Solo Blades of Grass

[Taurina]

Late night of the 4th of Fall, 516

Taurina laid in the grass behind her tent and let the wind play with wisps of her crimson hair. Leth was bright in the sky and the stars sparkled with light. The Ethaefal’s fingers intwined lazily with her long hair, weaving dissatisfying braids and pulling them out. The night was so calm. It was not like those nights experienced during the travel to the tent city. There was less fear and hardly any movement on the horizon. For once it seemed all was peaceful and the illusion of safety was in full swing. Thoughts of what could be out their were far from the Ethaefal’s mind as she simply enjoyed the light Leth colored the sky with.

Taurina shifted to her stomach, the pages of her journal flipped open to a half finished flower in front of her. There was suppose to be a butterfly resting on top of the flower, but when she had started drawing that part she hadn’t liked it so she abandoned that idea. The night was much darker than the day, but Leth’s light offered enough that the Eth good see the pages before her. Maybe it was better in the dark, then she wouldn’t know how truly bad her sketches looked and instead only had an idea of how bad they were.

”Only way to get better is to keep trying,” Taurina murmured to herself, looking up as if someone is going to answer her. Her gaze was met only by her sleeping mare, her pitched tent, and the tents of the clan surrounding her. She frowned slightly, feeling quite alone at the moment. The whole city was sleeping as far as she could tell. They were human so it made sense, but it didn’t make it any less lonesome.

”You’re not along, Leth is in the sky and there is life going on all around you,” she reminded herself, this time keeping her words in thoughts instead of speaking them out loud. She didn’t fancy being thought of as one who talked to herself, even if she was the only one who thought or knew of it.

The Ethaefal focused her attention back on her journal and picked up a piece of charcoal that she had rested in between the pages. Her flower looked bad even underneath Leth’s light. The lines were shaky and the petals barely looked like more than five circles attached to one another with one in the middle. Taurina frowned. She had once seen a beautiful piece of a flower that looked more like an exact copy from nature than a drawing and had tried to make her own representation, but things hadn’t gone according to plan. Her skills were not yet up to the task.

”Maybe something simpler,” she decided, looking around at the nature surrounding her for ideas. There was grass, lots of grass. It couldn’t be too hard to draw grass. ”Surrounded the flower with some grass, then maybe it won’t look as bad,” the woman concluded before going about studying a blade of grass.

Common | Thoughts

[Taurina]

Even the grass here wasn’t that interesting. It was just leaves of bright green reaching up from the ground. When gazing at it closely, Taurina could find the center which was where the blade of grass was thickest. Other than this, the grass wasn’t very interesting, but the woman guessed that maybe it would be easy to draw. She released a blade of it from Semele’s grip and placed it at the bottom of the page her poorly executed flower was sketched on. Tracing seemed like a good place to start, just to make sure she got the lines right.

Taurina used the sharpened end of her charcoal stick and carefully ran it alongside the edges of the blade of grass beneath her fingertips. The lines came out mostly straight and met at the top. Somehow she had even successfully managed to get the blade of grass to be thicker at the bottom and thin at the top which made a sort of skinny triangle shape. The Eth smiled to herself at the small victory.

Now that the main outline had been created, Taurina was faced with the challenge of creating the center where the grass thickened and formed a sort of ridge. First she drew a simple, bold line down the center before wrinkling her nose at it. Compared to the shaped lines she traced it was too bold and added no dimension to the sketch. It was just a line, right down the center of the other two and too thick to properly represent the grass. Taurina frowned, but didn’t give up. Instead sat up, rested her journal on her leg, picked up the blade of grass and started over at the other end of the page.

Once the blade of grass was once more traced, Taurina paused a moment to figure out how to go about creating this center the way she wanted it. Last time she had pressed so hard that a bold, flat line had formed from bottom to top. So this time she decided to try and not press so hard and try to make the line using the very tip of her charcoal stick. She started at the top and carefully trailed her charcoal over the page. This time the line came out thin and barely visible which was okay, because Taurina could add to it to make it how she wanted. She turned back to the blade of grass and studied this ridge at the center of it.

It seemed that the center was thicker at the bottom and thinner at the top. So it made sense that in the sketch it should be the same. Of course one viewing the sketch would not be able to feel the thickness of the blade of grass so the challenge was making it look the way it felt in the physical world. Taurina ran her tongue over her teeth in thought, wondering how such a thing could be accomplished and knowing it could be because she has seen the works of other artists. Others had pulled it off so she was determined to do it as well, even if it was just a blade of grass.

Common | Thoughts

[Taurina]

Taurina started to make the center line thicker at the bottom first. She was very careful, not wanting the same result her first attempt at this yielded her. So, slowly, very slowly, and meticulously she darkened and thickened the center of her blade of grass. She moved up the sketch so that it was thinner at the top than at the bottom. Eventually she deemed it good enough. Looking between the real blade of grass and the sketch, Taurina was pleased with the result she had achieved. It was not perfect, but it was better than her first attempt.

Now she wanted to add some dimension to the sketch and make it more real. When looking at the blade of grass resting against the flat page of her book, Taurina noticed that because of the ridge at the center it looked like it the blade of grass was darker colored more towards the middle and lighter colored towards the edges of the actual blade of grass. Taurina didn’t have any color, but she hoped to be able to create the same look through shading.

Her first idea was to take the tip of her charcoal that she had been using and draw lines starting from the center of the blade of grass and reaching towards the outer edges of it. She tried spreading out the lines and curving them a little to give dimension. The problem she ended up with though is that the lines were all the same color and of varying thicknesses. There was no dimension, but instead a very flat drawing. She wrinkled her nose and frowned again.

The Ethaefal looked up to the light of Leth and groaned a little before closing her eyes. ”Practice, practice, practice,” she murmured quietly, ”Only way to learn.” Taurina sighed and remembered to breath before looking back to her sketch. It just wouldn’t do, so she started over once again in another blank area of the same page.

This time creating the lines of the blade of grass was easier and Taurina didn’t have to use the real blade to trace. Her lines were less perfect, but it still worked because now the blade just looked like it was bending to the wind and if one was far enough away they wouldn’t notice the shakiness of the connecting lines.

Now that she had practiced the center line a little more, Taurina was able to represent it how she wanted to thickness wise without too much difficulty. The hardest part was making the line match up with the top of the sketched blade of grass and making sure the center line was actually in the center. With much concentration and giving up on getting it perfectly centered, Taurina succeeded in getting it sketched out. Now for the hard part. Figuring out how to add realism and dimension to the sketch.

Common | Thoughts

[Taurina]

Taurina gazed at her charcoal stick under the light of the night sky. There had to be a way to get the color off the stick and onto the page in a way that gave her sketch the look she wanted it too. Taurina’s first idea was to turn the charcoal around and use the dull end to add the look she wanted. She moved the dull end over the entire blade of grass, creating a nice smudge that overtook the whole thing. Another failed attempt it seemed. The Ethaefal ran a hand through her crimson colored hair, frustration setting in.

Taking a breath, Taurina once again drew another blade of grass. She was running out of free room on the page and looking at her failed attempts was depressing. There was the hideous flower and three failed attempts at a blade of grass. It seemed like such a simple thing in the beginning, but, as she was learning, even simple things weren’t always as they looked.

Taurina was determined with this attempt at her blade of grass. It was either going to be a success or she was going to fail and give it a rest for the night. So she drew out the beginnings of her grass. The thin triangle, bent slightly to the wind because of her not straight lines with a thick to thin center. This was it, she was going to figure out how to give it dimension. The Eth looked at her charcoal stick again and let her brow wrinkle in thought. There had to be a way. She looked at where the stick slowly came to a now fairly dull point.

The budding artist got an idea as she ran a fingertip over the edge of the charcoal. It had a slanted edge were it tapered off to a point. Taurina thought that maybe if she used that part of the charcoal things would go better. So carefully, starting in the bottom center of her new blade of grass, she pressed the thin part of the slanted edge of the charcoal to the sketch and moved outwards. She pressed harder near the center where she wanted darker color and pressed lightly towards the outer edge where she wanted less color. That technique was similar to how she created the center in her last three of her four sketches of the blade of grass.

The color came across how Taurina desired and so she moved up the rest of the blade of grass. The whole time she was slow and careful, not wanting to ruin this sketch. She used her technique of pressing the slanted part of the charcoal harder more towards the center and lightly towards the edge of her blade of grass as she moved up both sides of the center. It worked for the most part and there was more dimension in this one than there had been in the others. When she was finished, Taurina compared her last sketch to the actually blade of grass and found them to not be the same really at all.

Sure there was dimension and all the things she had worked for, it was even better than her horrible flower, but it still did not fully do the real thing justice. With a sigh, Taurina placed the real blade of grass in between the pages of her journal and closed it. It had been a success, there had been progress, so she decided not to spoil it by picking out everything that was wrong with her art piece.

Taurina laid back down and rested on her back so that she could gaze up at the stars and the god she so fiercely believed in and tried to enjoy the view along with the calmness of the tent city. She let her journal fall by her side and went back to aimlessly playing with a long section of her hair. Anymore sketching could wait for Syna’s light, right now she was going to enjoy Leth before he disappeared over the horizon to make way for the morning.

Common | Thoughts

[Rufio]

　　　
　　
　　
　　

g r a d e s

xp

Observation +3
Philosophy +1
Sketching +5
Intelligence +1


lores

Sketching: To get better practise, practise, practise
Taurina: Feels alone with Leth as her comfort
Sketching: Choosing objects that match your skill level
Sketching: A blade of grass
Sketching: Tracing to get an accurate outline
Taurina: Inspired & determined
Sketching: Shading
Even simple things are not as they appear
Sketching: Appreciate progress

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