#i’ve been mia for like the past four days bc i was moving my stuff into my dorm and generally just having my anxiety make itself known x3

[heartual]

heyyyyy

[uniformbravo]

time for... a story

back in 9th grade art class i had this painting assignment & i decided to do fanart for a fic i was obsessed w/ at the time and this painting was coming out so good i was literally so proud of it, i didn’t finish it in time for the due date but i took it home to finish it on my own bc i just loved it that much

my room was incredibly messy at the time, i would have these giant piles of papers & notebooks n shit all over my bed and the floor surrounding, and that’s where this painting went. which was completely fine with me because i’m an “organized mess” kind of person (i literally still remember years later exactly where the painting was in that particular mess) but my mom is distinctly the opposite so she made me clean the whole disaster eventually, and i somehow lost track of the painting

several months and multiple fruitless searches later i resigned myself to the fact that i’d probably accidentally thrown it out in my big cleanup and would never see it again (though i was still intensely confused about how i managed to lose it because i literally just had no memory of moving it, it just. straight up disappeared)

years have passed since then and every now and again i remember that painting and feel regretfully wistful (and still very confused) and wonder what happened to it and wish i could see it just one more time, because at this point i only really have a vague recollection of what was on it- a composition divided into quadrants illustrating different parts of the fic i was basing it on, a torn piece of lined paper in the center (because the fic’s title was “lined paper”), and in the top right corner this tree that i was super proud of, i remember thinking it was the best tree i’d drawn in my entire life

so honestly whenever i remember this painting i mostly think of that tree and my strong feelings towards it and that’s the main thing i’m curious about, wanting to see that damn tree again to find out what was so special about it, because like. i’m a better artist now, i’ve improved so much, if i saw it again it probably wouldn’t even be that good, right? but i think this tree in particular was the first one that i was like “hell yeah” about and influenced the way i’ve drawn trees ever since then, so like it’s a big deal right. i really miss this tree

the last time i thought about it (before right now, i mean) was actually earlier this week, on my way home from my painting class? usually painting in general reminds me of this painting because the last time i actually painted with, like, acrylics was in high school for this class, so i just have that strong association built in, so when i think of painting i think of the painting so i was thinking about that on my way home from class and feeling the regret that comes with it like man if only i could just see it again, what even happened to it, etc. etc.

anyway, my sister is working on a drawing right now, she says she suddenly got struck with inspiration and wants to hold onto it for as long as possible to finish this piece she’s working on (which is honestly very pretty, it’s a sunset scene and the colors are so soft and vibrant)

she started it the other day, and she wanted to work with colored pencils, but she couldn’t find the big box of colored pencils that we keep around for people to use, so instead she went and got out this, like... one of those big ol’ art boxes that have a myriad of random supplies like colored pencils & oil pastels & shit like that?? we’ve had this one literally forever and it’s just kind of been sitting around for most of that time, but it’s finally gotten some use because our colored pencil shoebox happens to be mia atm

this morning i noticed a notebook on the floor by the couch (my sister’s workspace) with some, like, papers sticking out? and on top of the notebook is some mail addressed to my sister, and i don’t recognize this sketchbook at all, so obviously it’s hers. from what i’ve seen in the past, her art style is is pretty... eccentric? is that the right word? lemme google this

ok that sounds meaner than i meant ghhdg uhh idk, the best way i can think of to explain it is that her people look like they’d work really well as illustrations for scary stories? there’s something almost creepy or unsettling about them, but in a good way, like i’m pretty sure she’s doing it on purpose

anyway, i bring it up because there’s this drawing sticking out of the notebook and it looks like her style because there’s this creepy-lookin dude that totally matches her types of drawings so im like “cool” and go back to what im doing

then, later, i happen to look at it again, and fuckin..... it’s the top of the page that’s sticking out. and there’s this..... tree. in the top right corner. and im like

Huh

so i pull out the drawing, which actually turns out to be a half-finished painting, and sure e-fuckin-nough it is The painting

needless to say i was losing my shit on this fine sunday morning like goddamn i haven’t seen this thing in like 7 years i thought it was gone forever and that i’d never see it again i mourned this painting so many times and here it is, literally holding it in my hands, back from the fucking dead like a zombie (which is thematically appropriate because “lined paper” was a horror story)

like, that’s why i thought it was my sister’s drawing? because it was creepy-lookin? i didn’t even recognize my own style smh. on the back there’s a little color key and i had forgotten about this but the reason it was divided into four sections was because the assignment was color harmonies! we were supposed to paint a single image but in each quadrant use different colors for different harmonies, like complementary, triadic, cool, and some other shit that im too lazy to look at but u get the picture

so after i got over being reunited with my fuckin long-lost painting i had to wonder why my sister had it, right. back in the day she used to steal our stuff, like all the time? she doesn’t do it anymore so we’re cool lol dw but like since this was so long ago i wondered if maybe she had taken it back then & just forgotten about it?

so i asked her abt it when she got home (i had to wait a few hours but honestly?? whats a few hours to several years) and she said the notebook was fuckin.... in the art box. just like. in there. this entire time it was in this goddamn shitty art supply box that nobody ever uses bc we have better art supplies around and the only reason it got pulled out of its cobweb-ridden corner of the house was because said superior art supplies were missing. so if my sister had been able to find the colored pencils i never would have found this fucking painting, we probably would have just eventually donated the box w/o checking inside & someone somewhere out there would’ve gotten this extra half-finished creepy fuckin painting w/ my name written in huge letters across the back in their new box of art supplies oh god

anyway i wasn’t gonna do this but i’d feel bad if i didn’t include a picture of the damn thing at this point so here it is

warnings for blood, gore, implied suicide imagery, & general spooky horror story type stuff

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i drew this 7 yrs ago dont judge ok

the fic itself has long since been deleted from ffn (rip) but from what i remember: it was a south park fic & focused on slenderman? i was completely new to horror & had never heard of slenderman before so the story rly spooked me lol he would like show up through any reflective surface so i was scared of mirrors for a while

i wish i could remember the significance of all the shit i included here lol i mean we got slendy in there a couple times, that much is obvious... i don’t even know what the tree is supposed to mean it’s just some random tree at this point

im p sure that’s stan & kyle in the bottom right, and that’s probably stan again in the top left? he’s like bleeding kenny’s initials tho idk why that’s happening (those are kenny’s initials right. kenneth james or smth). that’s gotta be tweek in the mirror at top middle just look at his shirt, and as for bottom left uhhh i think that’s craig?? i actually specifically remember that chapter, something about a baseball game & craig was pissed off and went off to the bathroom alone & then black tentacles happened, so that’s what’s happening in the drawing

anyway. aaanyway. that’s a fuckin mystery solved now, right. i cant believe it was in that dumbass case the whole time i stg??? thank u for listening 2 my story i spent too long on it & now it’s 2:45 am bye