Here’s my entry for this week’s Flash Fiction for Aspiring Authors! Check out the original here!
Photo credit to Graham Lawrence
Word Count: 143
Her brush glides across the canvas, a ballerina leaving a bright trail. Colors swirl together, abstract at first, but then coming to have form, meaning. She creates her world, one stroke at a time.
Most of the canvas is covered in green, but it’s many different shades of green, a spectrum in emerald. Each blade of grass is different, unique. It has its only color, its own shape, its own spirit.
Each flower is a world in itself, full of such depth and beauty that it makes her want to cry. The bricks of the wall are a mosaic of greys, browns, and oranges.
When she is done, she steps back and surveys her work.
All that depth, that beauty, she saw as she was painting is gone. It’s just a picture of a garden.
She sighs, sets it aside, and begins again.
This story shows how hard artists are on themselves and are very particular about their art. Sounds like she is being a bit hard on herself and it is probably better than she thinks. This is a wonderful story that I enjoyed reading. Thank you for participating in Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers Challenge.
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Thank you! I based it a little off my experience when I was rereading a novel I’d written to revise it and got very disappointed that it wasn’t as good as I remembered it being. All artists, regardless of medium, tend to be ridiculously hard on themselves.
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I’m an artist, but not painting. I do detailed drawings. I never feel mine are “good enough.” When I do think one is good enough, it is only because I have been looking at it too long as I am working on it. When I get some space away from it I realize how awful it is. LOL!
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Sometimes I draw things, but I wouldn’t really consider myself an artist. I just doodle a little to get thoughts out about my writing. I’m probably too critical of it as well. lol
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I understand. I do detailed drawings that are suppose to look or almost look like a photograph. I don’t want mine to look just like a photograph, but I do want them to look realistic.
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Sounds like a pretty good picture to me! But them I’m not l’m known to be a perfectionist.
Check out my FFfAW story!
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Perfectionism often holds people back from realizing that something they’ve made is good.
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I remember now that I actually read yours- it was very good!
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The artists search for perfection is never ending – all you can ever see are the faults, despite other people’s compliments. A good story. 🙂
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Thank you!
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Good story about our perfectionistic nature. Sad that she can’t see the beauty in her work. 🙂
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Thank you!
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I had a more positive take on it. I was captivated by her seeing her brush as “a ballerina leaving a bright trail” and interpreted her disappointment in the final product more as an indication of how exhilarating the act of creation itself can be. *Doing* it and feeling it can sometimes feel more powerful than what remains of that process at the end.
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Thanks for commenting! I think your interpretation is equally valid and was definitely also something I was thinking about as I was writing this piece.
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Beautifully descriptive writing. I like the way you portray the artist’s concentration on her work, and her objective for the finished product. Her self-criticism and inability to accept anything but perfection from herself, is very true of ‘artists’ of all types.
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Thanks!
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Such a vivid description of a beautiful scene. I like reading these words
“a ballerina leaving a bright trail”
Refreshing piece of writing 🙂
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Thank you!
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