//------------------------------// // Je vois la vie en rose bonbon. // Story: Outlet. // by Reptilicus //------------------------------// Quite a few paintings had been brought out from the cellar of Sweet Apple Acres. The ones Applejack was fine with parting with, which there were many. They sat on easels and boards out on the grassy lawn. Close enough where observers from the road could see them but not so close where it seemed like they were being 'shown off' in any way. It was all an experiment set up by Rarity. If random ponies on the road decided they liked what they saw, then she could try to calculate how much interest she might be able to generate at an actual gallery or art show for Applejack's work. The artist of the pieces herself was currently sitting behind a tree, trying to put a bit of distance between herself and the art. She'd been ok with having a couple of her friends suddenly seeing her art, once her temper had subsided. But having most of it sitting out, exposed in the sun, on the lawn, where everyone could see it? She quickly found herself out of her comfort zone once again. At the moment Applejack was leaning against an apple tree, chewing idly on a piece of hay with her hat pulled over her eyes. She hoped with enough luck, if she pretended to nap hard enough she might actually fall asleep and wake up long after Rarity's experiment had ended. A few of her closest friends were on the farm as well, helping pull some of the canvases out from the basement, despite Applejack's initial objections. They stood idly around on the lawn, looking over the collection. "Why do I look like a colorful fireball in this one, AJ?" Rainbow Dash asked. A young athletic daredevil pegasus with a shocking tuft of messy rainbow hair for a mane. "Cause that's what ya look like when your flyin' around at high speed, RD." Applejack didn't move from her spot at the tree. She wasn't going to get involved in this experiment. "Is this one of Rarity? Whoa she looks awesome in this one. Like some sort of supermodel or somethin' oh and her cat is painted in her mane. That is so cool!" Rainbow was fluttering around gazing at each piece, commenting loudly as her powerful blue wings gushed air around the lawn. "Well clearly Applejack has an appreciation for beauty." Rarity quipped as she leaned another painting against the wooden wall of the barn. Applejack blushed slightly and pulled her hat farther down her face, glad the tree was covering the majority of her body as she lay. "Haha, Pinkie looks like an explosion of swirly pink and white things in this one!" "Well, to me, I think Applejack was trying to show Pinkie's sort of energetic personality in this portrait." Twilight observed, tilting her head slightly to study the piece. "That or maybe she was trying to show how Pinkie's hair reminds us all of cotton candy. Then again Pinkie is sort of sad-looking in this piece. Maybe this is a study on the juxtaposition of Pinkie's outer personality and her somewhat somber inner-thoughts we sometimes see her display in moments of uncertainty? I'm not sure. What is it, Applejack?" "It's a paintin', Twi." Applejack grunted from behind the tree. Rarity stifled a chuckle at the flat response. "Is this... one of me?" Fluttershy asked, gazing at a piece. It featured a vortex of butterflies and moths spinning into a tornado of warm colors that made up a vague form that looked delicately like the yellow mare who was observing it. "Are the pink caterpillars meant to be my mane?" "Yeah, I guess." came the response from the tree. "And the blue flowers are meant to look like yer eyeballs." "OH! I see it now. That's cool it's like a painting hidden in another painting." Rainbow hovered behind Fluttershy looking over her shoulder. "I think your tail is this bunch of vines in the corner." "Here's one of you, Twilight." Pinkie chirped, flopping a painting somewhat clumsily onto the grass. "You have stars in your eyes in this one. And you are shooting outer space out of your eyes into some big cloud." "Oh wow." Twilight said as she trotted over. "This is beautiful, Applejack. You even remembered to put my favorite constellation in this one! Thank you." "Yep." Applejack tried again to sound disinterested, although the compliments were tempting her to extract herself from her hiding spot. That feeling of pride was starting to overcome the embarrassment at all the attention she was receiving. "I wonder what kind of things I would shoot out of my eyes!" Pinkie asked, as she studied the painting of Twilight Sparkle, her pink tail waggling happily. "Considering your diet, you'd probably fire beams of pure diabetes, Pinks." Rainbow laughed loudly at her comment as Pinkie looked confused and Twilight rolled her eyes. Fluttershy pranced quietly up to the tree that Applejack was using as a shield from all the attention. She leaned down and nuzzled her friend's shoulder with her stubby snout. "Thank you for painting me, Applejack. Your art is very lovely." "Uh, yeah." Applejack wiggled away from the affection a bit, feeling another blush coming on. "You're welcome, Fluttershy. Glad y'all like it." "Could I, um....keep the painting?" "Well sure of course ya can." "How much is it?" "Pffffftttt. I ain't chargin' mah friends for them things." "Oh thank you!" said Fluttershy happily, nuzzling Applejack once more before she extended her wings and glided back to the others. "Hey what's this thing supposed to be?" Rainbow asked, gazing at a rather tall canvas, displaying what seemed like, to her, a strange colorful stalactite. "It's Sugarcube Corner!" Pinkie squealed happily, recognizing her house instantly. She skipped joyfully around the canvas in the grass. "How the heck is that Sugarcube Corner?" "You're looking at it upside down, silly!" Rainbow flipped herself over in midair with the kind of expertise only a pegasus could. "OH! Yeah there it is." Applejack laughed loudly from behind the tree. Despite her initial protest this little art show on the lawn was proving to be very entertaining. With a final small sigh, she came to the decision that ignoring her friends and the warm sun on this particularly beautiful day for the sake of not talking about her art was probably just going to leave her bored and miserable. A quiet "ptoo" came from the tree as Applejack spat out the hay she'd been chewing on and flopped over onto her side, rising onto her hooves and sauntering over to where her friends were. Rarity beamed, glad that her talented companion in this escapade was finally getting involved. "So you guys really like this stuff, huh?" Applejack asked as she trotted to the rest of the group. "Heck yeah! I wanna keep this fireball one!" Rainbow announced, picking it up and threatening to fly off with it before anyone told her if it was ok or not. "They are really really pretty, AJ. I bet Mr. and Mrs.Cake would love portraits done of them and the twins for the bakery. Would you wanna? Huh?" Pinkie danced merrily in place, overcome with excitement. "The mayor said she was looking for someone to paint a mural on the town hall the other day. She wanted it to depict Ponyville throughout the decades. I bet you would be great at it, Applejack! That is, um, if you wanted to." Fluttershy whispered, her cheeks going pink as she hid her face behind her colossal mane that resembled the leaves of a weeping willow. "Zecora and I were making a glossary of various creatures from around Equestria. But obviously getting photos of each one puts us in a bit of quandary as neither of us are good photographers, and the few good affordable ones wouldn't dare go near some of the wild beasts we'd want in the book. We were thinking of perhaps simply having a pony illustrate some of the creatures for the book in place of photos so nobody has to be in danger. Applejack I know this is rather sudden, but would you be interested in helping us out? We could just describe the monster to you and you would just need to scribble it with a bit of color." Twilight stepped eagerly toward her friend, a gleam of anticipation in her eye. All these sudden requests were a bit much for the orange earth mare who grimaced slightly and shrank under their gazes a bit. She wasn't sure she wanted to do ANY of the things they wanted, but at the same time didn't want to disappoint them. She couldn't make up an excuse either. Being the Element of Honesty meant she was a rather terrible liar. Luckily, Rarity seemed to notice the discomfort surrounding the conversation. "Uh...well er ya see. I ain't...erm." Applejack stuttered, unsure of how to approach these new subjects. "GIRLS! Please." Rarity began, stepping between the eager ponies and Applejack. "Can't you see you're making the poor dear uncomfortable? She's been hiding these beautiful things for some time for a reason, and I'm sure you're not helping the case. If she decides she wants do commissions I'm sure she'll let us know." "Thanks, Rare." Applejack said, silently thinking of a way she could thank Rarity from rescuing her from this situation. "How long have you been making these?" Fluttershy asked quietly, trying to change the subject. "Since I was a bit younger than Applebloom I guess." Applejack replied, "Granny taught me how to make dyes n' pigments and such out of plants and clay and things." "Could you teach me how to...um...paint?" "Well shoot, Fluttershy, I don't even know how I'd start. I ain't even sure how I make these. Never considered myself an artist. Didn't ever really practice or nothin' just kinda came to me naturally. I don't think I could teach anyone anything they didn't already know, unless o' course it was about farmin' and apples." "How did you make these anyway, AJ?" Rainbow asked, suddenly curious about the process. "Well....depends on what's convenient at the moment I 'spose. Sometimes I just dip some hay into the paint and use it like a brush. Sometimes I just use a brush if'n I can find one. If I can't find neither I sometimes just use my hooves to sorta....I dunno I guess squish the paint around on the canvas." "The canvases look pretty...homemade is the word I should probably use. Did you make them as well, Applejack?" Twilight said, joining the conversation. "Ha, oh them! Well back when Granny used to paint she'd just take some old flax from our cousins up north, and press it flat and bleach it in the sun. She taught me how. Figured it was better than spendin bits on it. Felt nicer to make it mahself. Cousins were ok with givin' me the fibers since I guess it ain't a very good crop these days." Applejack grinned winningly. She didn't mind discussing the more technical side of how these pieces came to be. It was a lot more interesting than trying to listen to all the higgeldy-piggeldy nonsense of what the paintings were meant to 'represent' or whatever. Rainbow flew over the small pile of art on the lawn. "I like how some of these are just like colorful smears that look like something, but others are really detailed like the ones of ponies you know. Speakin' of there's like twice as much detail in this one of Rarity than any of the other portraits of your friends." "ANYWAY!" Applejack shouted, coughing loudly and trying to hide under her hat. "Uh, Rarity how do we know if this here experiment of yers is a success?" "Well take a look over there, darling." Rarity replied, pointing a perfectly manicured hoof at the fence. "I'd say it's attracting a good amount of attention." Indeed it had! Unbeknownst to Applejack and the others a rather sizable crowd of Ponyville citizens had begun milling around the fence. A few had bravely hopped over and were trying their best to get a better look at all the art that was dotting the farm's landscape, not sure if it was a private gathering or not. It wasn't every day that hundreds of paintings suddenly seemed to magically appear on the lawn of the largest orchard in town. Even the mayor had shown up during her early morning jog, adjusting her spectacles and squinting over the crowd. A few of the young mares in the crowd had quickly lost their attention on the artwork and were currently enamored watching Big Macintosh perform yardwork. "Oh wow. We normally don't have a crowd like this 'til cider season comes up. Does this mean it's workin', Rare?" "It means your work is eye-catching. Even if it's not the best in the world, some of the pieces are interesting enough to distract even the busiest of ponies. Which is good! Very good. Once I figure out which pieces in particular generated the attention the rest are getting." "So....then what?" "Then what? Then we make the pieces that received the most attention the forefront of your gallery exhibition. The initial eye-catching pieces become what we use to draw ponies in to see everything else you've made." "Like a cookbook!" Twilight suddenly chimed in. All eyes turned toward her, confused. "What do you mean, a cookbook?" Rarity asked. "Well, cookbook's always have the most colorful looking meals on the cover. The ones they know will make ponies salivate and feel hungry just at a glance. Even if all the other meals inside are better or worse than the one they chose to advertise it." "That's actually a very good similarity, Twilight. But yes, that's pretty much it. Some of the best art in the world takes time to appreciate. It needs to age gracefully. So we put the most colorful interesting ones out front and then let it draw in ponies who are hungry.....well....hungry for art anyway." "They aren't gonna like....eat AJ's paintings are they?" Rainbow asked, confused. "Well heck, Sugarcube, not if I bring some of my best apple fritters along with me to the gallery! Right, Rarity?" Applejack replied, unaware of what a ridiculous proposal it was. Rainbow and Pinkie nodded happily in complete agreement, as clueless about art shows as their friend was. Rarity sighed and shook her head. It was difficult to explain the importance of design in advertising. Even aspects she herself practiced. It had always been very important to put the most frou-frou, striking, expensive, and often gaudy dresses out front of her boutique, to attract even the most superficial of ponies. Then all the far higher quality bits of clothing that weren't quite as interesting to observe at first were kept inside. It was a decent business model and had worked for years. She could only hope that it would work again with a somewhat different sort of element. And in the back of her mind she really hoped that the finicky ponies of the art world wouldn't turn up their noses to Applejack's talents. It would be embarrassing for them both if this plan nosedived. Everything was going to need to be perfect. EVERYTHING.