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Coastal Creation

One man and a mission to paint

By Declan FlahivePublished 4 years ago 2 min read
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A large man, in a loosely fitting denim coat and black trousers, sat upon a frail wooden chair facing out to sea. Everything he wore had douses of colour flicked upon them, only his weathered sandals seemed to escape the spray of paint. In front of him stood a blank canvas on which he precisely began making small marks with a pencil trapped between the stubby fingers of his calloused hand. The canvas slowly began to portray a depiction of the sea, and its surrounding sand and cliff-faced environment. The chair sank deeper and deeper into the beaches’ sand with every stroke of granite.

A grunt of displeasure and the violent scratching of the canvas with a small rubber, to rid the marks which had strayed wayward of perfection, could be heard. Again, he reached for the rubber. Again, blood rushed to his face. Time after time the man scrubbed the canvas clean. He scrubbed the canvas with such anger that his hand and the rubber held in it looked as if it would pierce through the stretched fabric. The continual rush of blood to his head trapped his face in a constant state of crimson. It wasn’t until after the sun had moved location multiple times that he sat back in relief and admiration of his outline of the environment.

He reached into the sack, which sunk beside him, and pulled out a palette, various tubes of colour, and brushes. The brushes, like his fingernails, still had remnants of dried paint burrowed at the base of their fibres. He held his palette and began adding dabs of colour. Blues, greens, yellows, and browns went from bottle to palette and palette to canvas. The occasional mixing with black or white was carried out to capture the roaring waves and silent sky, which presented itself to the lonely figure sitting on the beach. Compared to the violent erasing of pencil lines, the man treated the canvas like a frail egg shell when applying the paint stroke by stroke. The canvas now bore multiple long and short brush strokes of colour, displaying the vicious nature of the sea. Waves cracking against large unmovable rocks. Splashes of white foam. The bellowing of the wind. The deceptively smooth appearance of the sand which darkened and lightened with the introduction and retraction of moisture from the incoming tide.

The man leaned back on his petite chair, admiring his days’ work. It was only for a sharp turn of the wind, which flung traces of sand into his face, that he did not remain transfixed in critical appreciation. He turned swiftly to his side and spat on the ground before rubbing his face with a handkerchief drawn from a pocket. He stood up and began folding up the chair on which he sat on. He picked up his belongings and loaded them into the wheelbarrow which lay dormant beside his workspace. Picking up the wheelbarrow by its two hind legs, he began manoeuvring the solo wheel through the all-encompassing granules and away from the border between sea and sand.

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