Rain art

by **Lora** on September 7th, 2014, 8:45 pm

Timestamp:22, fall, 514 AV
Lora sat with her legs crossed and her back pressed against her pillow, which she had propped up against the head board of her bed and was using as a cushion on the hard wood. Atop her legs a medium sized blank canvas sat waiting for her to cover it with the bright paints she had on a make shift palette she was using a stray piece of drift wood she had found for. She twisted a small paint brush around in her hand waiting for some form of inspiration to strike. Rain pounded on Lora’s small cottage’s roof as it often did in the fall and had for the past week.

Normally Lora loved the rain. She loved the way it ran down her skin. She loved the smell of it. She even loved the pounding it made on her roof. The only problem Lora had with rain was she couldn’t paint outside when it rained. When the weather allowed it Lora almost always painted outside. Even though sand often blew into her drawings when she painted on the beach she much preferred that to being inside. There was something about actually being in the surrounding of the scene you were painting that you couldn’t get from just looking out your window.

Lora stared out the opened wooden door of her cottage. She watched the raindrops fall and create small indents on the already rough looking sand. She really wanted to go outside right now. To feel the rain falling on her would be great right about now but she was painting and wasn’t about to give up on this painting even though it hadn’t started yet.

What would happen if I did try to paint in the rain? Lora wondered. Immediately she answered her own question. The paint would run all over the place and make a hug mess of whatever I’m trying to paint. Lora’s mind automatically raced to some abstract art pieces her mother had taken her to see when she was a kid. They had looked like they were all smudged and Lora had wondered what they were supposed to be. Her mother had told her they were more about a feeling than representing a scene. The idea confused Lora. She didn’t know how you would paint a “feeling”. Lora started to wonder if to paint a “feeling” she should go into the rain and let the paint get messed up with the rain. Who says ‘mess up’ is bad, anyway? Not just would she be able to try abstract but she would get to go outside in the rain and not stay cramped in her house while trying to paint. Suddenly Lora began to wonder if her canvas would get destroyed by the rain or if it would stay intact. No better way to find out than to try. Lora decided.

Lora took the empty canvas off her lap and placed it on the bed next to her. Sticking the paintbrush, which had no paint on it, behind her ear, she slid off the bed. Lora stretched out. She had spent a while sitting on her bed trying to find something to paint so she was a bit stiff but after a few seconds of stretching she was fine. She picked up the canvas and stuck it under her arm so she could better carry her makeshift palette. She picked up the palette with both hands so that the paint didn’t slide around and walked over and opened the door, momentarily holding the palette with only one hand.

The row of rocks that connected Lora’s over-the-sea cottage to the shore were usually easy to jump across but the small hops seemed infinitely like a more difficult task with her hands full. Reassuring herself with the fact she had made it over these rocks a million times before, Lora started to cautiously walk across the rock’s tops. The rain made the smooth surfaces of the rocks slippery and all the more difficult to walk across.

When Lora finally made it to the last rock and had slid down it she stopped and looked to make sure the paint globs hadn’t slid around, mixing the colors. She gasped slightly when she saw that the rain had mixed with the paints and was causing them to run all over the wood. She had been holding the wood out from her stomach and now some of the watered down paints her soaking into her previously white shirt. She immediately held the plank of wood out in front of her as far as she could without dropping the canvas which was still under her arm. Lora rushed over to a spot a bit left of the rocks, where she often painted when it was nice out.

She dropped the now dripping piece of wood on the ground then sat down next to it. Lora pulled the soaking wet canvas out from under her arm and set it on her lap. Pulling the paintbrush out from behind her ear she realized she really had no idea how she was going to go about this. Having no idea what she was doing Lora dipped her paintbrush in what was previously the red paint and was now a sort of watery purple. She took the paintbrush and pressed it on the paper trying as best as she could to start a painting of the rain cover beach.

by **Lora** on September 13th, 2014, 3:21 pm

Painting with a soaking wet canvas and runny paints was harder than Lora had expected. The paints didn’t stick to the canvas the way they did when everything was dry so Lora had to try to leave globs of paint on the canvas. After a few tries she had given up on trying to paint the beach. She decided, instead, to try painting abstractly. She started by randomly placing random globs of paint down and letting it run all over the paper creating a unique pattern. This less structured form of art didn’t feel right to Lora because she had always just painted things she could see but, in a way, she really liked it.

The rain soaked up into her hair, causing it to become heavy and continuously fall in front of her face. So Lora had to keep pushing it behind her ears. She made a mental note to tie her hair up next time she did this, if she did it again. Another problem she faced was the paints. Because they were all wet and runny the paints had been leaking off the sides of the piece of wood they sat on and before too long there was barely any paint left on the makeshift palette. Lora had covered her paper with colorful paints and she probably could have stopped here if she had wanted to but upon seeing the how colorful the sand around the piece of wood had gotten, Lora got another great idea.

Scooping up some of the multicolored sand with her hands, she splattered the sand, a bit more forcefully than she had expected to, on the canvas. Lora put her paintbrush between her teeth so she could use both hands then, using both hands; she smeared the colorful sand around until it created a thin layer over the whole canvas. The sand on the canvas was many different colors but the colors were blended in such a way that you couldn’t tell were on color ended and the next began. Lora was starting to understand how this abstract art could display a feeling. As the rain fell on the sand it created small indents the way it did on beach. Lora though these were a good addition to the piece and didn’t try to stop the rain from creating texture on the sand.

The rain was beginning to let up and Lora decided to take the piece inside to let it dry. Standing up she realized that the wet sand covered canvas was actually quite heavy and she had to keep it flat to keep the sand from moving around. Mentally, she went through several options for how she could get this inside. Eventually she settled on taking just the canvas, and the paintbrush that was still between her teeth, inside then coming back for the paint-stained wood.

She enjoyed the feeling of the wet sand under her bare feet as she walked over to the first of the rocks in the row that led to her house. Climbing on top of the first rock she began to carefully step between the rocks. Lora reached out her left foot to place it on the third rock. When it hit the slick surface of the rock it slipped off the side of the rock sending Lora and her painting tumbling into the water.

It wasn’t a far fall so the water cushioned her and she only sank about four feet before she hit the sand. Coughing slightly as she inhaled some sand she had kicked up with her fall, she checked herself out. She didn’t appear to be injured at all and of course, like all konti, she could use her gill to breathe underwater. She spotted her canvas a few feet away and swam over to it. The previously colorful sand covered canvas now had no sand and only had a slight stain of color in it. Upon seeing this Lora was a bit disappointed having spent so long on it. Lora grabbed the painting and swam to the shore. She stepped out of the water and looked at the painting. It wasn’t so bad. All the sand had come off but some of the paint was still there. Well, not really the paint but more of and after image of the paint, a slight tint of color that represented the bright colors that had been there before. Kind of like a memory. Lora thought. An imprint of what was but no longer is. She placed her first knuckle up against her mouth, as she often did when she was thinking. That’s when she realized her paint brush was no longer held in her mouth.

Lora frantically waded back to the place she had fallen, hoping the current hadn’t carried the brush away yet. She shifted her feet along the ground hoping to feel her paint brush. She walked around, not feeling anything and slowly got deeper and deeper until the water was up to her neck. Just when she was about to give up, Lora felt something hard hit her foot. Without thinking she dove under the water and grabbed it with her hand. As the sand ran out through her fingers she realized this was not her paintbrush. Standing back up, Lora looked down at the beautiful iridescent seashell that sat in her palm. She began wading back to shore, taking the shell with her. When she got back to the shore she picked up the canvas and the palette and took them and the shell back to her cottage, taking even more care not to fall on the rocks.

Back in her cottage, Lora placed the three items on the ground to dry. Still slightly wet herself, she grabbed a towel and tried to dry off as she looked at the painting. Maybe I have painted a feeling . . .