Red String

He couldn't imagine a colour he had never before seen.  That's why he did not know how to look at the "red" string beyond his monochromatic lens.

"I'm tying this string to the white tube of paint."  His mother told him.  "And this thicker one to the black.  You should be able to tell the difference, okay honey?"  She left him alone in the living room, not worrying about stains to the carpet or couch.  He was a meticulously neat person.  Moreover, the carpet could use replacing anyway.

He nodded pensively, still holding the green and purple tubes of acrylic paint.  They seemed just slightly different shades of gray.  What exactly did his mom see in these colours?  What made one more attractive than the next?

He slowly examined the rest of the tubes, squinting his eyes and turning them in his hands.  He chose one that seemed light, mentally chiding himself for not asking his mother to mark her favourite in some fashion.  He globbed a bit out onto the bit of foam he used as a palette, then swirled it around with his brush.  He scratched out a few lines onto the thin sheet draped over the easel, considered it, then continued.

It seemed most of the canvas was filled with the mild gray before he squirted some white into what was left of the paint on the foam and mixed it.  With the lighter gray he applied what technique he remembered from his mother's lessons in shading and highlighting.  He continued this process added in white and black to achieve what he hoped was appropriate lighting.

He turned at the sound of scuffing slippers.  His mom had her head tilted as she scrutinized his painting.  "Continuing the family legacy, eh?  I couldn't be more proud. "  

The painting featured trees slapped across a yard by a sagging house, all created with variations of the colour yellow.  A sun shone pure black, rays coming across as white.  It was sloppy and drippy, the colours running into each other, but improvement would come in time.

After all, he was only six.