A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [335]
“I will never understand how ye do that,” Ian said, shaking his head at the canvas on her easel. “It’s wonderful.”
In all honesty, she didn’t understand how she did it, either; it didn’t seem necessary. She’d said as much in answer to similar compliments before, though, and realized that such an answer generally struck the hearer either as false modesty or as condescension.
She smiled at him, instead, letting the glow of pleasure she felt show in her face.
“When I was little, my father would take me walking on the Common, and we’d see an old man there often, painting with an easel. I used to make Daddy stop so I could watch, and he and the old man would chat. I mostly just stared, but once I got up the nerve to ask him how he did that and he looked down at me and smiled, and said, ‘The only trick, sweetie, is to see what you’re looking at.’”
Ian looked from her to the picture, then back, as though comparing the portrait with the hand that had made it.
“Your father,” he said, interested. He lowered his voice, glancing toward the door into the hallway. There were voices, but not close. “Ye dinna mean Uncle Jamie?”
“No.” She felt the familiar small ache at the thought of her first father, but put it aside. She didn’t mind telling Ian about him—but not here, with slaves all over the place and a constant flow of visitors who might pop in at any moment.
“Look.” She glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one was near, but the slaves were talking loudly in the foyer, arguing over a misplaced boot scraper. She lifted the cover of the small compartment that held spare brushes, and reached under the strip of felt that lined it.
“What do you think?” She held the pair of miniatures out for his inspection, one in either palm.
The look of expectation on his face changed to outright fascination, and he reached slowly for one of the tiny paintings.
“I will be damned,” he said. It was the one of her mother, her hair long and curling loose on bare shoulders, the small firm chin raised with an authority that belied the generous curve of the mouth above.
“The eyes—I don’t think those are quite right,” she said, peering into his hand. “Working so small . . . I couldn’t get the color, exactly. Da’s were much easier.”
Blues just were easier. A tiny dab of cobalt, highlighted with white and that faint green shadow that intensified the blue while vanishing itself . . . well, and that was Da, too. Strong, vivid, and straightforward.
To get a brown with true depth and subtlety, though, let alone something that even approximated the smoky topaz of her mother’s eyes—always clear, but changing like the light on a peat-brown trout stream—that needed more underpainting than was really possible in the tiny space of a miniature. She’d have to try again sometime, with a larger portrait.
“Are they like, do you think?”
“They’re wonderful.” Ian looked from one to the other, then he put the portrait of Claire gently back into its place. “Have your parents seen them yet?”
“No. I wanted to be sure they were right, before I showed them to anybody. But if they are—I’m thinking I can show them to the people who come to sit, and maybe get commissions for more miniatures. Those I could work on at home, on the Ridge; all I’d need is my paint box and the little ivory discs. I could do the painting from the sketches; I wouldn’t need the sitter to keep coming.”
She made a brief, explanatory gesture toward the large canvas she was working on, which showed Farquard Campbell, looking rather like a stuffed ferret in his best suit, surrounded by numerous children and grandchildren, most of these mere whitish blobs at the moment. Her strategy was to have their mothers drag the small ones in one at a time, to have each child’s limbs and features hastily sketched into the appropriate blob before natural wriggliness or tantrums