Musings of an artist ((Open))

[Evangeline Rose Vale]

In general, Evie was excited. She'd just been to the glass workshop and picked up just what she needed to finish her piece off. With a determined look on her face, she walked towards the art studio with a heavy jute bag of coloured glass pieces. Entering the studio she went straight to the easel that was on the far right of the room and took the sheet off it, revealing a large, black and white Cindy Sherman style photograph of herself, dressed finely in a glamour era-like dress, like she was waiting to go out, sitting in a living room, looking really quite forlorn as if she had been let down. The photograph was printed on perspex and you could look through some of it. Evie hated doing self portraits but since she was currently working on a Cindy Sherman inspiration, she had to do more self portraits that she would of liked besides, she didn't really have anyone to model for her.

Evie took off her black leather jacket and flung it carelessly on to the chair and then bent down to pick up her bag of coloured glass pieces. Some of the bits of the perspex photograph like the necklace already had pearls and things glued to it carefully with a glue gun which went transparent when the glue was dry. Some of the pieces of deep red glass were already glued on to the dress, making parts of the photograph look real and others bizarre and dream-like.

Carefully, she inserted another stick of glue into the glue gun and switched it on. She put on a pair of rubber gloves so she wouldn't hurt herself with the glass and then quickly tied back her long dark hair in a messy bun. She'd envisioned the piece to be something special, something out of the ordinary, almost. It was like hand colouring a black and white image with glass instead of ink. Evie carefully looked at the maquette that she'd made before starting the piece and then began carefully using the hot glue gun to put on pieces of glass on parts of the image.

[Adrianna Evans]

Adrianna Evans was rushing to finish her artwork. It was due next week and she still hadn’t glued everything down, not to mention she needed to get matboard cut for it. She also had a test in her Japanese class next week, and had to study for that. So, all in all, she was having a hectic week.

Adrianna walked briskly to the art studio. She had about two days until her art project was due. This project was a collage, and was fairly easy to do. It just depended on how much thought she put into it. She had decided to do the Beatles, one of the most amazing bands to ever exist on the face of the earth. It was a good picture, and she was nearly done with her collage, it just needed some more....3-D things to add a good effect.

Upon arriving to the studio, she found it occupied. Adrianna blinked in surprise. Not a lot of people frequented the studio during the week. Usually, all others came on Saturday, them being those that waited until the last minute to do things. Truly, Adrianna liked getting it done as soon as possible, but spending good time on it. Lucky for her, the studio was always open.

She noticed the girl was working with glass, putting it onto a photograph of the girl in front of it. She had wondered, when working in the studio, what was under that canvas. Now she knew. And, to be frank, it was lovely. The addition of the glass to the model’s dress looked amazing. It added contrast to the normal background.

Adrianna walked over to where another canvas covered her own piece, and pulled it off, at the same time shrugging off her backpack that held various little pieces. She glanced over at the other person before grabbing a plastic box and pouring her different little doo-dads into it. Looking up at the painted collage of The Beatles, she grabbed some paints and a plastic container, and began to touch up various areas of the painting.

The tension in the room was a bit stretched. They were artists, indulged in their works, but they had yet to say a word to another. Adrianna chewed her lip. She didn’t wish to impose on the other, older artist, and, frankly, she was a tad bit nervous to say anything. Adrianna trotted over to grab a glue gun, one of the old blue ones that you had to wait for it to heat up, and plugged it in near to the easel upon which her painting stood.

While she waited for the glue stick to heat up, she walked over to the other girl. Waiting until the girl turned from her photo to get another piece of glass, Adrianna ventures, “That’s very nice.” Once those words were spoken, the tension relaxed slightly, and Adrianna started to talk a bit more. “I like the idea of adding glass to the dress. I don’t think I would be able to think of something like that. I’m Adrianna Evans, Freshman Art student. What about you?” The words slipped out quickly, nearly slurred together in some places, but Adrianna was glad to get them out.