Apple - Writing Short 4

My Mum likes to taunt me with random words. I chose a nice noun, window. She chose apple. It's taken me a good few days to get my head around this. I couldn't decide on an angle that wasn't romantic. I wanted to try and do something a little different. So, here we go. I hope you like it. Doing these shorts have also prompted me start notes for a novel. It's in very basic mode right now so might take years to sort out. We'll see. 

Apple

  

“I can’t do it,” Casey sighed.

“What? What’s wrong?” Mina was confused.

“Well, look at it! It’s a mess. The lines are all over the place, the colours don’t match, my eyes are blurring from staring at this for too long. It’s such a disaster.” Casey drags her fingers over her eyes, rubbing them in circles to shake her tiredness.

“It’s not a disaster.”

“Easy for you to say, Case.”

“Look…They didn’t say it had to be life-like or perfect, did they? They gave you a subject and told you to be ‘artistic’ with it.”

“Yeah, but an apple? Seriously? I mean really…” said Casey.

“There’s nothing wrong with using the word apple. You’ve got plenty of work done out of it.” Mina turns, spreading her arm wide, showing her friend the expanse of work she’d produced in only a short few months.

The light from the morning sun shone through the floor to ceiling industrial windows of the artistically explosive studio. Paint splashes and clay lay strewn about, thick and dry, pasted on to wooden tables; engrained from years of creative use. Art easels were propped open, holding finished canvases, drying on their stands.

Mina turned back to her friend, “You can’t say all of this isn’t amazing?”

Casey sighed, “Can’t I? I’m the artist. I’m allowed to be self-depreciative. It’s in my artistic genes.”

“Hmm. Sure,” sighed Mina. She looked around at the rows of drawings, sketches, paintings – oil, acrylic, pastel, chalk; papier mache and clay models of apples. All different shapes and sizes and colours. Her view was of a rainbow of greens and reds, some even slightly yellow. Casey’s work was incredible. Mina walked over to her favourite piece of Casey’s work and stared at the delicate details laid out before her. The clay model was of a bowl of apples. Each apple individually shaped and coloured. They almost looked real enough to eat.

“How did you get them to look so real?” She stared closely, eyes only inches from the masterpiece.

Casey shrugged, “Spray paint… with varying nozzle sizes”

“You’re a genius, you know that, right?”

“So, you keep telling me…” Casey says, rolling her eyes. She looks back to the current almost finished piece of work in front of her. She’d had enough of apples to last her life time. If she never saw, ate, or smelt another apple again that would be quite alright with her. This one was red, deep burgundy red, the ‘Snow-White’ kind of, poisonous apple, red. Only it wasn’t just burgundy. In her mind and on her canvas the apple was flecked with black to portray shadows and baby pinks were used to convey the light shining on its glossy surface. She’d painted it, on its own, on a table in the middle. The background was a blank white space. It gave the apple a look of authority, standing out from anything else in the image. As much as she was never really satisfied with her work she was proud of her latest achievements.

Before her lay, fifteen, if not more, pieces of apple artistry. She hated it and loved it, all at the same time. The focus of one subject matter had given her mind free reign to pay attention to details in her work that she would’ve overlooked when pushing more than one subject matter into an art assessment. Even she had to admit, to an untrained eye, her work was exquisite.

She looked at her aptly named ‘Deathly Apple’ and decided adding more to it would ruin it, so she jumped up, grabbed her friend by the shoulder and headed towards the door.

“I seriously need a drink. My tutor is coming in the morning. My work here is done. Let’s go celebrate!”

“I couldn’t agree more. But first, you should probably go get a shower,” Mina laughs, looking at Casey.

“What? Why?”

“Burgundy, black and peach splotches aren’t great colours for contouring make-up these days.”