Hell on Earth

Chapter Fifteen - Artists

"What are you doing?" Jonathan asked as he watched her paint. He took a picture of her painting.

"I'm laying down a base layer," Cynthia explained. "This piece is going to have a solid background. When I do stuff like that, I always lay down the base color first. It makes it easier for me to paint the focus."

"Cynthia," Nancy yelled from across the house.

"In my room with Jonathan," she yelled. She looked at Jonathan and couldn't help but laugh as he snapped another picture. "What are you doing?"

"I'm capturing the moment," Jonathan smiled at her.

Nancy walked into the room with the pair of them smiling at each other. Cynthia was covered in paint and Jonathan had a mark on his neck from the strap of his camera.

"What are the two of you doing?" Nancy asked.

"Practicing our artforms," Cynthia smiled and wiggled her eyebrows at Nancy.

Nancy looked at Cynthia's canvas, "And I'm assuming that the black square you are painting is that artform."

"It's a stepping stone," Cynthia stood up and wiped the paint off her hands. "My vision will come to life after this layer dries."

"And taking pictures of Cynthia, that's your artform," Nancy said as she looked at Jonathan. "What's she saying in the picture you just took of her."

"She's saying that she is happy and in her element," Jonathan said. "She's saying that she doesn't care about anything."

"That does sound like Cynthia," Nancy smiled.

Cynthia grabbed her sketchbook and charcoal. She looked at Nancy and Jonathan and started to sketch them.

"What are you doing now?" Jonathan looked over at her.

"Go back to how you were," Cynthia kept her eyes on her sketchbook. "I'm capturing the moment. You have your camera, and I have my drawings."

"Do you have any?" Nancy asked. "Old drawings?"

"I have loads of them," Cynthia looked up at her. "I have so many old sketchbooks, and I've been drawing like crazy since it's been winter." She went over to her art shelf. She grabbed books from the top left corner. "These are my more recent drawings. These are the ones that aren't completely horrible." Cynthia laughed at herself as she handed the notebooks to Jonathan and Nancy.

"I'm sure none of your drawings were horrible," Nancy said as she opened one of the sketchbooks.

"When I first started drawing, yes they were," Cynthia told her as she went back to sketching the moment. Nancy and Jonathan looking at her sketchbooks.

"I've seen some of her earliest sketchbooks," Jonathan looked up at Nancy. "They were bad."

"I was ten," Cynthia smiled. "Of course my drawings were going to be bad."

"I like the ones you use color in," Nancy said as she flipped through the book. "They come alive in ways I didn't think were possible."

"I like her use of black and white," Jonathan said. "It gives it such severity and focus to such a little moment."

Nancy looked up at her, "Which one do you prefer?"

"Depends on what I'm doing," Cynthia looked at her. She handed the notebook with her drawing to the pair. "If I want to do a quick sketch, I like to use charcoal. It lets me get something drawn quickly. If I want to take my time with drawing, both black and white and color works really well." She took a moment. "But if I had to to pick, I would say drawing with colored pencils is my favorite thing to do. It really is something special to capture the right tinge of someone's blush or the color of their eyes."

"You really are an artist," Nancy said as she handed the notebook to Jonathan.

"I love the way you capture the world," Jonathan said as he looked over the drawing.

"I prefer the way you see it," Cynthia smiled at Jonathan. She sat next to Nancy on her bed.

Jonathan handed her back her notebook. Cynthia closed it and put it on the pile of notebooks. Jonathan pulled out his camera and started to take pictures of them.

"Do you always take pictures of people like this?" Nancy asked.

"Only if I know them," Jonathan said as he took another picture.

"You get use to it after a while," Cynthia smiled.

"I have to say, you're medium of art is a lot more gratifying," Jonathan said. "I have to wait to see the efforts of my work. I can't see my vision come to life immediately."

"There are pros and cons to everything," Cynthia shrugged.

Nancy turned and looked at her, "Do you have a favorite piece of artwork."

"Yes!" Cynthia jumped off of the bed. She ran to her closet. It was where she kept all of her paintings. She grabbed one of the bigger canvases. "I painted this pretty shortly after everything finished up with the whole monster thing."

"It's us," Nancy smiled.

"It's us getting ready to fight," Jonathan smiled. "We all look so..."

"Heroic," Cynthia finished. "I wanted us to look heroic. But," she grabbed a notebook from the closet. "This is my favorite notebook. It has drawings of the people I am closest too."

Nancy and Jonathan looked over it. They smiled at the pages. Cynthia came up behind them and looked at the drawings. There were drawings of Nancy and Jonathan alongside her brother and the boys. Joyce were in a few of the drawings. Cynthia had managed to even add a few of Hopper and Eleven.

"I draw the people I care for most so I always remember what they look like," Cynthia said. "Memory can be a tricky thing, and I don't want to forget a single thing."

"That's really cool," Nancy smiled at her.

Jonathan looked at her, "You really are amazing."

"But that's enough looking at my artwork," Cynthia said as she took the book and put her painting away. "You and I have places to be, Nancy."

"I've got to pick Will up from the comic book store," Jonathan said as he headed out of the room.

Cynthia and Nancy went to Cynthia's car. They turned in the opposite direction of Jonathan.

"So, to the art store then the clothing outlet?" Cynthia asked.

Nancy smiled at Cynthia, "I think that sounds like a perfect plan. Spring is coming."

"New ideas for artwork and a new season for clothes," Cynthia said as she turned on the radio.

Nancy looked out the window, "You really are something else."