Art is Interesting


"Here's a question," Demi started. "Why have you never done Po as an artist?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, he's a carefree person and art is about as carefree as you can get."

"Yeeaaaaahhh no," I muttered. "That would be one heck of a love story... that isn't kids friendly."

"Why?" Demi stupidly asked. I rose my eyebrow with a roll of my head and started writing.

**********FF********

Po ran at top speed, hunching the backpack over his shoulder. "Why does this campus have to be so big!" He groaned. The panda ran until he entered the large building designated Art department. The college's decor in red brick gave the two-story building an elegant look as four different Michelangelo statues stood in front of its four massive pillars. Po rushed down the hall, took a right, and slid right into the first open chair in a circle of waiting students. "Whew, made it."

"You okay, Po?" his friend next to him chuckled, "You look a little... rushed."

"Very funny Monkey. My alarm clock didn't wake me up today. Thankfully my roommate woke up a little after me." The panda pulled out a large sketchpad. "Crap, I forgot my pencils. Oh, wait, they're here."

"Po, it's okay. The teach hasn't shown up yet."

"Huh? Why?" The monkey simply shrugged. "Maybe he's carrying in something heavy this time. He made us draw a sink the last time."

"Who knows," Monkey smirked. "Maybe we'll get to do... a nude model."

"Monkey!" Po grumbled, "You're such a perv."

"Oh come on, don't be such a prude. Who knows, maybe it'll be your crush."

"SHHH! Don't say that so loudly."

Monkey rolled his eyes, "Po, everyone knows it's Tigress."

"Well, she's not the kind of person to do that. No matter how much the college pays," Po sighed. The monkey rose his eyebrow.

"You look disappointed about it."

"I am not!"

"If you two are quite done talking," Said a voice from the corner of the room, "we can begin." Monkey and Po looked at their teacher, a tall formal-looking deer with a haughty glint in his eyes. "Today, we will not be doing objects. We'll be moving on to anatomy. I trust that most of you have started sketching with your... Po are you well?"

"Huh? Yes, why?"

"You look... well... horrible," The deer said. Po looked at his wrinkled shirt and sweatpants. Nothing out of the ordinary, he always came to class like this. "I mean your eyes."

"Oh! That! Sorry Professor Arte. I didn't get that much sleep. I was working late."

"Yes, I figured," Mr. Arte said, slightly curling up the corner of his lips. "Though I admire all of your dedication to your work, please do find the time to sleep. It is one of the most essential things to any career. Now! Today we will be using a model. We'll start with female anatomy. Felines first."

"Why felines?" Asked a student.

"They are the most available on campus," Mr. Arte joked, though there was a seriousness to his tone. The students laughed anyway. They knew how hard getting stuff for art was. "Now, we will try to do head shapes first, then we'll move on from there. And a volunteer has graciously given her time for us. Everyone, please meet Ms. Tigress Fang."

"Oh no." Po watched as a beautiful yet fierce-looking tiger entered the art studio. Wearing a dark red tube top, the female tiger walked in a little skittish and sat on the stool in the middle of the circle. Po gulped. Her dark blue jeans nicely fitted her shape, and her light desert tan sandals clacked against the smooth concrete. Po couldn't snatch his eyes away from her as she stood perfectly erect to the ten students in the room. Monkey glanced at Po and smirked.

"Professor Arte, wouldn't it be better to do a nude model if we're doing anatomy?" He asked. The tiger on the stool bore her amber eyes into the furry simian as Po elbowed his friend hard in the ribs. The deer simply cleared his throat.

"We have to take this one step at a time. For you specifically Monkey, I have seen some of your work, and it could use some... major edits. That is why we are only focusing on her head for right now. Do you think you can handle that?" The deer smirked. Monkey quietly simmered while the rest of the students got to work. Poor Po couldn't focus. He struggled to get the forms and sketching right without either looking at Tigress for too long or rushing through his gestures. When Professor Arte looked over his shoulder, the deer rose his eyebrow. "Po, is something wrong? You're shaking a lot," He whispered.

"How can you tell?" Po whispered back.

"I know when you are calm and when you are anxious. It shows up in your drawings."

"Aww man! Do I have to redo the whole thing?"

"No, no. Right now, we are just trying to get the form, but something else seems to be bothering you."

Po remained silent and redoubled his efforts to focus. While he kept drawing, he didn't notice Mr. Arte putting a TV to the side. Po focused on his side sketch; he was facing the side of Tigress's face. For the most part, there wasn't a problem, until Po got to the eyes. He looked up and saw Tigress's gaze shifting.

"Uh... Ms. Fang?" said one of the students, "Could you not moving your eyes so much?"

"Sorry," She replied. Suddenly, the TV made sense. Mr. Arte was trying to keep her eyes in one place.

But why was she looking to her side all the time? Po couldn't figure it out, and the class was soon ending. "Excellent, we will continue to practice with this," Professor Arte said. "Some of you are still putting detail before form. For others, the opposite is true. Either way, Ms. Fang will be attending more of our sessions." The tiger nodded and got off the stool. "Everyone is dismissed. Po, could I... see you for a moment?"

"Ooooh, you're in trouble."

"Monkey, shut up," Po muttered as the simian walked away. Tigress was getting her things while Arte and Po talked. "Is everything okay, Professor?"

"I was just going to ask you that. You seemed distracted," the deer said. "Are you sure that-"

"I'm fine, really. It's just..." He glimsped at Tigress. "I'm just... having a hard time drawing what I see, you know. It's just a little... difficult."

"Yes, but I have seen your other profiles and they seem very realistic. Why is a live model harder?"

"I... I don't know, Professor. It's just... I guess I'm a little tired."

"I see." The deer hummed for a moment and then smiled. "Well, if you are having trouble with a live model, I'm sure that Tigress would love to give you more practice in her spare time."

"What?!" Tigress and Po exclaimed.

"Uh... No, no, no, no. That's not really necessary. I'll find a way around it," Po replied.

"And I'm busy other times in the day, Professor Arte," Tigress added.

"Yes, but I'm sure you two can find a way around it," Arte smiled. "You need the extra service hours, Ms. Fang and you need the practice, Po. In a way, you two need each other. If it is felines that you are having this issue with, we will figure out from there, but we need to get the basics down." Po and Tigress looked at each other.

"I... do have some time after 6, if you're willing."

"Uh... sure, sure!" Po replied. "I'll uh... I'll text you?" Tigress nodded and swiftly left the studio. "Professor Arte, why did you do that?"

"Because you like Tigress."

"I... Wait! So you're just being a matchmaker?"

The deer chuckled, "Though that is a... shrouded pleasure of mine, this is something you need to do, Po. There are many times when you are going to do art that requires you to isolate your skill from your feelings. Sometimes, you have to make art that scares you in order to grow."

Po drug his fingers down his face, "Ugh!"

"I'm sure that you and Ms. Fang will get along swimmingly."

As time moved on, Po's mind wandered constantly to the feline. Tracing and practicing in the department's study lab, he couldn't focus on simple lines. "What am I gonna do? Ugh, Arte's right. I have to separate the feels from the skills. Heh, that's catchy."

"Excuse me?"

"DAHH!" Po's pencil flew into the air and smacked him on the head. "Oww."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, Po," Said the familiar feline.

"HEheheh, I uh... yeah, it's fine. I was just... working out some... kinks," Po smiled as he scratched the back of his head. "So, uh... wait, why are you here?"

"To... help you with your work?"

"Right! Right, I just... thought that you'd call and-"

"Is today not a good time?"

"No, no, no, no I mean, yes, but... ugh! I can draw you now," Po muttered defeated. Tigress gave a short nod and sat down at the table.

"Is it okay if I do my physics homework while you work?"

"Of course, yes." And then entered the awkward silence that sent Po's heart racing. He forced his hand to sketch and shape the lines of the beauty in front of him. His hand trembled, and he kept erasing his mistakes. When he finally got a new parchment of paper, his hand froze and wouldn't move. "Grr, this isn't working."

"Are you okay, Po?"

"Huh? Oh! Yeah, yeah. It's just... hard for me to focus, that's all."

Tigress put her books aside and faced him, sending a warm flush into the panda's chest. "Maybe talking about it will help?"

"Uh... maybe," Po said.

"So, what is bothering you?" She folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. Her face was somewhere between curious and concerned, but Po wasn't the best at figuring out facial expressions, especially female expressions. Sighing, the panda put his pencil down.

"I guess it's just stress."

"That's vague and common."

"But it still sucks."

"What's causing the stress?"

"Uhh... just... uhh... feelings and stuff... my mind is... kinda loose... I mean spaced out."

Tigress rose an eyebrow. "Exactly what are you spacing out about?" The panda grimaced with a nervous laugh. He looked around the small room for a way out. There wasn't anyone for him to even say hi to in a desperate attempt to swerve the conversation. Just the desk manager sleeping in the corner. "Is it something I'm doing?" Tigress asked.

"No! No, no. It's just... I've been having some problems with my work and... other personal things."

Widening her eyes, Tigress rose her head and leaned back into the chair. "You're in love."

"No! No, just... a crush. Nothing more."

"Why are you ashamed about it?"

"I'm not ashamed. I'm just... scared. And...it's affecting my drawing like a rock on my hand," Po sighed, "Arte said I needed to learn profiles and learn to separate my feelings from my skills." The panda hung his head, gazing at the blank piece of paper.

"Would this help?" Po looked up and saw Tigress grinning...sort of. She held a laminated paper cut out of her face on a stick in front of her.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm helping," Tigress said, "Maybe instead of thinking of me as a real person, just think of me as one of the objects that you draw all the time." Po chuckled a bit.

"I still need an angled side of you, though."

"We'll get to that later. Just draw this for now," Tigress said. Po shrugged. It was worth a shot. The panda effortlessly drew the cut-out face with surprising detail.

"Where did you get that anyway?" Po asked.

"My roommate used this to try and scare me one time," Tigress sighed annoyed, "She wasn't expecting me to punch her, though."

"Ouch."

"I said sorry."

"And you kept the mask?"

"Of course, it even has a little bit of her lipstick on it when I punched her. See?"

"Hahaha!" Po laughed as he completed the sketch. "Done."

"That was fast."

"I draw a lot better when I'm not stressed," Po smiled, "But I didn't think you would have this much fun with it."

"Why?" Tigress asked.

"Well, it's just... from what I've seen you do, you don't seem like the... party type," Po gulped.

"Do I need to be?"

"No, no, it's just-"

"Not everyone has fun the same way, Po," Tigress smirked, "Just like not everyone draws the same way."

"Oh... OHHHH! Haha, I guess you're right," Po smiled. He flipped the sketchpad's page and started with a fresh one. "Alright now for the angled side."

"Are you going to be okay with having my real face?"

"Yeah, I think so," Po said, "Just don't say anything to make me laugh. I don't want to mess up."

Tigress smirked, "No promises."

"By the way, what made you want to model for us?"

Tigress rolled her eyes as she brought out the next set of books in her bag, "Arte had flyers about being paid to be a model. He said it would fulfill the service credit I needed."

"Being paid and getting credit. Right. So this is the last time you'll do it?"

"No, but I am NOT doing any nude modeling," Tigress growled.

"Right, right, right. Sorry about my friend Monkey. He's a little-"

"Perverted?"

"I was going to say annoying, but that fits too," Po smiled. The tiger smiled back as Po finished his sketching. "Alright, that'll do. Thanks, I really needed this."

"Anytime. I'll see you in Arte's class?"

"Sure," Po said with a goofy grin.

Over the weeks, Po found himself at ease with Tigress more and more and asked for her help personally outside of class. His drawings improved, he messed up less, and to top it off, he got to be friends with his crush! Before this, Tigress and Po only knew each other because they took a music class together as a general requirement. Now acquaintances became friends until the time came when Tigress didn't show up for class.

And for a good reason.

"Now," Professor Arte said to his class, "We will be drawing full-body anatomy. You all have been able to do the parts separately. Now it is time to piece them together." He unveiled a feline statue made from marble. Though Po wasn't really surprised, he still asked,

"Uh... what happened to our model?"

The deer cleared his throat, "This particular kind of drawing is best... imitated through statues, not people. For now, Ms. Fang's services are no longer required."

"What's the matter, Po?" Monkey cheesily grinned. "Missing your-"

"Just draw before I rip your canvas apart," Po grunted sadly. The monkey wisely clammed up. Though Po finished his sketch, he still thought about Tigress. As the class ended, the panda walked sadly into the art lab alone. After the modeling, it wasn't likely that Tigress would hike all the way over to the art department for nothing. She was still busy with her own degree and stuff.

"Still," Po muttered, "It was nice while it lasted."

"Hey, Po."

"Tigress?!" The panda popped his head off the table. "What are you doing here?"

Tigress tilted her head but still smiled. "Was I not supposed to be?"

"I was just... you weren't doing the modeling anymore so..."

"That doesn't mean we can't hang out. Plus, this lab is quieter than the physics library."

"Ahh, that makes more sense," Po sighed.

"So how was class?"

"Great, we were doing full-body anatomy. This is the feline statue we had to draw." He showed the intricate picture he made. "Not as beautiful as the original but..." Po trailed off. Did he really just say that? Tigress's eyes widened but she smiled warmly.

"Thank you, Po."

"Hehe, yeah, you're welcome," Po recovered. "It's okay, I guess. I just wish I had a better model."

"How come?"

"Well, it's... it's just stone statues tend to have some features missing that real people have: eyes, hair, clothing, textures. It's really good to start from the bottom up to help artists understand how the body moves WITH the clothing."

"So the less the better?"

"And that's why we usually do nude drawings. Statues are good, but people are much better," Po said, putting the picture back. "But anyway, that's what my art is looking like. How have you been?" Tigress didn't answer. She just tapped her pencil against her lips. "Tigress?"

"Huh, uh no. I mean, I've been fine." Tigress replied. "Out of curiosity, what time is the art studio open?"

"Uh... from 6-11, why?" Tigress tapped harder on her lips.

"I... I have an idea to help you. Why don't you come to the art studio around... nine, okay?"

"But... no one's in the building around that time."

"I know, but I promise this might help both of us," Tigress eagerly smiled. Po narrowed his eyes and examined her smile. It wasn't like her normal confident smile. It shook and grinned a little too wide. "So, what do you think?"

"...sure."

"Great, I'll see you then," Tigress said, leaving the art lab without even saying goodbye.

Around nine, the last student left the building, and Po was alone right outside the art studio, waiting for Tigress. The art studio had two entrances, so it wasn't surprising when Tigress popped her head out of the studio to call Po in. "You came in the back way?" Po asked. "Why?"

"Uh... well... you said you needed a live model... sooooo." Po followed the tiger into the dimly lit art studio. "You have access here right?"

"Uh... yeah, perks of being the TA."

"Could you close and lock the door?"

"Uh... sure." Po did so, "Hey, Tigress, is there a reason why you're being... TIGRESS!" The panda dropped everything in his hands as his cheeks reddened brightly. There Tigress stood, folding her arms, glancing away with a bright scarlet bikini outfit. She had quickly discarded the baggy sweatpants and sweater when she entered the building. Po's nose threatened to bleed. "Tigress, what are you doing half-naked!"

"SHhhh, Po! I don't want the whole building to hear!" The tiger drew a breath. "I... I wanted to help you with your art and... I thought this would be a nice idea."

"Tigress, there are other ways of doing this. Why would you want to-"

"Because I want to know if you care about me." The room echoed with her words. Po stared blankly at the tiger's amber eyes.

"Wh... what?"

Tigress sighed, "I... I didn't take up Arte's offer only to get service credit or money. I... when Monkey told me that he was looking for models in your class... I thought it was the best way to... see if you were interested in me."

"Interested in... huh?"

Tigress rolled her eyes. "Po, I like you. A lot. And... I didn't know if you liked me back... and you wouldn't make your move so," she paused to take a breath, "I decided to make it for you." The panda stood silent. "Well?" She asked impatiently. The cool ground started getting to her bare feet. Po blinked away his confusion and said,

"I... I do care about you. I just... didn't think you'd care about me. I'm just... really a nerdy art student with confidence issues." His nervous grin made her smile.

"Which is something I admire," She drew closer to him. "So... what does this mean?"

"What does it mean?" Po blinked.

"Do you want to be more than just... acquaintances?"

"I'd like to be boyfriend/girlfriend, but if you just want to be more than acquaintances-"

"Po."

The panda laughed, "I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. Yeah, I think I'd like that." Tigress's smile widened. "Uh... so... are we still doing the... uh... modeling?"

The tiger curled her lips, "We could. Unless you want me to... reveal more?"

The panda's face turned bright red. He scratched the back of his head, stumbling for words. "Uh ummm. What I mean is... Uh... I would uh... that's is if... um..."

"Po?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up and start drawing," Tigress smirked.

"Will do," Po quickly replied. "And then... maybe... when it's uh... more private we could do uh... other... stuff?"

The mischievous cat grinned. "We'll see."

*******F*********

"Okay, okay! I get it," Demi yelled. "You just had to say it wouldn't be appropriate."

"Where's the fun in that?" I smiled.

The end