85 Winter 514 There had been a fire. Trista couldn't tell exactly where the fire had been -- it was outside the city limits, somewhere out of sight. It probably hadn't been large either -- maybe nothing more than a downed tree or two. But nonetheless, as the Akvatari sat near the waterfront, sketchbook and pencils beside her, she could clearly see the tendrils of smoke grazing the surface of the Suvan Sea. It was, she thought, an excellent subject for a drawing, and also one that might give her something of a challenge. Since coming to Alvadas, she'd been doing more portraiture than anything else. It paid well enough, and enabled her to get a steady stream of work, but it would be a nice change of pace to do some nature drawing again. She took a very hard pencil, and began lightly blocking out the composition. Trista chose to look down the shoreline, placing the beach two thirds of the way to the left of the paper. The rest of the horizontal surface would be occupied by the water. Trista also added the horizon line, and the basic shape of a small fishing skiff that was passing by. Now that she knew where the parts of the drawing were going to go, she began by filling in the water. Trista switched to a much softer pencil, and started on the water. The waves were minimal, and so Trista rendered the ocean as flat, and very dark. It wasn't realism exactly -- true realism would require her to add some highlights and ripples -- it was more of a heightened realism, given that the black, expressionless ocean gave the picture some emotional tension that wouldn't have been there otherwise. She blocked in the skiff, which was pointed towards Trista's right. A figure, too distant to make out clearly, was standing up near the bow. She suggested it with a few medium strokes, just enough to indicate the shape. The rest of the skiff was filled in with a lighter pencil, giving the uneasy impression of a fragile box being slowly crushed by the surrounding darkness. Next, Trista began filling in the shore. She used a very hard pencil for the beach, in order to keep that section of the paper light, almost white. It made for a stark contrast with the night-dark water. The Akvatari then drew the trees that were just behind the beach. Their twisted trunks knifed into the sky, and she rendered them with a soft pencil, making them almost as dark as the water. Again, she drew the trunks and branches a bit more twisted than they actually were, in order to make the drawing more emotionally uncomfortable. The sky, on the other hand, she filled in with a very light pencil. She drew it as a flat gray, without clouds or other elements of interest. It was the blank slate of the end of winter, inscrutable and empty. The color contrasted with the trees and the water, but shared their unreadability. The Akvatari put down her pencil and stretched her arms. This whole process had taken well over a bell, and her forearms were cramping. Trista rotated her wrists, first in one direction, then in the other, trying to alleviate some of the tension in her body. When she'd gotten it down to a manageable level, Trista returned to the drawing. Almost all that was left to do was add the smoke. She chose a medium pencil, and then began making light, looping curves just above the horizon line. She repeated this process several times, producing a shapeless tangle that seemed to her to represent the amorphous clouds of smoke effectively. Then, she took her blending roll out, and ran it lightly over the smoke curls. This rendered them less distinct, more fluid -- which was what she was aiming for. Finally, she signed her name -- in the upper right corner this time, since the lower right was occupied by the dark water -- and added the date. Carefully, she blew on the paper to remove any excess pencil dust. It was, she thought, not a bad drawing. It wasn't an accurate representation of the scene in front of her, precisely, but that wasn't what she was going for. Certainly, it felt dramatic and ominous, and that reflected her goals for the piece. Carefully, Trista put the picture in her satchel. She would probably be able to sell this one down at the Bizarre, even though it hadn't been specifically comissioned. |