Solo [The Terra Cottage] An Artist is an Artist, pt. trois

[Kirsi Winterflame]

Timestamp: 88th of Summer, 513AV, 14th Bell Excitement filled Kirsi: Garob had promised her she could attempt making something entirely from scratch today. The catch? He wasn't going to help her at all. She had to figure out a way to combine her skill at carving with the raw form of clay. Kirsi had scoffed when he mentioned that: how hard could it be? Clay was malleable. It was formable. Should be simple, right? Right. Except, for the past five bells, Kirsi had been struggling with her project. The clay had started to dry out. Chimes had passed while she'd debated the wisdom of wetting it down, and then how wet to make it. She was pretty sure she'd bungled that step - the clay had gotten sloppy, messy. Unworkable. She'd spent a few more chimes staring impatiently at it while it dried. Once, she'd forgotten that her hands were covered in clay, and tried to run her fingers through her hair. One more mistake. She'd nearly given up three times, but each time she went to find Garob and admit defeat, Kirsi had balked. It had been nearly a full season now, of her insisting that she could do more around the shop than the end carving, and clerking duties. Now that he had finally, in exasperation, given her just the opportunity she'd been itching for, she wasn't about to go to him and admit she'd been wrong. Not yet, anyway. She had wavered on design ideas, too. With wood it was easy - she could look at a piece of wood, or ivory, or anything and see what it should look like. The shape inside it fairly jumped out at her, and from that point on, it was simply a matter of carving away all that wasn't the end shape. But the clay... The petching clay had no spirit, or at least none that she could find. No matter how she stared at it, from every angle, in any light... Kirsi still saw only clay. It made her feel lost, to pick up tools meant for carving and be unable to bring them to bear on a piddling little lump of clay. In the end, she had settled on a bowl. Her nose crinkled at the thought of something so unimaginative, but all of her more creative efforts had resulted in nothing but an odd assortment of lumps and bumps that Kirsi would be ashamed to admit to making. But if it was to be a bowl, at least it could be a bowl with style. Garob had bowls of all shapes and sizes on display in his shop. Smooth bowls, carved bowls, patterned and textured bowls. The ones that Kirsi found herself dusting and arranging most often, though, were the ones that looked like coiled rope piled atop itself. These were, for the most part, shallow containers, more decorative than functional in Kirsi's opinion. The basic construction appeared simple enough; a bunch of clay, rolled into a coil, and wrapped around on top of itself. There were no tricky features, handles, or design elements to trip her up. She could managed a bowl, surely. So, with renewed confidence, she had begun constructing what she was positive would be a masterful bowl, guaranteed to prove to Garob that she was capable of this added responsibility. Kirsi immediately started rolling out the thin, tube-like shapes that would be her bowl. It was easy - if she overlooked the fact that it wasn't quite even; no matter how much she pressed, rolled, and pulled the clay, there remained little finger-sized indentations at regular intervals in the clay. Inspecting it, Kirsi shrugged. Maybe that would add to the overall design? She couldn't recall having ever seen one of Garob's bowls with any sort of finger-pattern in the coils, but perhaps it was a stylistic thing? A nagging voice in her head contradicted that logic, but Kirsi studiously ignored it, continuing to roll out more lengths of clay. It was going so well, she even heard herself humming. Tunelessly. Badly. But she was enjoying herself, finally. After rolling out 6 nearly equal lengths of moderately lumpy clay, Kirsi felt she had enough to begin actually forming the bowl. Beginning with a small coil, she wound the clay around and around... And around... And when she ran out, she squished another length of clay to the end, smoothed it as best she could, and continued winding it up. Her bowl was now a shallow, coiled... Lumpy... Uneven... Misshapen... Embarassment. "Gah! Stupid. Petching. Clay!" In a fit of temper, Kirsi upended the bowl she'd labored so long at, and pummeled it flat with her fists. Bowl-wrecking finished, she proceeded to quickly form a face of the leftover clay, molding a nose and lips from the excess. Mounding up the eyes, she reached blindly for the first burin she could find and quickly traced in the details. Eyebrows, wrinkles, dimples - she even crossed the eyes for good measure. Surveying her ultimate creation with narrowed eyes, Kirsi stuck her tongue out at it, tossed her burin, uncleaned, onto the table and stomped out of the workshop. Garob would never let her live this down.

[Magpie]

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Kirsi :

XP:
Sculpting +1
Planning +1
Carving +1
Observation +1

Lores:
Wetting Clay
Starting Simply
Giving Up and Sticking to What You Know

Notes :

Another one, short and sweet. Always nice to see someone struggling with a new skill. Keep at it!

If you have any questions or concerns about what was awarded, please don't hesitate to PM me.
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