘It’s scary how you know these people so well through their expressions. They’re complete strangers otherwise,’ L- commented, watching B- as she studied the pictures.

‘Yeah, it is,’ B- replied quietly.

L- paused. ‘It’s okay,’ she said.

B- smiled. ‘I know it is now.’

She finally picked a picture: a boy with his head against the window sill as he narrated a story. L- had done a brilliant job capturing him mid-sentence. He wore a slight scowl, as though concentrating on delivering with just the right impact. Sunlight from the window filtered through, lighting the lines of his spectacles and his hair. The effect looked frosted; timeless.

‘Are you sure? It looks difficult.’

‘You’re going to help me, right?’

L- grinned.

She should be doing this, not me, B- thought. L- had pointed out that marking exact points for the head, chin and ears would be an easier way to start, and B- found herself making better progress than she had ever before, with that simple tip. She drew the outlines as carefully as possible, gazing at the boy’s picture till it seemed to have burned into the back of her mind. ‘The chin’s too long, erase it to a shorter length,’ L- would interject. Or, ‘Wait, wait. I think the jawline’s a bit softer. Don’t make it sharp, you’re not drawing one of your faces!’ And most frequently, ‘Stop pressing your pencil so hard into the paper. It’ll be hard to erase.’

The point is to not have to freaking erase! ‘I thought you said I was good at faces?’

‘Don’t be such a bloody brat. Everyone makes mistakes, I’m just telling you to stop making it harder for yourself.’

They met for an hour or so every day, and B- worked on shading to delineate the darker areas from the light. Unfortunately, L- had been right the first time, the angle of the face and the window were proving to be really difficult. It so happened that B-, working alone one night, ended up overshadowing the nostrils so that they seemed to replace the nose itself.

The headache returned in full force, and she threw the book at the wall. It fell to the floor, the page crumpling horribly in its place.

‘I’m done,’ she said flatly, tossing it at L- when she met her next. L- caught the book, opened to the now disfigured page, snorted and said, ‘You mean you give up.’

‘Yes.’

‘I see. I wasted my time with you then.’

‘Yes.’

L- tore the page out, shredding it carefully into bits. She smirked at the look on B-‘s face.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing, L-?’

‘Why? Were you going to keep this as a fond reminder of your failure? I’m so touched.’

‘Just shut up. You had absolutely no bloody right. Give me my book.’

‘No.’ B- grappled for the book, and L- said, sharply, ‘No.’

You can’t open it, you’ll see – you’ll see what I drew when I first -

They glared at each other, and B- snapped first. ‘Give my fucking book back, L-!’ She fought for it, but L- was taller, and stronger when she was pissed. She pushed B- away and threw the book at her so that it hit her face.

‘You made me do that,’ she hissed. B- flinched. ‘You face it, you did this to yourself. Stop talking this whole thing so seriously. D’you think you can play me like some sort of magical fairy godmother and then give it up the moment things get hard?’

‘You don’t understand.’

‘You’re damn right I don’t. I also don’t give a flying fuck. When I took your book, I was just going to open to a new page and make you do it all over. I’ve told you before, you’re too proud to try again.’

B- stood still.

‘Art isn’t a miracle you desperately wish for while making the same mistakes. And what gives you the impression that –‘

Of  course.

B’s eyes widened. Her focus shifted to the book, and she stood quite still, struck dumb at how simple it all seemed suddenly.

Impression. That’s it.

‘L-,’ she said, cutting the other girl off. ‘I’m sorry. You’re right. Let’s do this.’

L- ‘s face took on a curiously winded expression. ‘Eh?’

‘You’re totally right. I agree. Thanks. Can we go?’

‘That’s it? After all that yelling?’

‘Yeah, you’ve convinced me. Can we go?’

And L-, never the one to be put off by the oddity that was B- (or anything else, really), grinned her slow, crinkly-eyed signature. ‘All right then.’

B- took the book from her and followed L-‘s lead. When L- wasn’t looking, she turned to a page, and quickly shut it again.

It took a week more, because classes were being scheduled with a vengeance. And one morning, as L- walked across the quad, studying all the while, B- ran up and nearly into her.

‘Mind giving me a heads-up next time? In case, you know, my head isn’t up?!’

‘It’s finished,’ said B- breathlessly. She had never felt so alive before.

‘Let me see.’

L- opened the book. Then she looked up at B-. The other girl’s cheeks were flushed from running, but her eyes sparkled prettily. L- held the book out so that they could both examine it.

It wasn’t a completely accurate picture. For one, the boy’s jaw although considerably softened, was still not right and his glasses looked childish. But a viewer might disregard that entirely; the narrator’s scowl had been outlined with a fine pencil, shaded with a blunt one, and his eyes had deep shadows, both of which sharply contrasted with the light. The sun filtering through the window seemed to light him from within. He looked at once a denizen of this world and some other, an elf in human form who had arrived to tell wonderful, magical stories.

‘You’ve finally done it, B-,’ L- said softly. B- shook her head.

‘No. I did it before.’

And smiling at L-‘s characteristic raised eyebrow and quirked mouth, she flipped to an older, more precious page. A familiar face glared at the viewer, eyes devoid of any shadows, but filled with an awesome fire, made all the more brilliant by deeply furrowed eyebrows. The heavy hair tumbled irreverently around the face, underscored with sharp cheekbones that seemed to quiver with rage.

L- did not say anything.

‘I couldn’t draw you when you posed,’ B- said, the lack of response worrying her. ‘All I could think about was when you were the most beautiful, when we first met. So with him, I only had to use the picture for reference. The rest is how I – well, I mean – you know, when you made the impression - on...on me,’ she finished foolishly. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you’re a fool.’ B- blinked.

L- tore the page out, carefully folded it and gave it to her. She kept the book.

‘You could have moved on ages ago. Why didn’t you?’

B- laughed happily, so happily. The folded-up page was held tightly in her hand, lifting some invisible weight off her. She could keep it forever and forever.

‘I guess I needed proof.’ Then, only slightly hesitantly: ‘Do you like it?’

And finally L- smiled. ‘I love it.’