"So why are you here?" The kindly old man asked the group of teenagers, hoping that may be they were here for some of the right reasons.
"Father and mother hope that I'll get better at design." Adrien muttered, glumly, feeling like the outcast of the whole group already. He'd felt like such the instant that he arrived, and even when his mother told him that he'd be here for a little more than a week. 'Just to practice,' she'd call it, and Adrien was sure that he was going to dread that word, 'practice.'
"I'm a fan of street art." A girl exclaimed, and Adrien wondered if that meant that just the look in her eyes and the smile on her face were dangerous. She kind of looked the part too though he wasn't quite sure if there was a look for a street artist.
"I'm here for the makeup lessons." Grumbled a familiar voice, and something about that made Adrien wonder just how Chloe had been convinced to be here. The girl by her side looked extremely excited.
"Me too. I also want to learn a little more about fashion." Sabrina looked really happy about all that, and Adrien wondered if it was her idea and somehow Chloe had gotten roped into the whole thing.
"I write songs." Peeped up a girl with short blond hair, "I thought that camp would be fun."
"I just write." Grumbled a girl by her side who looked almost like her complete opposite and yet couldn't be since the girls stood close to each other.
"Juleka, you write so well. It's so pretty, all of it." Chirped the blond, and the man running the camp sent a kind smile their way.
"It really is to bring out your best talents." He agreed.
"I'm a reporter to be, so I do a bit of writing and research and recording." A girl spoke up, standing close to what was likely a good friend of hers.
"I'm into fashion design." The girl beside her spoke up, and Adrien wondered if that would mean that he'd spend a lot of time around her, learning the ropes from her since they clearly hadn't sunk in over the years with his father.
"I'm a DJ and a film maker." A boy not far from the girls spoke up, grinning over at the the camp leader.
"I draw comic type characters among a few other things." A boy with reddish orange hair spoke up though there was a hint of a blush to his face as if he was a little shy or a little embarrassed.
"I write." A dark haired boy spoke up, "It's nothing much, but we thought it might help to get a little practice and make new friends." His voice grew soft at the last part.
"I write songs too." A bigger man spoke up.
A girl with rainbow colored hair beside him spoke up after him, "I act, a little bit."
"I make robots. I heard that you'd even accept robotics, right?" A boy with glasses answered the question.
"I play guitar, and I've been trying to write some of my own songs for it." A boy with varying shades of blue hair finally answered.
"I thought I'd try it out." Muttered a taller boy rather glumly, "Alix was going so..." He trailed off, and the pink haired girl that liked street art shook her head at him.
"Kim and I like to one up each other." She explained easily, "He's not an artist though. He'll probably try to learn some street art techniques or something." 'Alix' shrugged.
"We'll be trying a little bit of everything and learning our strengths as we go. It should come in handy for Kim to learn a few different kinds of art and even for Adrien to." The leader explained, "For today though, stick with the group that is doing your type of art and practice just for a bit. If you want prompts, I can go get you some, but today should be just a settling in day, an easy day for you." He moved to the edge of the room, and Adrien found himself walking towards the fashion designer to be.
Their instructors as well as the challenges that they'd have would start tomorrow, but Adrien just really hoped that he didn't make a fool out of himself with his lack of experience in any art field. May be he'd sneak into the writing group later on as he might be able to do that at least though he wasn't sure that he was any good at that either.
"Adrikins!" Chloe exclaimed as she latched herself onto him, "Did someone just try to convince you that this was a good idea and drop you off here too? It's going to be dreadful! How am I ever going to make it through, and they are telling me that I'm supposed to stay here the whole time, and my daddy and my mommy won't even take me home after today. I'm going to go into law, not 'art.'" She finally ended her speech, and Adrien wondered if somehow he'd ended up more tired from all of this than he had to be.
"May be it will be good for you." The journalist grumbled as she walked away, "I'll see you later, Marinette. Still rooming together?"
"Of course." The fashion designer smiled at the other girl as she turned back to the group, "So should we start with what we know then?"
Chloe huffed, "I've never made my own clothes before. Don't expect me to start now."
"I've only tried to learn how to sew a few times before." Adrien muttered as he realized that he'd probably look pitiful with a sewing needle despite his parents packing that and a few other supplies for him to use here.
"I've always wanted to learn." Sabrina admitted, "I just never could find lessons."
"I'll help you out then." Marinette admitted as she sat down and shown them how to hold the needle and a few basic ways to sew. "It might give you just a little bit of practice before everything starts up a lot harder tomorrow."
"Should I trust a baker's daughter when she tells me how to hold a needle?" Chloe complained as she tried to hold a needle that Marinette had lent her and Sabrina to use for practice for today.
"You can." Marinette muttered, "I don't only know how to bake."
"Could have surprised me." Chloe grumbled yet again, "What are those rags you're wearing?"
Marinette chose to ignore her as she focused on helping Sabrina out with perfecting one of the techniques that she'd shown her.
"Chloe, please just try to be happy." Sabrina murmured, "We get to spend all this time together and really get to learn about the fashion industry." She gushed, "I wonder who the instructors will be."
Marinette smiled back at her, "I can't wait either."
The next day's class managed to seem way more intense than Marinette's mini-lesson had been though Chloe and Sabrina had both left for makeup and weren't in it, much to Marinette's relief which Adrien tried not to pay too much attention to. He was supposed to be a good friend for Chloe anyway though he could understand quite well why she was relieved to not share the day with his childhood best friend.
Adrien was immensely grateful for Marinette's mini-lesson yesterday, and her patient support today. She would pause almost as often as the instructor if not more than she did, to double check how far Adrien was and if he needed any extra help or further guidance.
While embarrassment seemed to cling to him and the difficulty of the class seemed way beyond him, Marinette and the instructor both encouraged him and made it just a little bit easier to feel motivated enough to push himself and try to figure this out.
The first half of the day's class was simply on how to sew, including more than a few different ways of how to do so according to the project, such as repairing something or creating something brand new and how each different technique yielded a different looking stitch and where to use different kinds of stitches and how they looked. The instructor had even went over how to use a machine versus hand sewing and had them complete a series of projects from small, stuffed animals to fixing pillow cases and blankets.
Adrien had struggled more than he wanted to admit with all of that, but when they remet up for class after lunch, he found his worst obstacle yet as the instructor brought them through the basics of designing, and there was only so much help he could get with that.
They were given a few different tasks of what to design as far as type of clothing and a prompt to work with. The instructor would give them suggestions of ways to improve their designs that could be followed if proved to be useful or just acknowledged or tips like try to be mindful of this or that because it will weigh down the wearer.
Adrien felt more than a little bad that he was often asking how well his design was turning out and for advice. It went from overly simply to may be just a little bit tacky though he was positive, way more than positive actually, that if his father saw it, he'd give the business to someone else or just have Adrien run the business side with a very talented fashion designer actually handling the fashion related parts.
Neither the instructor or Marinette were rude about it, and Adrien figured that that was a good thing as any more embarrassment might just make him crumble or melt into a big pile of disappointed goo. He'd try his best for his father's sake and for the sake of the two coaching and motivating him here, but he was half positive that he'd get nowhere.
The next day was a writing focused day, and so they were encouraged to explore what kind of medium writing was and how to actually do so. It started off with a basic exercise of write whatever comes to mind and see where it takes you in which they were asked a series of questions after writing about the characters or the plot or other basic questions that felt at times easy to answer and yet still managed to stump Adrien more than he was happy to know.
He'd learned the Marc was the black haired kid that admitted that he wrote, and that he wrote very well as well as was very shy and humble over that fact. Later in the lesson, Marc scooted closer to help Adrien out with fixing up some sentences for a writing assignment with a prompt and giving gentle advice and inquiries.
"So what do you want him to do?" Marc asked as he looked up at him with bright green eyes, "You don't want him standing around and doing nothing here as it would sound a little flat, not that he's a bad character or anything. He's great. It's just that..." He trailed off, and Adrien wasn't sure if his writing was that bad or if he'd literally just met the kindest and most helpful person ever.
"I thought may be he'd try to call for help or something, but may be it doesn't come right away, and he has to do something, but I'm not sure what." Adrien truly was stumped.
"Okay, is his phone broken?" Marc asked with a small smile as he slowly calmed down and tried to relax now.
"No, the service is bad, and his phone is dying." Adrien admitted.
"Is the fight going to be bad?" He asked, "Like really violent or bloody or something, I mean." Marc was quick to clarify.
"Not too bad, but when he steps in..." Adrien went on.
"It gets worse?" Marc asked, "So they get angrier then?" His smile grew wider and so, so gentle, and Adrien wasn't sure if writers normally discussed scene progression or plot, but he kind of liked this as he wrote out another sentence for his story with Marc asking questions every now and again to keep the inspiration building and going and making Adrien think through every character's choice and mindset.
It really did help though Adrien was blown away by the talent of sone of the other writers in the class, especially hearing how quickly Rose's story turned with suspense and went darker and darker still in a kind of mind altering way. Adrien wasn't sure if her story was supposed to go there, but he wasn't going to ask.
Juleka's really stunned him with how beautiful and well thought out each word seemed as the story continued on and on before eventually ending as a beautiful almost gothic love story finished up. She even managed to find a way to speak the words out loud and have it all flow together so beautifully.
Alya's included just enough foreshadowing and detail that Adrien felt like she'd planned it for weeks, and Adrien wasn't even through talking about how talented and different every story seemed. Some felt kind of like songs but much, much longer and others felt a little more poetic.
Adrien hadn't realized just how many different directions or styles that different writers could have, but from what he'd read and heard so far, he was stunned.
The next assigment involved writing poetry, and Adrien wasn't too terrible at that. He didn't need a plot unless it was narrative. He wasn't perfect by any means, but he only knew how to write love poems. Just, he didn't have anyone that he was sure that he liked like that yet, so he kept some of the details vague or scarce to avoid questions that he couldn't answer.
Juleka's felt deep and personal as if she were writing the very words enscribed on her soul, and Adrien knew that he wasn't the only one with wet eyes in the room. You could feel it in the air though Juleka quietly accepted the silence without saying another word.
Rose's words felt like a rock song, and Adrien wondered vaguely if those were the kinds of words that she wrote. Luka's definitely felt a little more rock song based or alternative, and Ivan's felt rock song based.
Nino's words were romantic though sounded like it was supposed to be something other than a poem, and Alya's poem was very straight to the point. Marinette described a design as far as fashion went.
Chloe's was probably worse than Adrien's was, but no one said an ill word about anyone's poem as they were given the next assignment to write a song.
It went about as well with a few people that were obviously more experienced doing the best, but everyone else trying their hardest at this new style of writing. Adrien just wasn't sure anymore if writing was just hard or if he'd failed at finding a creative field to call his own.
The next day, Adrien found himself learning how to draw first thing. Nathanael paused in a drawing to help him out as he carefully guided Adrien through drawing a person which really wasn't easy.
"Thank you." Adrien muttered, and he wondered how his drawings tended to look ten times worse than Nathanael's stunning, comic book inspired drawings did at the very least.
"It was no problem to help you out." Nathanael told him and then Adrien watched as Nathanael reached over to help Marc out too. "Here draw that like this. Try to make that line a little straighter like this or at least make it look straighter."
His hand gently rested over Marc's as he carefully instructed the other boy over how to draw whatever he was drawing. "There, all better, right?" Nathanael spoke up, and Adrien found himself smiling as he watched how much more excited Marc looked at the gentle help.
"It looks a lot better. Thank you." Marc told him with a bright grin as he looked down at his drawing, "What does yours look like?"
"It's not done yet, but..." Nathanael shown him.
"It's great so far." Marc admitted, and somehow seemed even more humble.
Adrien turned his own attention back to his artwork in order to hopefully draw something halfway decent and not end up distracting Nathanael and tearing him away from his art.
After a few too many frustrated times erasing the same wobbly line from his page, he drew the attention of someone else.
"Need any help?" Marinette moved closer, "I could help you draw the clothes if you want me too. I'm almost done with my drawing."
"That would help a lot." Adrien admitted, and he wondered how someone could be nearly as kind as Marinette was. It was incredible how much she didn't mind helping someone else out, and how happy she was to do so.
Just Adrien was ready for drawing to be over, so that they could get ready for the next day of exploring a different type of creative field or just the next activity.
The day wasn't over as they decided to do street art next, and Adrien actually discovered with a little help from the instructor and Alix that he liked it. He wasn't super great at it or anything or anywhere near the level that Alix was at, but they encouraged him to not think over how museum like it looked, but to focus on just moving with whatever comes to mind and letting the stress melt away.
Adrien was smiling and enjoying the project for the rest of the time, and he could help how excited it made him finally through camp.
The next day was robotics, and once Max and the instructor started helping the class with building the robots, Adrien was able to quickly come to understand the math and science of it. He wasn't perfect by any means, and he definitely understood the creativity of it, but the science and math were simple enough for him to follow.
Physics was still his favorite subject over robotics, but he didn't mind in the least when he finished his robot quicker though not the prettiest looking one of them all and that he finally got a chance to repay the favor by helping Marinette out.
Marinette gave him a thankful smile and just kept on thanking him and looking so, so happy. Adrien didn't notice until much later that something had shifted between them and ended up a little different than before, but at the very least, she didn't become distant with him at all.
With every day, Adrien grew just a little bit closer to everyone at the art camp for a little bit of their Summer, and he may have discovered a messy new passion of his that his father and mother probably wouldn't like instead of becoming a fashion designer.
"Father, can I paint my room?" Adrien asked.
"Sure." Was his answer, and with that, Adrien's parents got way more than they bargained for as Adrien ended up spray painting his room with a few cans of different colored spray paint that Alix had gifted him before he left from camp as long as he promised to stay in touch.
He'd make sure that he stayed in touch with everyone from camp, because with every new project, he'd gotten just a little bit closer to all of them. When Adrien ended up grounded for making a mess of his room, he couldn't find it in himself to be completely upset or guilty about it as he kind of wanted to keep on spray painting, just figuring out where he could do so without getting in huge trouble would become a big problem of his.
