This story was written in ten minutes, no editing allowed, during a meeting of the Uxbridge Writers' Circle. The prompt I used was a picture of a bowl of fruit, similar to the one above.
Frank sat in front of the easel, disappointed. This is not what he'd worked so hard for, saved his money for - another still-life painting class. He was sick and tired of sketching the shapes of pears, apples, oranges, cherries. It was always fruit. Why couldn't they be more imaginative?
He had dreamed of this day, when he would study art in Paris. His friends he left back at the Ontario College of Art had opened a few bottles of fizzy wine (couldn't afford the real stuff) to celebrate. Frank had been overjoyed that he'd been accepted into the prestigious Paris school, but he had to pay most of the cost himself. He didn't have a rich father or a wealthy aunt to fund his dream. He worked two part-time jobs and lived a careful, thrifty life in a bed-sit in Toronto until it was time to fly across the Atlantic.
But then to be greeted by what appeared to be the same bowl of fruit he'd drawn and painted two semesters ago, was a real downer.
The art master, Marcel, dressed in a suave silk purple shirt, descended on him with what seemed like a sudden whoosh. Marcel stood back, moved forward, looked sideways and sniffed. A few words in French, a few brush strokes and a few colour-mixes later, Frank gazed with astonishment. The bowl of fruit, although not completed, lept off the canvas. The fruit looked good enough to eat, freshly picked off the tree, catching the sun's rays. Marcel had captured the patina of the skins, the textures.
Frank now knew he was going to learn a lot.
Vicky Earle copyright 2019
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