Ignatz loved art. He had loved at ever since getting his first set of markers and construction paper as a child. Whenever his parents asked him what he wanted to do, it was always to go visit the art museum, or one of the traveling art shows. He would marvel at the way someone could take life and perfectly recreate it with oil or chalk. Even more impressive was when someone took something unreal, like a dragon, and drew it so that you could be convinced that it was real. As a result, Ignatz drew every chance he got. His parents loved that about him and promised to help him save up for art school.
When Ignatz had been admitted to the Golden Deer Ward, he had been excited to hear that there were drawing supplies available in the recreation room. They wern't exactly high end materials, and Ignatz understood that. The hospital had better things to spend money on then good quality oil pastels. However, he was still disappointed in the selection; crayons, colored pencils, and markers. Not that these were bad options by any means, but there was an essential tool that was missing.
That was a pencil. More specifically a pencil with an eraser. Ignatz did not have the confidence to start drawing something without the ability to undo his mistakes. He had no idea how people whipped out fantastic drawings with a ballpoint pen. Just the anxiety around inking in your drawing before laying down the erasable guidelines was maddening. Almost as bad as the longing he felt to draw something.
Fortunately for Ignatz, the staff approved of his parents bringing him a box of pencils in a care package. He had received them yesterday, so he had been dying to finally sit down and draw. There wasn't much in the way of subject material in the mental ward, so he had asked one of the other patients if he could draw them. Leonie had been happy to agree.
So he sat down and started drawing him. Her, Ignatz reminded himself. Leonie prefered to be called a woman. He really needed to keep that in mind because Leonie had requested that Ignatz draw her looking like a woman.
Ignatz started the first line. It ended up being too long, so he erased a little bit of it. But then he erased too much, so he just rubbed out the whole line and started over. The next line was just right, but he realized that he had drawn it too close to the center of the page so he had to erase the line again. Such a shame since he had finally gotten just the right length of line.
Thankfully, the book she was reading was easy to draw. When Ignatz drew, he worked from the closest thing in the foreground to the farthest thing in the background. When he painted, he worked from the background to the foreground. That process just felt right to him.
Ignatz drew until the start of morning group. He had just finished the outline to a mostly satisfactory degree. There were still a few spots along the jaw and neckline he was fixing, but other than that he felt ready to begin the shading process. For that he would need to ask Leonie to sit for him again.
"Thanks for letting me draw you-" Ignatz stutterd.
Leonie must have assumed he was finished speaking because she said, "You're welcome. Can I see it?"
"Um… Not yet. It's not ready yet. I'm not exactly done," he rushed out.
"That's ok. Can I see how much progress you have made?"
Ignatz clutched the page close to his chest. "I don't want you to look until it's ready."
"Ok," said Leonie, sounding a little disappointed.
There was an awkward pause. "Would it be okay if I drew you again. Maybe during break after lunch."
"Sure!" said Leonie brightly. "I'm not done with my book anyways."
"Thank you, again. I'm going to go put this away now. I'll see you in group."
Ignatz rushed back to his room, carefully hiding his incomplete drawing in his pants drawer along with his pencils. Hopefully his very nosy roommate Claude would stay out of his stuff long enough for Ignatz to finish his drawing. He really didn't like it when people looked at his art before it was perfect.