Purple eyes peered out from beyond the easel, her nose and mouth covered by the canvas that she painted upon. The stage the creation was in was an early one. She had sealed the fabric days ago, and then added her neutral undercoat, and now she was working over the sketch that came after that. The objects fit nicely in her hands, the pallet a familiar weight, the brush like the hand of an old friend, its curve and texture a fitted extension of her own. Eyes watched for a moment, then looked back at the makeshift creature on the stretched material. Her thoughts lingered back to the feeling that had come to her when she had first decided her paw was healed enough to go without the bandage and then that she wanted to go and ask Cambria if she had anything better to do then sit for a few hours. There had been a rumbling in her stomach, light and as it was trying to tickle her heart and lungs and all the rest that resided within her. Once she had settled her odd nerves Mati had simply walked up the stairs and knocked on her door, asking with a cool and even tone and laughing silently as her momentary indecision and odd feelings.
Now after she had asked Cambi and Enzo to be seated in the chair beyond her easel the Church woman had settled into a moment that was so very easy for her. In most situations. The brushed clanked as she decided on the best one, when she would have no trouble picking the medium sized brush she almost always began with. The paint tubes would not open for her on the first twist, and she had to turn them harshly to open them. But, now she was settled. The silence filling the room, the lines became shapes, and the lifelessness of the thing became the figure of a breathing beast. She smiled as she looked at it. The little bird was easy to capture, though he did not sit as still as Cambria did. Mati concentrated on him, knowing that he might fine the exercise no longer to his advantage and wish to flutter away. Once he was sketched in Mati moved forward to the lines that she begun to make the ocean eyed woman.
The proportions were oddly perfect, but Mati still measured the distance between the tip of her nose to the crease of her soft smile. The space from her collar bone, and the curve of her jaw was about two times that, and then it led to the corner of her ear. They were soft subtle shapes, easy to fit on the canvas, and worked so perfectly with one another. She would remain eyeless, as impersonal as it might seem. Mati knew where they were to be placed, guidelines in their spots, but they would be truly formed last. The brush ran across the rough fabric noisily, and Mati began to go over them again and again. Eyes looked up, and knew what would come next, and for some reason she was hesitant. Her hand reached for the tube of Cambium Yellow, as she had used all that was on her pallet, eyes unmoving.
The color, the pure deep reds that were hidden where most did not see, the blues that would serve as the shadows of each strand of her fur. The yellows, the brightness and the highlights. She would have the purple, below her chin, against her neck, right in the crevice that her collarbone created. Where there was brown, where anyone else would see the color of dark rich soil Mati saw all that came together to make it. She looked up from the curve of her shoulder, and to the eyes who’s color Mati would be blessed to recreate.
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