Peculiar ♡ Alma Peregrine

Chapter Nine - Flowers

We all ate breakfast in silence, despite the fact we were all overly excited to be going on another outing. We were all going to the most gorgeous little river that I'd discovered while exploring one day, I was so excited to share it with everyone. And, I was going to paint it, too. The last thing I'd painted was Alma, and though I liked drawing and painting her, I had way too many for it to be normal. If anyone stumbled into my room and saw all the artwork I'd done of her, they'd probably think me mentally ill. 

When everyone was finished breakfast, Alma and I slowly worked through the dishes in a comfortable silence. There wasn't too much to wash, dry and put away so it didn't take as long as it normally would. And even though we were only doing the dished for five minutes at most, by the time we were finished the children were already downstairs, ready to go. Neither of us had actually stated getting ready. I still needed to grab my swim suit and my paints along with a small canvas, and Alma still needed to do whatever she needed to do.

I ran upstairs, wiping my wet hands on my shirt as I rushed into my room. I grabbed a backpack and the things I needed. I grabbed my black two piece which I quickly pulled on under my clothes, and threw everything I needed into the bag. Every paint color I had, my brushes, a small jar, my paint pallet and a medium sized canvas to paint on. I also threw in my poetry book and another novel I'd been reading before racing down the stairs to where everyone was waiting. Alma held out her arm and I took it happily.

We started walking down a path which was not unfamiliar to them, but they didn't have to walk down it often. It was a lovely path, the trees that lined either side of it were tall and green, some of them even having small vines with tiny pink and white flowers hanging off them. Some other flowers sprouted out of the ground, but I didn't stop to pick them so I could keep my arm linked with Alma's arm. We walked behind the children so we could keep an eye on them, because a few of them liked to run off.

After maybe ten minutes of walking, we came to a clearing. It was about one hundred meters long on each side in almost a circular shape. It was cut in half down the middle by a large, glistening river. The grass wasn't tall, but it was so thick that it felt like I was walking on pillows, and the trees surrounding the clearing were tall and beautiful. I would have to climb one while I was here... Or at least turn into a bird and go to the top, I wondered what the view was like up there. Probably jaw-droppingly beautiful.

Alma and I sat down on the soft grass a few feet away from the river. She pulled out her book while I picked some of the small, colorful flowers out of the ground. I made a flower crown out of the pretty flowers and placed it on Alma's head. She looked at me, wondering what I was doing while I was making it look perfect, but when she realized what I had done she smiled and turned back to what she was reading. I pulled out all of my art things and set them up, ready for me to use.

I squeezed a fat glob of green paint onto my pallet, along with some black and white to change the shade if I wanted. I started off by putting a plain, green base on the bottom third of the paper, then I made some darker and lighter shades of green. Adding each individual stroke took a while, but it was so worth it when it was done. I used a little bit of black paint to outline some lumps that didn't look like much at the moment so I knew where to paint everything else. I squeezed some blue and brown onto one of the small dishes on my pallet and started with a light blue base for the sky. While the blue paint was still wet, I worked in some darker blues and even some white for fluffy clouds. 

The trunks of the trees were easy enough to paint, but the details on the leaves weren't as easy. Lastly, for some finishing touches, I used some of the other bright colors to paint small dots that were meant to be the small flowers, hidden in the grass, and finally the sparkling river. But even then, when I took a step back, something still looked wrong.