Rastrophiliopustrocity #AtoZChallenge

Rastrophiliopustrocity; a spontaneous combustion of creative spark that is followed by action in order to manifest and bring into existence. 

I took the drug again, I just had to! Within minutes the creativity was upon me and I was scrambling for canvas, paints and brushes.

It was like someone else had taken over my head and hands, I didn’t know what I was doing, wasn’t aware of what I was creating, which meant have been because the drug partly caused temporary blindness.

Paint splashed all round, two, three brushes in my hands at once as the need grew, I had to get everything out of me and put it onto the canvas as fast as lightening.

The drug lasted only a short time so I could only do one painting. I had in the past tried for two or three canvas, that I had set up ready but the paintings hadn’t turned out as good, they had been blurry and frantic. Not my normal artist flare, so I hadn’t sold them.

The minutes seemed to race by as I worked, still unaware of what was being brought to life before me. My body started to trier, my hands aching and a headache building. The drug was wearing off.

Exhausted, I stepped back and looked at the painting, it was one of my finest yet.

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Elysian Postcard Story #atozchallenge

Elysian; beautiful or creative; divinely inspired; peaceful and perfect.  

Dearest Papa,

Giuseppe took us high into the mountains, promising ‘spettacolare’ views and he wasn’t wrong! I was worried the poor donkeys would collapse under the weight of the supplies. Giuseppe said ‘they are use to it, signora.’

It was the most perfect spot to paint the mountains. There was a lake below that was so clear and reflective. We spent all day there, it was like being in God’s Eden.

My painting did not do the landscape justice but I’m proud of it all the same. I have sent it you in the late post.

Yours, Victoria. X

 

Inspiration

For the last few months, Yancy had been going around car boots, fairs and similar places. He brought old photographs, postcards and sometimes albums of them if they were cheap enough or he found a picture he liked.

Each morning, he would gather a bunch together and look at them at the desk in his studio. In the afternoon, he would try and draw or paint something inspired by what he had seen.

It was hard going but it was helping to break his block. For months, he’d not been able to bare touching his pencils and paintbrushes but now he was finding it easier each day.

He had yet to move back to canvas though but that would soon come. He tried not to think so much. Best to keep the negative voices down.

That morning, from his pile, Yancy selected a photo of a young child standing in front of a white washed wall. He wondered who the child was and what they were doing. Puling his sketchbook over, he drew the child, ideas turning over his head.

An hour later, he stopped and looked at what he had achieved. He had capture the child’s likeness well. Yancy smiled and decided the time was right, he wanted to paint this on to canvas.

Runnel #atozchallenge

Runnel; a small stream. 

The largepainting had always hung in the guest bedroom of my adopted grandparents house. The girl in the frilly red dress was their ten year old daughter, who had died a two years later. She was playing in a runnel which ran through an spring dappled woods.

‘She’s catching fairies,’ gran said, ‘she always loved doing that.’

That use to fascinate me as a child and when I couldn’t sleep, I would study the painting for the fairies. I never saw any though. As an adult the painting still interested me and I guess that’s why my grandparents left it to me when they passed.

Face #100WW

What appeared before me wasn’t what I had set out to do. Studying the piece of art -if it could be called that, I felt a chill along my back. It wasn’t my own work at all, yet I knew I had painted the green skull which looked more like a mask, onto the paper plate. I had a strange wanting to press it to my face….but I didn’t.

 

(Inspired from; https://bikurgurl.com/2017/09/20/100-word-wednesday-week-37/ with thanks).

Flow #writephoto

Life is like the flow of a river, I realised looking up at the waterfall from the canvas I had been painting on. You start off like a spring then become a stream, turning this way and that as you take different paths. Then you join a river and carry on going through things; some good and some bad, changing and growing older. Finally, you join the sea ending your life.

I looked down at the canvas balanced on the small easel, the painting I had done was a likeness of the waterfall and mossy rocks below, but I didn’t like it. Some of the strokes looked childlike and I really hadn’t captured the true beautiful force of the waterfall. I signed and began to pack up. It was always the same when I paused and valuated my art; I couldn’t go on when I became negative about it.

When I was done, I stood and watched the river carrying on tumbling down. The sound was so calming and mixed in with the soft singing of the birds and the rustle of the trees this place was a peaceful spot. The river then bubbled past me and away into a cluster of trees towards the next waterfall. It began raining.

I looked up at the sky frowning then ducked into the cover of some trees. A thought popped into my head; this is the full circle of water. I watched the raindrops falling in the ground and realised that we too became a part of the earth, only we didn’t raise up again. It was a morbid thought but at the same time reassuring.

The river couldn’t stop it’s flow and nor could we stop the flow of life.

 

(Inspired by https://scvincent.com/2017/09/21/thursday-photo-prompt-flow-writephoto/ with thanks).

Jouska #atozchallenge

Jouska; a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.

She was there again in her front garden, sunbathing and relaxing. I’d missed seeing her during winter. Now though, she’d be out there every sunny day and I could watch from the shadow corner of my living room. I know what people would think of me if they knew I was watching her; a spy, a peeping tom, a stalker, a rapist.

I’m not any of them. I’m just a lonely artist who sees the beauty of all female forms. Sometimes I’ll sit here and sketch her, other times I’ll draw her from memory. Most of the time I just like to watch and hold a conversation with her in my head.

‘Hello,’ I would say, ‘nice weather today.’

‘Yes,’ she would reply, maybe lowering her sunglasses.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt you. But I live across the way there and I’ve been admiring you for so long.’ 

She might sigh and try to break the news she has a boyfriend or a husband to me. Not that I’ve noticed one about the place. Or perhaps, she might look closely at me and try to tell me I’m not her type. 

In some of these conversations, she does declare her interested in me, but those are very rare and only when I’m feeling at my most lowest. Most of the time she’ll state a boyfriend.

My reply is always, ‘that’s fine. I’m an artist and I would like to paint you.’ 

‘Well, I don’t know,’ she’d respond and start to blush.

‘Please? You can have the painting. It’s the only thing I wish for.’ 

‘I’d need to think about it,’ she would say whilst getting up.

‘No. Don’t think about it. You wouldn’t have to do anything. Just lay there as you have been doing and I shall get to work at once. Here, I have my paper and pencils all ready. Please, this would mean so much to me.’ 

She’ll lower herself back down, ‘okay….’

‘It’ll be fine,’ I’ll say.

Then I begin to sketch her. Outlining all her loveliness whilst she sunbaths. 

After, I will transfer the sketches to canvas and paint her. It’ll be my master piece. The one painting everyone remembers me by.

If only that conversation could become real…

Bright Leaves

The leaves at her feet had been painted, Ashley noticed as she sat down on the tree stump. She picked one up and turned it around in between her fingers. One side showed the skeleton outline of the leaf veins and on the other someone had painted large purple dots onto the orange surface.

Ashley dropped the leaf and looked down. More and more of the leaves had been painted and she could even make out little imagines. She could make out a hedgehog shape on one and a dog on another. Smiling, she wondered who had decided to come out to the small patch of trees and do suit a thing.

Wall

He liked to draw, but only on walls. Early in the morning, before the city fully awoke, he set out with his tools. He walked the almost empty streets where yesterday’s newspaper rustled around lampposts and the air hummed with rotting fast food. Lights on top floors shone out, growing dim as the sun rose higher.

He found his ‘canvas’ on the inside wall of a pedestrian tunnel under a road. Setting his things down, he looked for the best spot to began as he ponder what he would paint today.

The Photographer

Aaron stood in what had once been a corn field, but now only the broken stalks remained. The sky was a painting of color; greys, blacks, purples, yellows, oranges and pinks. He wondered if God had made the sky his canvas. It was raining in the distance, he could see it coming down on other the fields and it seemed to be making its way over to him.

Leaning against the tumbling outbuilding, he saw a fork of lightening. His breathing quickened and he began snapping photos as if his life depended on it. Which, in a way it kind of did. He turned, moved back and lined up the next angle.

He saw the lightening striking again on the screen and caught the image he had most wanted.