Perfection

Perfection was something Cynthia never thought of before, those kinds of thoughts interfered with art and the purpose of art wasn't to chase perfection but to express oneself.

She was a self-taught artist, who had initially started painting as a hobby but had turned it into a profession over time. She had painted many portraits and there was not a single customer who was dissatisfied with her work.

But as she sat down to paint her portrait, thoughts of perfection started disturbing her, she tried to ward them of but they just wouldn't go away. Every brush stroke felt like a test, she didn't think of herself as perfect, nor even beautiful but still a part of her felt that her portrait should be perfect.

She mixed different colors, unsure whether it would fit her skintone, as she mixed, her mind raced trying to decipher what shade her skin was. She had looked at herself several times in the mirror before and was sure she knew how she looked but as she started to paint, she felt she wasn't getting her skintone right.

Then there was the question of her lips, she felt she was drawing them too thick and her lips were thinner, she went through her selfies in her phone and quickly adjusted her portrait to show thinner lips.

Her hair wasn't as black as she had thought and perhaps it was more brown than black and her eyes were not as big. She continued to paint, trying to brush away those thoughts but they kept bothering her.

She finally threw her paintbrush in frustration, her portrait was almost complete but it didn't satisfy her, it was far from perfect and she felt it looked nothing like her, she wanted to throw it away but something inside her stopped her.

She got up to get a glass of water, as she drank, she felt her lips were not as thin as she had assumed and she should have drawn them a little thicker but she was exhausted and didn't want to redo her portrait.

She sighed as she remembered there were other commissioned portraits to draw. She decided to do them first but as she tried to concentrate on her work, her mind wandered off to her own portrait and she felt she had horribly messed it up and maybe she wasn't as good as she thought.

The thought of being not good enough tormented her even as she slept, she woke up, unable to shake it off. She thought of redoing her portrait as she woke up the next morning.

She decided to skip breakfast and complete her portrait first but she just couldn't focus on it, as she drew her features, she felt she wasn't getting it right, maybe she shouldn't have drawn herself as smiling.

She didn't smile like that, she had drawn her smile incorrectly and she looked awkward, she was humiliating herself by drawing herself like that. She tried to adjust it but ended up spoiling it more.

She put down her paintbrush in frustration, she wasn't getting anything right and had begun to doubt her ability as an artist, did she really have what it took to be an artist?, maybe not.

She looked at herself in the mirror, trying to examine her facial features more closely but no matter how hard she looked, she felt she couldn't draw herself correctly. Her mind taunted her that she wasn't perfect but she knew deep within her, that even if she wasn't perfect, her portrait had to be perfect.

The search for perfection weighed her down, the more she searched for it, the more it eluded her, it felt as if it was in her grasp but yet so far. She would come close to finishing her portrait but as she looked at it more closely, she could see all the flaws in it and would sit down to draw it again.

The whole thing exhausted her, she couldn't focus on her work nor on anything else, everything seemed unimportant infront of the great task that was infront of her. As an artist she should be able to paint her portrait perfectly but she failed to reach that level everytime.

She wasn't getting her eyebrows right, they were too far apart and too curved, they made her look ugly and she didn't want to look ugly in her portrait. She readjusted it until she felt it was perfect but then her hair started bothering her.

It wasn't this straight but it wasn't curly either, it was wavy and she was failing to get it right but when she tried to correct it, she ended up making it look too straight, she didn't want to redo her portrait but knew there was no other way and her portrait was beyond fixing.

Her back hurt, she could feel a dull pain in her fingers and her head throbbed, she was tired of it all but her mind wouldn't let her rest. She wanted to take a break and that thought bothered her as she painted, she ended up spilling the paint all over herself and the portrait.

Her dress along with her portrait was spoiled and it was her clumsiness to blame for the ruin, she began to cry, she was mentally and physically exhausted and she felt she was a horrible artist, it was luck that made her achieve the fame she got.

She changed her dress and decided to take a break, maybe she was stressing out too much over a silly portrait and that was the reason she wasn't getting it right. As she lay down to sleep, she found herself swarmed with thoughts of her portrait, she just couldn't rest.

So she got up and tried to paint again, she finally got it right and completed the portrait to her liking but as she looked at it, she felt something was missing, maybe she should have drawn some flowers in her hair or added a green eyeshadow or given some color to her lips rather than coloring it pink.

Were her lips this pink or lighter?, maybe she wasn't getting the color right and it would have been better if she gave her lips another color. So she painted them red, she felt the shade suited her complexion. She couldn't help but admire the portrait, it was perfect and as she took a photo of it, she felt a sense of pride.

She thought of posting it but as she was about to post, she felt something was missing, maybe brown suited her lips more and she should have added flowers in her hair and added a floral background too, she decided to keep this portrait aside and draw another one.

As she finished the second portrait and compared it to the first one, she couldn't shake off the thought that something was missing and even though her back hurt as if someone was stabbing her constantly, she sat down to paint again.