Page 52

THIRTY-THREE

My dearest diary, please forgive me for neglecting you for so long.

It has been almost a year since I last wrote.

I have been very busy with school and traveling.

I was accepted at the Legion of Honor School, and it is much more demanding than my school last year.

We have been to London, Brussels, Monaco, and to Santorini, the most beautiful island in all of Greece.

I have been painting in all of those places, and in Paris too.

Maman and I often paint together, and because of her lessons and patience with me I have been getting a very little bit better. Oncle tells me not to be discouraged, that it takes much time and effort to become an artist and I am still very young.

I did not realize that every artist works in a different way.

Or that this does not matter as long as they create a painting they are proud of.

This is what Maman says. Her style is to look at what she is going to paint for a long time and make many sketches before she even picks up a brush.

When she does begin, she usually starts with a pencil drawing on the canvas.

Then she builds on that with watercolors or pastels or oils.

Sometimes on top of each other. She stares at the canvas she is working on and then paces back and forth before it, still staring.

It can take a long time for her to finish, but she does not care.

Oncle édouard is completely different. He hardly ever makes sketches but dives at the empty canvas with his oil paints.

Sometimes he gets all sweaty and his eyes look very strange.

But he does not stop painting. He seems like he is angry, but he says he is not.

This is his “process,” and he doesn’t want to paint any other way.

Maman is teaching me how to use pastels and I think my “process” is in the middle of the two. I like to do sketches but not as many as she does. I am impatient to paint and like diving in like Oncle does.

2 November

Winter has descended on the city without any fall.

Because I am getting taller, Maman asked Oncle to make me another easel, which he did.

It is even nicer than the first one. We have set it up in Maman’s studio so we do not have to go out in the weather to paint at Oncle’s.

It is lovely when the two of us are painting and the logs crackle in the fireplace.

5 November

Maman is working on a painting called “Jeanne Pontillon Wearing a Hat.” And that is what it is, a portrait of my cousin Jeanne with a big floppy hat.

Maman made many sketches for this when we were on holiday in Greece with Tante Edma and her family this summer.

Jeanne is very pretty and makes a good model.

The picture is already very beautiful. Maman is using colors that are not on Jeanne’s face but are somehow right.

Maybe even better than how she actually looks.

There are also many pigments in Jeanne’s hat, which in actuality was mostly colorless and made of pale straw.

On Maman’s canvas, the hat is fashioned with quick strokes of orange and green and blue, with even some black.

Some of these colors also wrap around Jeanne’s neck and swirl at the back of her head.

This makes it look like Jeanne is moving even though she is not. It also makes it very cheerful.

Maman is using pastels for the painting, and that is why she thought I should paint with her today.

As I have told you, we do this often, but today was different.

She put an empty canvas on my easel and said she wanted me to copy her painting while she was painting it.

She said this would be a good way to teach me more about pastels.

For me to watch and learn and try out what I was learning all at the same time.

Usually, there is nothing I like better than painting with Maman.

Especially because she never does this with Isabeau.

But today I did not want to try her idea because her painting is so good and mine will not be.

She reminded me of what Oncle said about how helpful mistakes can be.

Then she showed me her sketches and explained that although she had drawings of Jeanne from many different sides, she had decided on a three-quarter face.

She said this was the best angle to show who Jeanne really is.

I thought all of the sketches looked like Jeanne.

I took the sketchbook to study them more closely and found something very startling.

There were a number of pages toward the back that had drawings of men.

Men I did not know, and I suppose Maman did not either.

They were not of our circle, and their clothes were not very nice.

Also drawings of women wearing dresses the likes of which I have never seen.

The only word to describe the dresses is “naughty,” but I am not sure that is the correct term.

And there were sketches of men and women who were touching each other, some close together and laughing.

“Scandalous,” is what I thought. And I believe that is the correct word.

I did not think it was proper for Maman to paint pictures like this, although I am not sure why not.

All of Maman’s paintings are of landscapes or women and children, and these look more like the work of M. Renoir or Oncle.

There were also many drawings of Maman, and she must have used a mirror because she is staring right out at me.

A long time ago, she showed me a painting called “Self-Portrait.” In that one, she did not look pretty, as she is in real life, and I did not like it.

She is very beautiful in all of the drawings in the sketchbook, and there were some similarities to Oncle’s “Repose.” But her expression in every one of these was much more complicated, almost haunting.

It was as if she had a storm of wild emotions inside her that she was trying not to show but could not keep from showing because they were too strong to stay inside.

I glanced up and saw she was watching me.

I did not know what to say. Should I not have turned to the pages at the end?

Was she angry with me? She came over and gently touched a few of the sketches with her finger.

She had a faraway look in her eyes and a slight smile on her face. I guessed she was not angry with me.

I asked if these were hers, although I had no doubt she had drawn them.

She told me they were and said she had a favorite spot on the shore of the Seine where she liked to sketch what passed by on the river.

I wanted to ask her if she had made a painting from these, but I was a little scared.

Again, I am not sure why. It somehow felt dangerous, so I said nothing.

She must have seen the question on my face, because she kissed the top of my head. “Do not fret, my darling. I have not painted it yet. But I am hoping that someday I will be able to.”