Flo

Seventeen

The next day, after work, Flo invited us over for what she called a 'documentation of colour'. There was one spare room that the Jefferson's were struggling with so it hadn't been decorated or furnished. Flo said it was most likely to be her studio because the window allowed maximum natural lighting for when she was feeling artistic. Her parents were more on the academic side and the sun was harsh against the screens of their computers.

I was glad that Flo had invited us over. Tess needed something to take her mind off things. Distractions were always good after nightmares.

The room was upstairs and seemed a lot bigger since nothing occupied the space. The walls were painted a sensible cream, with no specks of dirt or chipped areas. At the end of the room was an open window with no curtains, blowing in the scent of freshly mowed grass.

"Should we take our shoes off or something?" I asked. "This room seems too clean."

"That's the problem," Flo answered, carrying a tripod and camera into the room. "And that's why I've created the Pigmentation Project: a Documentation of Colour."

Tess reached into her striped bag of peanut brittle and took out a piece. "So, if this whole thing is about colour, then why did you ask us all to wear white?"

After Flo set up her camera, she held up a finger and left the room. When she returned, she was dragging a heavy looking chest behind her. After she had moved it into the right position, she popped the lid opened and leaned back on her heels. Inside were a variety of painting materials.

"You guys are going to help me paint the room," she explained, picking out buckets of paint, from vibrant colours to pastel, glitter to metallic, matte and shiny.

"Sweet!" Quinton said, rubbing his hands together. "Where are the brushes?"

"Don't have any," she answered.

"Want me to grab some? We have a couple in our shed," I said.

Flo just shook her head, smiling wide, excitement in her green eyes. "The idea is to paint this entire room without using a brush."

Tess instantly reached for a bucket of yellow paint and took the lid off. "Finger painting!"

Quinton and I exchanged looks and shrugged before following Tess and grabbing a bucket of paint each. Flo didn't hesitate to start. She just grabbed a tube of blue paint and used it to draw a wave across the wall. The paint was thick and heavy, so a lot of it dropped in giant clumps onto the newspaper-covered floor, or skittered disjointedly down the wall like raindrops on a window.

Quinton and Tess stayed in the corner, having a handprint war. Yellow and red handprints scattered across the cream surface, fighting for dominance as they overlapped each other and merged into shades of orange. 

I was the last to pick up a bucket of paint, mostly because I didn't know what to do. In my junior years of high school, I was never particularly artistic or spontaneous when I attended the compulsory creative arts classes. So when I looked down at the thick paint, I wasn't sure what to do with it.