Love Letters From Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [40]
And so, with her expectations lowered, Lindsay found the classes to be one of the most enjoyable things she had ever done. Attendance varied from week to week, mostly housewives and retirees. They did landscapes and florals and still lifes, with an occasional cute bunny, deer, or raccoon to keep things interesting. For the more complicated compositions, Lindsay sketched the figures on the canvases before the students arrived, and she often mixed their colors for them. It didn’t matter. Most people came to art class for the socialization, anyway, for the sense of accomplishment and the pleasure of having something to show for their time. They finished a painting in one or two classes, and everyone went home happy.
Today each of her four students was finishing up a nine-by-twelve oil painting of an old-fashioned red water pump on a garden path with a barn roof in the distance. Lindsay had taken her inspiration from a photograph she’d seen in Country magazine, and had carefully sketched the pump and the barn roof onto each primed canvas the night before. She had suspected—correctly—that the class would not have the attention span for anything more complex today.
The class consisted of three women and one man. The women, who all rode to class together, used art class as their once-a-week catch-up time. This week they wanted to talk about the magazine article, and about their memories of the old days of Blackwell Farms, and about what fun it was to have their corner of the world featured in a real magazine. Susan had sent a copy of the article to her daughter in Minneapolis, with a note—This is where I take art classes! Miriam remembered when the very building in which they were painting used to have cows in it.
“There was a little store right up front, there,” she said, “where you could buy fresh milk every morning if you got here between six and eight. It was still warm from the cow sometimes! Of course,” she remembered, “then the government got all involved with that pasteurizing nonsense and nobody could buy raw milk anymore. You mark my word, that’s why all the schoolchildren have allergies these days-no fresh milk.”
Lindsay concentrated on her lesson. “Now, everyone, take your fan brush, dip it in your painting medium and a little bit of titanium white, and scumble it into your blue sky for clouds. Just like this.” She demonstrated on her own canvas. “Be careful not to get your brush too wet, or your clouds will be raining.”
She smiled as she turned to examine everyone’s work. “Maybe a little less paint, Pauline,” she suggested, moving around the table where the four easels were set up. “Very nice, Susan. Frank...” She paused behind the chair of her only male student, a white-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard who came to class each week in the gray uniform of a garage worker. She had learned that he had owned and operated Highway Car Care for forty-five years before retiring. He had the most delicate touch with a brush she had ever seen in an untrained artist. “That’s just wonderful. May I?”
Frank seemed a little shy—as well he might be, stuck in the middle of a group of chattering women—so Lindsay liked to take every opportunity to highlight his work and make him feel welcome. Besides, as anyone could clearly see, he had a natural gift for painting.
Lindsay took his painting and displayed it on her easel at the front of the room. “Look how he has the shadows running parallel across the path,” she said, pointing with the handle of her paintbrush. “And the clouds seem to melt into the sky, just as they should. He picked up a little alizarin here to give weight to the bottom of the clouds. Very nice. Oh, and look.” She smiled as she pointed out the final detail. “There’s even a little bird here, flying into the barn loft. I like that. Let me show you how to do that.”
She showed the ladies how to double-load a fine-tipped brush and let them practice on a piece of canvas board for a minute. “You see, it’s really nothing but a lopsided W,” she said. “There you go. Not too much weight