The Way We Were_ A Novel - Marcia Willett [20]
The divan bed is pushed against the wall, covered with the pale green and cream chintz that match the curtains, and piled with bedding and curtains from Trescairn, yet to be sorted. The basin to the right of the sash window is a bonus; water to hand saves journeys to and from the bathroom not only when she is painting but each time she needs to stretch her watercolour paper. She does this on the old blue Formica-topped table that they'd brought from Trescairn, soaking the paper, then placing it on her drawing board and securing the edges of the paper with wet strips of brown gummed paper so that once it is dry and taut it won't bubble or buckle when the colour wash is applied.
This morning her board is on the table ready for use, along with her brushes, looking like some kind of zany flower arrangement in their ancient chipped china vase. She's bought the best sable brushes: some rounds with good points, a few flats for all sorts of washes, and a mop that holds a lot of paint and is a favourite for painting skies. Very carefully she moves the table just a little so that it is at the most advantageous angle for the light coming in through the window. Earlier she's picked a tiny bunch of snowdrops and put them in a mint sauce jar so as to copy them. Looking at their delicate veined petals and drooping heads she wonders how they are able to survive the biting January winds. She assembles her other props: two Cornish honey jars filled with clean water and some photographs and sketches of spring flowers that, unlike the snowdrops, are not yet in bloom; a biscuit tin, with a picture of a mare and her foal on the lid, in which she keeps little tubes of watercolour paint; her while palette, and the little sponge, which, when dampened, she uses to lift colour out of a sky so as to give the effect of scudding clouds. Some tissues and an old tea towel for drying her brushes complete her equipment.
On the back of a pine chair – brought up from the kitchen because it is just right for working – hangs one of Archie's old checked shirts, which Em now uses as a smock. As she pulls it on she is assailed by a pang of remorse for the relief she'd felt earlier when he'd said that he would be going to Bodmin; she hopes he is keeping warm, wonders briefly if he's remembered his gloves and then, putting everything else out of her mind, settles down to work.
She plans her palette: manganese blue with a touch of cobalt for the sky, very watered down; then the various shades of yellow for the daffodils and the primroses. She chooses cadmium yellow, Windsor lemon, yellow ochre and cadmium orange. Ultramarine and burnt umber mixed with cadmium yellow will make different shades of green, with sap green for the brighter leaves of the primroses. Last of all, she selects magenta to mix with ultramarine for the pretty violets.
Em squeezes some of the rich pigment from the little watercolour tubes into the wells of her palette. She mixes the palest blue, uses the lid of the biscuit tin to tilt her drawing board, and with her mop brush she begins to paint the background. The flowers are already lightly sketched in and she grades the sky carefully lest the paint should touch the heads of the flowers, creating green daffodils when she adds the yellow paint later on. She's decided that whilst the background dries she will paint a little card for Julia's birthday; perhaps a colourwash of the snowdrops against a wintry sky.
Em works happily, utterly absorbed, hardly aware of the dimming of the sun as the clouds bank up and drift from the north-east on a light chill wind. It is much later that she remembers that Tiggy is due at Trescairn, and nearly a week before the lanes are clear enough to be able to drive up to Trescairn to meet her.
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The really