15 Dove #2
“So! Let’s see. How many of you have painted before, watercolors or otherwise?
” I asked while I organized the brushes and passed them around the table.
Only one small brown hand shot up, the eager boy who’d introduced himself as Alwin.
My heart sank. Oh goddess—they were almost all complete beginners?
Some of these kids were at least twelve or thirteen. How had they never painted?
“My da is—was—a carpenter, miss. He let me use the brushes and stuff he kept for special decorations sometimes after I did my chores,” Alwin said, playing with the horsehair tip of the brush.
I’d brought the shortest ones I had, but it still looked too big in his tiny hand.
Maybe I could find children’s-size brushes in Talon?
Or maybe make them myself. How hard could it be?
“That’s wonderful, Alwin. Thank you. Well, perhaps we should start with the basics then!” I twirled one paintbrush in my fingers and looked around the table. “These are your brushes.”
“Oh wow, I thought this was a hat,” one of the older kids, a raven-haired girl I thought was named Susu, muttered to her fellows. A few children giggled. My cheeks flushed.
“Right, so… okay, your brushes are your most important tools. It’s your responsibility to, um, keep them clean and… and make sure they’re stored in a dry, safe spot.” I tried to gather my thoughts, ignoring Susu’s snicker.
“Watercoloring is all about the, ah, use of water. Hence the name! There’s a lot of freedom and flexibility, more than other types of painting.
The element of water gives its nature to your brush, your canvas.
And you, in turn, must learn how to accept the flowing, sometimes frustrating, way that life changes unexpectedly. ”
I walked around the table, placing basic palettes and a thick sheet of paper beside each child as I spoke. When I paused in my explanation, six pairs of eyes blinked back. Goddess, I wasn’t making a lick of sense.
Out of the corner of her mouth, Susu whispered none-too-quietly to a friend, “I’d rather be mucking out the stables right now.”
The group giggled again. Alwin at least stopped quickly and shot Susu a half-hearted glare. Maerryl smothered her snicker under a cough, but I heard it. I looked to Orinno in mute appeal. He smiled calmly back at me.
I guess they don’t reprimand children in the priories. How unhelpfully chaotic.
Gathering my scattered thoughts, I tried to refocus.
I threw my lesson plan out the window and said, “Okay, let’s try something simple.
Everyone, dip your brush tips in the water.
” Six brushes splashed into the bowls, some water spilling over the sides.
“Then gently tap it into one color on your palette until you’ve picked up some of the pigment. And paint a small circle on the paper.”
They did as I instructed, mostly unsure but looking eager to do something instead of listening to me. With awkward strokes, an array of circles appeared on the table in varying shades.
“That’s great! Now swish your brushes around in the water, and then pick up some of a different pigment. Add a bit to your circles.”
Silence while they focused on the task, even Susu keeping her head down for the moment, intent on her little yellow circle. I noticed Orinno walked over to Maerryl and said something, too low for me to hear. My bodyguard nodded and left the room swiftly.
I gave the cleric a questioning glance, curious about where she’d gone.
He came over to me. “I’ve asked Maerryl to fetch more water bowls and rags from the kitchens—I think we’re going to need them,” he said with an amused look over the water-splashed table.
A few surprised laughs and gasps of delight burst out of the children one by one as they combined colors, the water blending them into something new.
The closest child, a little freckled ginger girl, stared from her paper to me, grinning. “Look, ma’am! Green! It’s bright green!”
“Excellent job! That’s one of my favorite shades,” I said, smiling back at her.
“Mine too,” she whispered, reverently dabbing her brush into the circle, smearing the green around the page. My heart nearly melted.
This was working. You’re secretly an amazing teacher! These youths will become artistic talents the likes of which Kurriel has never seen! And it all started here, with your first inspirational lesson that will change the course of their lives…
“Bo, do not lick the paint,” Orinno said in dismay, moving to clean streaky blue off her face.
Then another child knocked over their water bowl on accident, spilling the contents on two other students’ papers and causing a minor tantrum. I got them cleaned up, wiped table and tears, and settled all three with fresh pieces of paper. Where was Maerryl with those rags?
Eventually, during a brief moment of calm, I moved the children on to a new task—figuring out how different amounts of water affected a color’s intensity.
On my own sheet of paper, I demonstrated how to blend the palest of pinks and darkest of magentas.
Then I set them loose, walking a circle behind them as they played around with the paint, sometimes in concentrated silence, sometimes chattering noisily to each other.
It was messy and more than a little chaotic.
They mostly seemed to like just spilling random, overly watered pigments on the page and shrieking, or jamming brush bristles in the palettes in a way that made me internally flinch.
Orinno and I cleaned as needed—thank the goddess he was there—and I made a mental note to bring an apron with me next time.
Maybe small aprons for the children too? Ohh, that actually would be so cute.
When they began saying they were hungry and eyeing the table across the room laden with refreshments, Orinno and I conferred.
“Snack time!” I declared, and then showed them how to carefully wash their hands and brushes in a wide basin set to the side for just that purpose.
Finally released, hands patted dry, they each ran to grab fruit and handfuls of nuts before racing outside.
Alwin and the ginger girl—named Sadie, I’d learned—stayed near me as we picked out our snacks.
I poured myself a glass of cucumber-basil water and passed food down to Sadie, who couldn’t quite reach.