"Before we get straight into painting, let’s do a few rough sketches of where we want things to go. When using a larger canvas, it’s helpful to plot things out so that you don’t accidentally squish everything into one corner of the painting," Lucas said.
He handed a pencil, then picked one up himself and turned to his canvas.
"You want to keep things light and generalized. There’s no need to include every detail, just the rough shape of everything. Keep a light pressure so that the lines are faint."
He began to sketch out a scene, starting with where the ocean was, then filling in the rest of the areas with smaller shapes.
"Go ahead, try it. And don’t be nervous, nothing can go wrong at this stage," he said with a smile.
I nodded and held my pencil out to the canvas, visualizing the beach scene I wanted to paint. I drew a wavy line straight across the canvas, placing down where the ocean was going to be.
But as soon as I tried to visualize the rest of the fun things that I had planned, like crabs and small birds, my mind went blank. All I could think about was having sex on the beach.
My mind filled the canvas with dirty images of getting railed right beside the ocean, causing my face to turn red.
No! Not again! Lucas is right there!
Mortified by my own thoughts, I did my best to remain calm.
"Leslie, are you okay? You’ve been drawing the sa line over and over again," said Lucas after a few minutes.
"Huh? What?" I looked down at my canvas, seeing the overly drawn line of sothing I don’t rember what it was supposed to be. "Oh no! I’m sorry."
In my panic, I flipped the pencil over to try to erase it, only to find that this pencil didn’t have an eraser on the back.
"It’s okay, here. This is a special eraser," said Lucas with a light chuckle. He reached out and handed what looked like a grey piece of chewed gum.
"This is an eraser?" I asked, looking at the strange thing in my hands.
"Yep! It may seem strange to non-artists, but this type of eraser is actually fairly common," explained Lucas with a soft smile.
He looked in the eyes, which instantly caused the heat in my body to explode. "Are you okay, Leslie? Your face looks a little flushed. Would you like to turn the fan on?"
I began to panic even more.
"Oh, umm, yes, please. Sorry..."
"Don’t be sorry. I’ve also been feeling like the air in here has been a little heavy," he said as he stood up to turn the overhead fan on.
The breeze from the fan felt amazing. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath while Lucas wasn’t watching and simply enjoyed the cool air on my skin.
After cooling off a little, I opened my eyes and looked back at my canvas. I thought that I would be able to continue sketching, but nothing ca to . I stared blankly at my scene until it turned into frustration.
Why can’t I think of anything? I had a whole scene planned in my mind!
As if sensing my frustration, Lucas looked over at and my nearly blank canvas.
"Hard ti concentrating?" he asked softly.
I kept my eyes on the canvas but nodded. "I feel like I’m blanking out. I had a whole scene planned in my head, but now I can’t seem to think of anything."
I was embarrassed to admit this, but I felt like it was better to tell Lucas what was going on rather than pretend that everything was fine.
"That’s totally normal. It’s just an artistic block, it happens to all of us," he smiled.
"It does?" I looked up at him with surprise. I truly felt like there was sothing wrong with .
He nodded, "The best thing is to just do sothing else. It’ll co back to you, I promise."
I felt a little guilty about pausing a painting lesson for this. From the corner of my eye, I spotted the enormous canvas, and an idea ca to .
"Since I’m in this state, how would you like to switch to continuing the portrait?" I asked. "I can at least sit still for a while."
Lucas turned to look at the portrait of and smiled. "I’ll never say no to that. Let’s do that."
He quickly cleaned up our painting setup, then walked over to set everything up for the portrait painting. In a matter of minutes, the chaise lounge was in the center of the room, and his canvas was resting on a custom-made easel.
"Should I let my hair down?" I asked, reaching up to my ssy bun.
Lucas thought for a mont, "Yes, and if you don’t mind, could you change into the dress you ca here in today? I’m at the point of sketching the dress."
"Yes, of course. It’s no problem at all!" I said and quickly walked out of the room. I was glad that he made the suggestion because I felt bad sitting on just a beautiful white chaise lounge in these stained clothes.
I got changed and ca back quickly, wearing my white sumr dress from this morning. I walked straight for the chaise and sat down.
Lucas wasn’t in the room, but entered shortly after with a small tray of refreshnts.
"You know you don’t have to do all of this for ," I said with a smile. I was touched that Lucas did all of this for , but I didn’t want him to feel like he had to.
"No trouble at all. You’re doing a great favor; the least I could do is make you feel comfortable."
He placed the tray on the small table beside , then stood in front of . "Could you half lie down? To match the pose in the painting."
I smiled and did as he asked, leaning to one side of the chaise lounge. "Is this where I’m supposed to ask you to paint like one of your French girls?" I asked with a giggle.
The tips of Lucas’s ears turned red, and he quickly averted his gaze. "Would you think I’m silly if I said that I’ve always wanted to hear soone say that to ?"
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