Act 1 | Chapter 3

Art was always my favorite class. I don't want to brag, but I consider myself to be pretty good at it. I have dozens of sketchbooks filled with drawings I did over the years. If you were to scan through them, it would look like one long history on how I did things. I can still remember the times when I considered my best work to be two stick figures holding hands, but compared to where I am now, my art has improved greatly. As I walked into the art room, I took a glance at the contest poster on the wall. However, as I did, something bumped into me, slamming me against the doorframe, and causing me to let out a small yelp.

"Outta the way." I heard a voice say as someone pushed their way past me. After stumbling a bit, and regaining my balance, I scanned the room and eventually spotted the culprit. It wasn't a surprise to me, but the person who had shoved me was none other than Maria Holwell. I wouldn't call her a 'rival', but that's pretty much what she is. I have no affiliation towards her other than being hated. Honestly, I don't know why she hates me so much. I leave her alone, and never actually talk to her, but day after day, she continued to pick on me and irritate me. I'm assuming she's jealous of my art, seeing as she is always trying to one-up me in the class. As of today, she was wearing a white tank top shirt, with the straps of her black bra underneath more than visible. She was showing a bit of cleavage, and wearing a varsity jacket, decked out with the colors of our school. Her jeans were a bit torn, and sagging a bit at the waste.

"I made this for you Mr. Mcvay!" She said in a cheery voice, approaching the teacher's desk with a ripped piece of paper from her sketchbook. I rolled my eyes and sat down at my table, which was right in front of the teachers, and was unlucky enough, the same table Maria was assigned to, though we sat on opposite ends.

"Thank you, Maria. I'll put this in my office." Mr. Mcvay replied calmly. He was always my favorite teacher. You couldn't catch him without some kind of tie on. He always wore one with a simple colored shirt, and dress pants. Occasionally, he would put on an apron and help us with whatever we were working on at the time. It was completely white before getting drenched in paint, so now it was more like a rainbow color. He had this relaxing and calming voice, whenever he spoke. You wouldn't expect it from a man who looked like him. He had a serious-looking face and a very tough looking beard, but in reality, he was one of the nicest people I know.

The bell rang a few minutes later, and the class officially started. A few students rushed into the room, being late by only a few seconds, and took their seats. After brief attendance, Mr. Mcvay stood up in front of the class and looked around at us. The classroom was small, with only six rectangular wooden tables positioned around them. We got to sit in old stools that were once used in the computer labs before they switched the chair in there to comfy rocking ones. The tables were completely covered in dry paint and other art like material. Paper, glue, glitter, you name it. What irritated me the most though, is that occasionally a student from one of the later hours wouldn't clean their mess up, and leave behind this stupid green dust that gets everywhere. I hate that stuff, and I don't even know what it's called.

"Alright, before we begin class today, I want to remind you all of the contest the school is holding. Bate's University is going to be giving the winner of it a full scholarship to their school, and art program. I know not all of you are interested in going, maybe it's not you think? But if any of you are interested, please tell me, so that I can enter your name. It's nothing too hard. You just need to do any form of art, whether that be drawing, painting, or molding, of someone whom you look up to." He glanced around the class. To be fair, there were very few kids in my class in particular who didn't care at all, aside from me and Maria. "You'll also have to stand up on stage and explain to everyone present why you chose the person, and what they mean to you."

I already knew who to paint. Bate's University is one of the best art schools in the country, so lucky me, I live in the city near it, huh. I know my mother went there, but not for art. It was more like something she did as a club activity, while she studied banking at the school. I always assumed that I got my artistic interest and talent from my mother, seeing as we both like to paint, though I prefer not to paint on someone who's naked. I don't really like to paint people naked either. It's a normal thing for most art projects, though. You always start by drawing someone nude, then add on clothes and features as you go along. I can put up with that, but not withdrawing someone naked, just so that they can be naked. Not like my mom.

"Now, I want to start doing something every day. Just a quick exercise to help wake you all up. Starting today, I'll give all of you fifteen minutes to draw a picture in your sketchbooks on how your feeling that day." There was a collective groan from the rest of the students, "You guys have other projects your working on, I know, but it's only going to take fifteen minutes. No more. Now get to work."

I reached into my backpack and removed my sketchbook from it. I had already used half the papers, mainly with drawings of people or whatever I can come up with at the time. After flipping to a blank page, and double-checking that no line marks had bled over from the previous pages, I grabbed my mechanical pencil from my pack of supplies and got to work.

"Zoey Morgan." Mr. Mcvay called out.

"OOh, here," I called out and went to look back down at my art as Mr. Mcvay went on with his daily attendance. I know it's a bad idea to draw with a mechanical pencil, but hey, I like having all my lines to share the same thickness. I hate normal pencils because of how often you have to sharpen them, and how much thicker and worse the liens get if you don't. I drew a quick circle, and traced some lines to represent which way the head was going to be looking, then began drawing the chin, and neck. I stopped there, and erased some of the useless lines now, like the bottom half of the circle, then moved onto the body. I was able to quickly give out a rough sketch of a human silhouette and began working on details. I added the eyes, after mentally debating how far apart I wanted them to be, and put a nose in between them. Lips were the thing I always struggled with. That and hands.

Once I had the face all set up, I began positioning where the breasts of the person would be. This is another thing I occasionally struggle with, which is even sadder because I actually have a pair. I can't just grab my own and feel where they would be, mainly because I hardly had any, but also because it would just look weird. Maria would tease me for the rest of the year if she saw me doing something like that. I know they connect to the armpit, so that's where I usually start. It didn't take me too long, and after glancing at the clock, I could see I had about nine minutes left. After drawing a shirt onto the girl, I reached into my pencil pouch and pulled out an H2 shading pencil. The paper began to darken as the tip of the pencil rubbed against it. I pictured where the light was coming from in my head and was able to make the wrinkles in the shirt, and the shadow from the hair, blend in perfectly. All that was left was to add the finer details, like lines in the skin or pimples. As the clock reached two minutes left, Mr. Mcvay stood up from his desk and began walking around. He glanced over our shoulders and looked at our work, judging us in his mind.

When he got around to my seat and glanced over my shoulder, he would have seen a normal girl smiling, cut from the lower torso, of course. Her arms were folded behind her back, and her long, dark hair fell down over her face, looking a bit messier than if it were to be brushed. I prefer drawing more realistic looking people but actually started by drawing anime. I watch some from time to time but haven't gotten the chance to watch any recently. A few guilty pleasure shows I have been meaning to catch up on where sitting on my phone in my anime streaming app. Mr. Mcvay nodded and walked over to Maria. I could already see what she was drawing. It was a lot more 'artistic' than mine. The person she ended up drawing consisted of colorful scribbles and bubbly dots with wavy lines and large use of green, white, and pink. I may hate her, but I can't deny she is a good artist.

"Impressive! My best students as always." He complimented the two of us and walked off back to his desk. As he started talking to the class and explaining to us where our projects where Maria glanced over at me and growled. She looked like a complete animal sometimes. I'm even tempted to draw her as one, but I'm scared to see what Maria would do if she ever found out. The rest of the class went smoothly. I continued working on my sculpting project we had been assigned last week, mine being of a small dog. We cleaned up our tools once class was nearing its end, and just as the bell rang, Mr. Mcvay called me over to his desk. I sighed slightly and slipped my arm under the strap of my backpack.

"Yes?" I asked, looking at him as everyone else left the room.

"Don't let Maria's attitude get to you, Zoey. She'll stop eventually if you ignore her."

"I try but it's hard sometimes."

"I know it is, but listen, if she does anything that makes you uncomfortable, come tell me and I can move her seat. We can do that or have a talk about it with her and hopefully get it all settled. Sound good?" He gave me a small smile.

"Sure, sounds good." I nodded, and turned to leave, only for Mr. Mcvay to speak up again, and stop me.

"Are you going to be entering the contest Zoey? I know you could do well in it."

I turned my head and looked back at him, giving him a reassuring nod, as I left the room and went to my next hour.

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