Practice Makes...Money

by **Trista** on January 21st, 2015, 2:35 am

28 Winter 514

By now, the routine was familiar to Trista. Sure, the background changed, and the people were sometimes more friendly and sometimes less so, but the shape of the procedure was always the same.

The Akvatari found a reasonably busy streetcorner -- or maybe it found her. This was Alvadas, and the constantly chaotic nature of the place meant that purposefully locating anything was often a quixotic endeavor. Regardless, she came upon what seemed to be a spot with decent foot traffic, and set herself down on the ground there.

From her satchel, she withdrew a set of pencils, an eraser, a small easel, and a sheet of paper. All of these objects were quickly arranged the way she liked them; Trista had done this so many times that it barely required any conscious attention on her part.

With that done, she now was ready to find a client. This was probably going to be easier than usual, Trista thought. The art of the Akvatari was well-known for its quality, and Alvadas was far enough from Abura that she doubted many of her people ever came through here. Certainly, she hadn't seen any during her brief stay thus far.

She was looking for someone well-dressed, someone who looked as though they might appreciate fine art, or perhaps even be a collector. It wasn't likely that such a person would have heard of her personally -- she was good, but not that good yet, and her major pieces all resided half a continent away. Someone like that might, however, be interested in her work simply because she was Akvatari.

*****

She waited for perhaps half a bell before spotting someone who fit the bill. He was a portly man of perhaps fifty, with a silver beard, dressed in a finely-tailored wool suit. He didn't seem to be in a particular hurry, although Alvadas was the sort of town that wasn't really conducive to hurrying.

"Pardon me, sir -- would you care to have your portrait drawn?"

He turned, and regarded her with a warm smile. "That's a worthy offer, coming from one of you. How much would that set me back?"

"Three gold mizas, sir."

Trista was notoriously awful with money, and had only a dim sense of what any of her own work might be worth. She was trying to make the price low enough to reflect the fact that it was going to be a one-sitting piece that took only a bell or so to execute, but not so low as to make the man wonder what she was up to.

Whether or not she'd actually hit that sweet spot, the man seemed satisfied. "All right then, you've talked me into it. Shall we begin?"

by **Trista** on January 24th, 2015, 4:06 am

He sat down on a low wall nearby, hands on his knees, his back held straight, his face turned three-quarters to her. This was obviously not the first portrait that the man had sat for.

This made Trista's job easier, since the anatomy of this particular position was one that she knew essentially by heart. The basic outline was done very quickly, which meant that she had more time to focus on the man's clothes and expression.

Clothes, as it happened, were something that Trista was glad to have an opportunity to practice. Akvatari fashion was basically limited to what color and style your torso-band was, and though Trista had certainly drawn her fair share of clothing since the first time she had left Abura, she still felt less certain of it than she did of most other aspects of portraiture.

by **Trista** on January 29th, 2015, 12:08 am

A moment later, she felt much, much less certain.

Alvadas was the City of Illusions, if one were to put stock in epithets. Trista knew that intellectually, and had even seen some of the visual tricks the place had to offer. But that didn't really prepare her for the task before her.

The man was wearing something that had appeared to be a brocade cloak, but as soon as he sat down, it took on the appearance of a live weasel. Or, it did for a moment, and then went back to being a cloak. Then a weasel again. Cloak. Weasel. Cloak. Weasel.

She could see the man suppressing a smile, and so she was sure that some of her surprise had shown on her face. That surprise eventually faded, but what didn't was her perplexity. Given that the appearance of the...clothing/animal was in constant flux, how was she supposed to represent it? She didn't imagine that the man would be entirely pleased if she simply chose one aspect or the other. That seemed, from her limited experience, not to be in the spirit of the city.

Trista thought about that for five minutes or so, sketching out the wall and the background just so that it didn't look like she was simply sitting there in a state of flummoxèdness. Flummoxosity? Flummoxitude? Just plain flum?

She knew there were artists capable of imbuing the page with motion, so that it appeared to be constantly changing. In fact, she herself was capable of that -- but in a radically different way from the other artists, and in a way that she had to be sure not to reveal carelessly. At any rate, it only worked for half a bell or so, and that wouldn't do at all, even if it weren't dangerous to try.

She was running out of background work to do, and so she was going to have to make a choice. What if she simply rendered the back of the man's garment as a cloak, and the front as a weasel? A little bit of blurring to provide the suggestion of motion, and that might work.

It was going to have to work, Trista thought grimly, because she had now finished the wall and the sky, and she was going to have to start in on the figure now.

Well, better to have drawn half a cloak and half a weasel and lost than never to have drawn at all?

by **Trista** on February 6th, 2015, 10:51 pm

She sketched the basic outline of the figure first. Fortunately, the man was sitting in a pretty standard pose, one she had drawn hundreds of times before, and so it didn't require all that much effort.

With that done, she was able to focus in on the clothing. Best to just dive into the hard part, after all. She put her pencil to the paper and began limning the shape of the weasel. Its head and forelegs were protruding from the man's torso, almost as if it were bursting out of his chest.

Trista had to look several times to get the expression on the weasel's face right. It looked like a snarl at first, but after more careful examination, it almost appeared to be a laugh. She added heavy crosshatch shading to the eyes, in order to give the weasel a feeling of intensity, but then added some small lines around the corner of the mouth, as if its fur were showing the beginnings of a smile. The contrast between those two features, she thought, provided the proper tension in the expression.

The Akvatari was glad she was only drawing the front half of the weasel. When she was only a teenager, she had once met a Zeltivan sailor who kept one onboard to keep the rats at bay, and she had made a couple of practice drawings of the animal. However, the anatomy was more tricky than it looked, since the extended spine meant the creature could bend in unanticipated ways. That came less into play with only half of the weasel visible, which was useful.

For the man's back, she drew the cloak, not exactly as it looked, but billowing a bit, as if there were a stiff breeze. She was taking some liberties there, but the idea was to add to the overall feeling of motion and transformation. It also meant that she could space the folds in the fabric further apart, which was useful, as she was aware that this was turning into rather a long sitting for her subject.

Next, she worked on the man's face. Frankly, his look wasn't that far off from the weasel's. He was trying to be serious, but a series of small wrinkles around his eyes and mouth indicated that he was deriving some entertainment from how unexpectedly difficult this portrait was for someone unaccustomed to Alvadas fashions.

She elected to treat his face sort of as a mirror of the weasel's. He had a prominent forehead, and deep-set eyes, which made the task easier. She used heavy crosshatch shading on his eyelids, and also on his ears and the hollow of his chin. But after she was finished, she added the small lines around the eyes and mouth. Once she was finished with the beard, she thought the overall effect was more or less what she had been going for.

The remainder of the man's suit, as well as his shoes, was easily enough done. Once that was finished, she took a small roll of rough paper, smaller even than her finger, and used it carefully on the outlines of the weasel and cloak. The resulting blurring added energy, and a sensation of motion, as she had planned it. It was the closest she could come to capturing the constant flux of the man's clothing.

by **Trista** on February 8th, 2015, 3:02 pm

All that remained at that point was a little bit of touching up of the wall the man was sitting on at the points nearest to his figure. Trista used light lines and a harder pencil to render the rock details -- she wanted them to be visible, but also to have less visual interest than the main subject of the drawing. She hoped that the eye would be attracted to the subject of the portrait -- though, if she were being honest, the mere fact of the cloak/weasel would probably take care of that on its own.

Then, the Akvatari signed her name carefully in the lower right-hand corner, followed by the date.

"Finished." She set down her pencils and stretched her arms above her head. She had been working hard enough that she hadn't really noticed that her shoulders were starting to cramp.

The man grunted as he got down from his position on the wall. "May I have a look, young lady?" he asked.

"Of course," Trista said. She handed the man the sketch.

He looked at it, and then a wide grin came across his face. "If that's not how a native Alvadan would draw it, it's still an interesting way of approaching the problem of illusion. Well worth my time, artist."

"Thank you," Trista murmured as the man handed her the agreed-upon payment. Another job was in the books now.

by **Fable** on February 10th, 2015, 7:30 pm

Grade Awarded!

Skills

Lores

Rewards

The man was pleased with Trista's general success in capturing the illusion! He tipped her an extra 5 SM. Please at 5 SM to your ledger, as the rest of the payment will be awarded as your seasonal wages.
Comments

Very nice little job thread. I didn't award a drawing for that shorter post where you wrote about Trista easily making outlines (as I feel that's more of a novice especially with the lack of description), but the longer post in which you spent the whole time detailing what she was doing, why, and how? Very nice. I enjoyed this quite a bit, and (believe it or not) I'm looking forward to getting to grade more of Trista's job threads! Well written threads regarding the creation or appreciation for art are my favorite. Great work!

Solo Practice Makes...Money