Fallen angel
Uploaded by joeydaprof on Jun 12, 2006
Distant thunder rolls and lightning flickers. A thin veil of rain penetrates my thoughts. And the sky is never still. From dusky black to a drained white, the colours are churning slowly, like a dismal dance of the Gods. Below, a black and turbulent sea heaves great waves against the cavernous rocks. I am nearing the edge and closing my eyes, spreading my arms like an angel. A broken angel…
******
The model was a woman of about thirty. She had her head tilted back, with her lips parted slightly. She was a frozen statue of white marble. The teacher told us to reduce the woman to lines, curves, shapes and tones. She was not a person, but a figure to be sketched. I wondered how I could duplicate her reality, replicate this figure, if she herself was not real, but instead a mass of shapes, unmoving and…dead.
Art was my favourite class. I was free to express myself, letting my true self resonate within the works that I created. And what was even better was that I was good at it, or so others told me. It was my ability to draw what I saw and turn it into what I believed. I felt wonderful as I watched her, her chiselled figure draped languidly over the chair. I closed my eyes tightly. When I opened them it was only me and her, and a piece of charcoal between us. The teachers’ voice droned on, tearing at her flesh with his words. I only half listened as I drew, careful strokes of my right arm flicking the charcoal over a pure page, destroying it, darkness drowning out the white.
“Focus on the lines, the shapes must evolve from here; draw what you see, not as though they are separate from each other…”
I rubbed both blackened hands on my jeans. I needed a fresh piece of charcoal.
He strolled around the room, his eyes darting from one work to another. Momentary glances revealed his approval, or disproval, his thin lipped mouth remaining taut and his brows furrowed.
Wait till he saw mine. I half wished he would come over now. I was doing exactly what he said, but inwardly disagreed. I reconstructed her body, from her languid, posing face to her large, pendulous breasts, down to her firm buttocks that were planted on the chair. The last strains of daylight filtered through...