It Only Takes One Painting

Claire stood in front of the massive building spanning before her. She took in the white walls, tall structures, and heavy wood doors, her eyes catching on the sign hanging above them: “Glendale’s Art History Museum”. She’d come prepared this time. In her tote bag were her smaller sketchbook and a selection of her favourite pencils, as media other than graphite weren’t allowed.

After having her ticket scanned and leaving her coat in the deposit lockers, she strode up the stairs to the first floor where the gallery paintings were displayed. She invited the familiar scent of the museum, the subtle mustiness and felt at ease when the hardwood floor creaked underneath her feet every time she took a step, as she moved from one room to the next. 

Claire had gotten into sketching and art only recently, and for a while, she had dreamed of sitting on the plush museum sofas and sketching a painting before her. She hadn’t planned on a specific painting to sketch, but she figured realistically it would be a good idea to start with a simpler one. Portraits were still ways out of her limit; really, who ever was able to make the second eye look nice? So, she had decided that a still life painting was probably her best bet.

The painting of a fruit bowl in room three caught her attention. From the image she could tell the apple and grapes would be the main focus, and she would use lighter strokes and shadows for the pair of bananas in the back. However, the group of people chatting away on a sofa nearby prompted her to keep looking. She spent the better part of twenty minutes going through the gallery when she finally saw it. 

A painting of a pale vase filled to the brim with various red flowers against a stark black background. Her mind was running a mile a minute, her brain already deconstructing the image into its main components and her hands were already reaching into her tote in order to get her supplies out when she realized that she wasn’t the only one who had the idea to sketch this painting.

Sitting on the sofa before the painting was a man, roughly her age, leaning over a sketchbook. From the peeks Claire dared to take, she could tell that he was probably halfway done with his sketch. The main shapes of the flowers were already on the paper and he was beginning the process of adding details. What Claire could also tell was that the man definitely had more art experience than she did. 

Suddenly her contemplations were replaced by other thoughts, worries that this man would think of her as an imposter or even degrade her picture, which she already knew would not turn out perfectly, but that wasn’t what she was hoping to achieve today anyhow.

Not daring to sketch the same painting as him, she decided to walk around the museum some more. Maybe she would find a different painting, or maybe she could wait until the man was finished and come back later. She walked around some more, feeling mocked by one portrait of a famous history person after another; and decided to try the flower vase again. Though much to her dismay, the man was still sitting before it and from the sound of his pencil scratching away on the paper, he wasn’t done either.

She went to the next floor, and while the museum’s coin collection was interesting; she couldn’t find anything to sketch there either. 

Ready to call it a day and go home, Claire passed the vase again, but to her surprise, the man had left. Going through the archway and subtly looking left and right to ensure there was no one around, Claire speed-walked as quietly as she could to the sofa in front of the painting and got out her sketchbook. With her 2B pencil in hand, she started ever so lightly placing down rough shapes of where the most prominent flowers would go. Happy with the foundation, she started pushing down slightly harder on her pencil to really start forming her piece.

It was difficult feeling relaxed while working in a public space; every creaking of the floorboard made her jump up and look at the perpetrator. But the people would always continue on, nobody lingered or critiqued her, and with each passing person, she found it easier to ignore the sounds and focus on her drawing, which was coming to life on the page more and more with every pencil stroke.

Her sketch wasn’t an exact replica of the painting before her, some of the flowers were slightly off, and some she hadn’t been able to fit in at all due to scaling issues. But as she held up her sketch to line up with the actual painting, she decided that it wasn’t half bad.

“I really like your line work for the top left carnation,” a voice said next to her, and she immediately closed her sketchbook. She felt like her face was on fire as she followed the sound of the voice and realized it was the man she had seen before, when he had been sitting in the exact same spot she was sitting in now, sketching the same painting that she had just sketched. 

Unfazed by her silence, he sat down next to her and got out his sketchbook. “See, while I feel like I got the roses to look accurate, my carnations look like crumpled pieces of tulle compared to yours.” He held his sketchbook toward her, and after a moment’s hesitation, she put hers next to his. Although from the sketch she could tell that he was far more talented than she guessed before, his carnations did look a bit off.

She decided to follow his lead, “I might’ve gotten the carnation, but you got everything else. Like everything else, I had to leave out a couple of the poppies. How long have you been drawing?”

“About ten years; really got into it during university. What about you?”

“On and off for the past couple of months.”

He let out a low whistle. “You’ve made insane progress for only a couple of months. I know that I wasn’t anywhere near your level after the same amount of time.” Claire could feel her face heat again at the compliment and looked back down at her sketch.

His hand came into her view. “I’m Oliver.”

Claire shook his hand with her right and ignored the fact that he had warm, soft hands that fit comfortably into hers. “I’m Claire.”

They exchanged a small smile, neither of them knowing that this was the first of many shared master studies together.