Watercolour figures

by **Valo** on January 19th, 2013, 1:20 pm

50th Winter 512AV
Valo's home
Ridiculously early hours of the morning, before the sun even considers rising up in the sky, for some men simply cannot sleep when their mind is haunted by nightmares.

Valo had much on his mind. Nightmares that kept him tossing and turning in his bed, eyes wide open and staring into the darkness, unable to close under the heavy sands of sleep. For those sands were not present. Nysel failed him once again. Or perhaps it was the fundamentally fragile heart of the artist, for he could not stomach death as easily as some seemed to. That thought was beyond him.

He had finally pulled him self from the warm embrace of his covers only to be embraced by the warmer tongues of the fire in his hearth. A pleasant, warm toned light now filled his front room, tinting everything about him with shades of orange and ochre. Valo's muted emerald eyes observed the dancing shadows on the walls, the dark lamp hues cast by the scattering of items about his humble home. They blinked in and out of static forms, increasing and decreasing in size like some mythical creatures. A temporary enjoyment upon his mind and he took his time to relax and observe the spectacle.

Time seemed to linger, unable to move forward somehow as after a good prolonged moments of simply staring at the shadows on his walls and vegetating somewhat in his chair, the artist found that near to no time had passed at all. The sun had taken no further steps to appear upon the city and the air out the window had been as still as it always was at this early hour. He was truly on an island of dancing flame, surrounded by engulfing darkness, alienated in the clutter of his brain. A momentary cough escaped him.

He wished so terribly not to thing of the plague that engulfed his beloved city. He wished not to think of the murder of Kip and the man Wrenmae who had turned the poor Wave Guard's funeral into a rally in such an atrociously distasteful way. And most of all, he wished not to thing of anything but his art. That art which seemed the one thing to bring his any sort of temporary relief from all this darkness about, for art was like the fire from his hearth. It chased away the demons.

With a pencil at hand and his beloved large sketch book, which he had not seemed to open since Fall, Valo sat before the slithering tongues of flame and began sketching that which appeared in him mind's eyes. Sketching for pleasure. That's what he needed right now, to surround him self with the pleasure of his profession. And so the lead touched paper and the motion of his wrist began creating geometric shapes upon the off white surface.

Structured by geometry and perfected by anatomy and in turn embellished by colour. thought Valo as the words rand out in his mind. A seemingly beautiful phrase to sum up his current occupation.

Geometry seemed the key to anatomy, for the very basic shapes such as triangles and circles seemed to make up the building blocks of a person's silhouette. Guidelines that would later be elaborated upon by detailing. And that's precisely that he did. Very lightly he drew a perfect little circle on the very centre of the paper, using the motion of his entire arm rather than that of his wrist. A line straight down the middle, sketched so faintly that one would have to look with utmost precision to notice it. This line would later become lost into the overall fabric of the sketch. And upon that structural line, more shapes took place. A triangle, below the circle, for the shoulders, leading then into a trapezoid and a vertical line across it, dividing it into two parts, showing the direction which the silhouette would face. A circular shape at the base of the trapezoid, from which just the very suggestion of legs sprouted. Well rounded calves of a woman, standing on her tiptoes. Her arms became crossed over her chest, with one raised to her face and a palm against her cheek. At that Valo began forming the overall shape of the silhouette around the guidelines, allowing him self more anatomical accuracy by that method, until a very faint woman with luscious curves, dressed in a fine dress with a fur cape over her shoulders was lightly sketched upon the paper. No shading for he fully expected to paint in water medium that morning.

Time did not progress that terribly much. The street was still dark and it was still cold as his eyes gazed out the window onto the cold cobbles. And he was cosy in his home, sitting by the fire in little more than a shirt that hung from his shoulders in an unbuttoned disarray, and simple trousers.

Yet another figure began appearing on the paper by the delicate movements of his hand. A process very similar to the previous one. Another lady structured in geometry, only then to be perfected by smother curved line of a human silhouette. His hands meticulously performed, creating the subtlest and faintest of marks upon the paper. The gentleness of soft led. This one was very linear to, with near to no shading, just the very outline and a suggestion of a woman with no face, for no facial features were present. A face angled into a profile with no eyes and no lips, merely an outline of a nose. Spiralling, wild hair fell onto her shoulders and the low cut dress that she wore, which covered her legs.

The figures were so different from his great, large scale paintings which he was so used to, for there were barely larger than the length of his hand. Yet the artist drew more and more figures, all side by side, of generally the same height yet varying body times. Both men and women, dressed in elaborate clothing. Many dressed in traditional Inarta dress, yet there were those which upon them wore flamboyant ballroom creations. Hair and hats obscured the faces of many, though some simply possessed no facial features. These studies were based purely on the anatomy of a human body and tested the very extent of his imagination.

Another male, hovering at the very peripheral edge of the page. His features broad and masculine, his neck a thick column that sprouted vertically from his ears, shoulder slightly hunched, though still exuberating a degree of grace. He was dressed in a flamboyant suit, buttoned up neatly. It seemed he was his best sketch among all the others. For each sketch was perhaps a little better than the previous, in each he could see the mistakes he had made and cared to not repeat them again. And whereas non was perfect, his skill and understanding was improving at a steady rate until the p age was completely filled with the silhouettes.

by **Valo** on January 19th, 2013, 4:00 pm

The next part was to paint them and for that Valo chose the ever so difficult yet handy medium of water paints. These seemed far more tricky to use than oil paints but at least not so many chemicals were needed to clean paint brushes afterwords. He fully expected to go out into Zeltiva afterwords and did not want to waste the whole morning Watercolours! What's what he needed and so spent a good 5 minutes rummaging though the disorder of his little house to gather up al the little tubelets of paint he could find. A fine assortment of nine colours in total.

Titanium white - not so much for actual painting but wonderful for mixing tints of colours

Lamp black - a soft shade black that always came in handy somehow, though the tube was still primarily full

Cadmium red light - an orange toned red that mixed the most incredible and pure oranges providing that the right yellows were used. It seemed the better choice than the deep or dark variations of the colour purely for it's subtleness

Permanent violet - despite the name this was actually a rich red pigment, or rather a peculiar pinky red. not pink like crimson, which was quite obviously red. The violet had a certain floral quality to it, like dark fuxias in mid summer. A red yet not quite a red. But despite this uncertainty as to the identity of the colour the oranges it mixed, Valo did truly prefer to the perfect purples, for when rendered grey with just tiny amounts of ultramarine and an abundance of white, the most beautiful skin tones were achieved.

Yellow ochre - a grey yellow tone, almost a straw colour that could easily mute any vibrancy in any colour, whether used to mix gentle mints or subtle oranges. It seemed a pigment which the artist could not do without.
Cadmium yellow - a warm yellow tone associated mostly with the colour of sunflower leaves and the colour of summer in the eyes of the artist.

Ultramarine blue - a purple toned blue that, when mixed with cadmium red, created the most exquisite dark grey, the true colour of shadows. Another essential in the artist's tool kit.

Phthalo blue - a true blue, it seemed at first. Then again, straight out of the tube this blue seemed to be almost black. But the nature of this pigment is as cunning as mirages in the desert, for it is in fact a green toned blue. Yet the muted purples and lavenders that are easily obtained using this pigment are exquisite.

by **Valo** on January 20th, 2013, 6:25 pm

The artist sat in his chair by the fire, a cup of water by him on the table which he pulled closer for comfort. The flames danced in the liquid surface, snaking up and down the glass like beautiful dancers and Valo couldn't help but stare in awe at this display. His eyes taking time to truly gaze upon the fluidity of the movement, yet the abrupt change of direction every time the tongue of orange light reached for the rim of the cup. A performance of fire, is what his eyes witnessed and for a moment he took comfort in the simplicity of this. The very simplicity and beauty is something so mundane.

Distracted somewhat from his activity, Valo leaned a little closer to the reflective round surface until he saw his own eyes among the fiery dancers. How muted, the green has become, how unlike him self. The artist's eyes have always been like emeralds, their surface so richly coloured and exquisite as if some got himself had painted them, yet now it seemed that this god dabbed little drops of yellow ochre onto Valo's eyes. The surface no longer sparkled the same way it did, no longer had it retained this brilliance from before. Perhaps it was due to his complete lack of sleep as of late and the affairs of his beloved city taking their toll on his frail conscience. Perhaps he to would soon get sick, succumb to this pestilence. Another cough escaped him as the thought came. Sadness overwhelmed him again.

In an act of desperation to once more distract him self, Valo began painting abruptly. Only after mixing some horrible concoction of rotten green on his palette, had he realised he could not do this half heartedly, but surrender his entire mind to the colour theory and the technique of the paint. Perhaps with oil he would get away with minor mistakes. but this was not his chose medium, this was one a million times more difficult to control and to excel at.

Once more. This time with heart.

He began with mere washes of elaborate colour mixtures over the figures. Very very light paint, not only pale but watered down excessively as these colours would make the very highlights of the tones, the places where light would naturally hit the complex folds of clothing and features of skin and hair, to elevate them and add another dimension to the painting. That understanding of light and shadow was really what Valo's art work thrived upon, for it was something he had spent his entire childhood learning. Though perhaps it didn't inspire him quite as much as colour theory did, that very important level of lighting in paintings brought them to life, made them beautiful.

The soft, voluminous bristles of the paint brush barely stroked the surface of the paper. In fact the tool didn't even touch the paper, but the little drips of pigment saturated water that hung off from them, was the only means of transfer paint onto paper. This meant that his work retained the vibrancy that the colour provided. For if he was to run the brush across the paper, the pigment would be pressed into the paper and not allowed to exude this exquisiteness of it's appearance, but become muted by the soft, water absorbent fibres. However this gentle laying of pigment onto the paper allowed it fully to display the colour in all it's glory.

Soon women clad in lovely, colourful gowns and gentlemen dressed in dark and grey suits, began appearing on paper. The colour bringing every figure out from the monotone, monochromatic sketch. A spotlight of it's own. And as he painted these washes of colour meticulously onto each silhouette, using white spacing to prevent one colour from running into another, unless in places where he desired such a gradient; the previous dried, warmed by the heat from the fire place. It was truly advantageous painting by the fire like so, for otherwise the drying period of the paint would be much longer and he'd soon grow in disinterest with the painting.

Much to his dismay, as the purple toned grey colour of one of the suits dried, a mark appeared across the sleeve of the gentleman. A lettuce leaf like pattern, frayed line between where the pigment was still wet and where it dried abruptly. Valo cursed. these patters were truly annoying for they had no place in clothing. The only subject matter which these pretentious mishaps could enhance was nature, the texture of moss on rock or the fallen leaves on the floor of a forest. But this was not an organic, natural painting. The very silhouettes seemed to portray the exquisitely inorganic fashion instead, where there was co place for the mistake. Still there was nothing Valo could do no but live it, deal with it and perhaps disguise it with further layers of paint over the top. Perhaps he'd simply pretend it was always meant to be there.

This is precisely why the Inarta rarely painted commission pieces in water colour. These lettuce leaf edge patterns were tremendously hard to control and ever harder to overcome. Sometimes he'd be lucky and accidentally place one where he wanted it. Other times such a patters could ruin a piece. And their origin was very simple indeed, for when the gradient between damn and dry became too steep, they showed up. A simple rearrangement of dry pigment as water tries to soak into the paper below it. If he only applied an equal layer of dampness onto the paper, they would not form; but that was easier to say than do.

Non the less Valo continued painting, adding darker tones to shape the three dimensional feel of the silhouettes. He mixed wonderful shades of lavender for some of the gowns. Unions between the Phthalo blue and the violet red paint, rendering them a little cold and elusive, but therefore all the more beautiful. There was a lady in an emerald dress where he'd mix the same blue with lemon yellow to obtain the most vibrant of greens, then further mixing it with a little white to lighten it and paint it opaque and bold onto the dress. And then he'd mix lovely mints with the yellow ochre to dull that emerald colour down. The flesh tones shown slightly from underneath of dress, giving it a gentle, see-though appearance. The lady with wild hair wore a male blouse with the front of it unbuttoned at the front and with cuffs rolled up and that shirt he painted white with subtle sheens of blue and pink, all extremely pale, to enhance the crisp whiteness. And beside her, his brush painted the fur cape the the adjacent female silhouette with elaborate tints and tones of muted grey-brown.

The men were all clad in darkness, which were his preferred pigments to mix. For a man who had such desperate love of colour, Valo seemed to enjoy mixing those dark and grey tones the most, for they took just a little more than the standard to perfect completely. To obtain the very precise grey he wished for.

As his brush worked in tighter and tighter spaces, confined to far greater detailing than at first, the sun finally began to peek though the buildings and tap gently with it's rays onto the artist's window. It disrupted the dancing flames, disrupted the shadows on the walls but indeed was a blessing. A better lighting to paint in and see the true hues he was mixing, not their orange rendered version. And he was perhaps happy. Despite al the little mistakes that he made, where lines of texture appeared on paper or perhaps where unintentionally one colour would bleed into another. He wasn't going to sell the painting any time soon, for it was not worthy of transaction. Instead he simply revelled in the very action. The very enjoyment of the medium, for it was truly enjoyable.

by **Echelon** on February 6th, 2013, 7:21 pm

Adventurer's Loot

A Gift
Experience is its own reward.

Valo's Loot :

(What an absolute pleasure to read, I love Valo cause he thinks like me. Kinda creeps me out, but I totally sympathize with him...Thank you for brightening up my day with this thread, Valo.) - if you have ANY questions or concerns about this grading, please PM me.

Solo Watercolour figures