In the magic painter's atelier - 2
Posted: Wed Oct 18, 2017 3:24 pm
In The Magic Painter's Atelier - 2
This thread is part of a series of threads in Zida 706 when Yrmellyn Cole meets her mentor in painting and magic, Mariuz Arbin. Arbin is an attunement mage and when he sometimes stands totally still this means he is turning the attunement on.
Rharne, 2 Zida 706
Mariuz Arbin took his time. He stood at the easel totally still, like a statue.
Yrmellyn waited and waited patiently, but nothing happened. She countered the awkwardness she felt by donning the kind of alluring smile she assumed would be suitable for the picture. I was her come hither smile, not blunt and blatant, but definitely inviting. Like so many other parts of her arsenal of seductive tricks it was a well-practiced expression. The courtesan had spent hours in front of her mirror, working at her smiles. The come hither smile had several variations: the brilliant, the shy, the capricious, the mischievous, the sultry, the “innocent”, the decadent and more. Brilliance seemed to be just right for a portrait, she felt. In addition this wide smile could sometimes also serve to stare other people down, for example when competitor courtesans tried to outshine her. She waited, until it felt like her face was hardening to an immovable mask of eternal happiness, as she kept her brilliant smile shining while the bits passed by. Finally she felt she must stop smiling before it would get too unnatural to bear.
“Am I sitting the right way?” she asked, in order to have something to say.
The painter finally moved out of his odd stillness.
“Yes, it is fine, but I would like to ask you to turn the left side of your face slightly, just slightly closer more towards me. Just a little bit...yes...wait...please allow me...”
Arbin took a step forward, put his hand to her cheek and adjusted her head, slightly so slightly. Yrmellyn sat still and allowed him to do so, hoping that her meticulous makeup wouldn’t be ruined by the painter’s warm fingertips. She looked up at him, feeling as nervous as only the risk for ruined makeup could make a professional beauty feel. Well, perhaps the fact that she was alone with a stranger in his house added a bit to her nervousness, to be honest, mostly she was concerned with if she was looking beautiful l enough, to the standards of an artist. It occurred to her that it was easy to come off as good looking to people who didn’t pay enough attention to her to see the flaws she fretted over when she studied her naked face in the mirror and always painted over with cosmetics. She had painted over these flaws today too, of course she had, but still...
What did he see? All her little defects came to her mind, feeling big as dragons. She knew they were there, those defects. Normally she dismissed them as unimportant and told herself that other people surely didn’t find her significant enough to care, even if they would occasionally notice a flaw. Other courtesans were an exception of course. Competitors were always eager to find as many flaws as possible to point out, often while playing “helpful” and pretending that their subtle needle picks were meant as “good advice”. A courtesan had to be on her watch and not leave too many weak spots open for attack from other girls like her. Now when the painter looked at her so closely it actually reminded her about being scrutinized by a “colleague” aiming to make her lose her edge.
Yrmellyn cringed inside, but she acted unaffected. She sat obediently on the chair and let the painter arrange her in the right way for the portrait. This took a bit longer time than she would have thought, but Arbin told her the preparations were well worth the while if she wanted the portrait to be good.
“So it’s important to arrange the motif exactly as you want it, before you start to paint” said Yrmellyn, who wanted to show Arbin that she was listening with interest to what he told her and learning from it.
“Yes. Once you start to work you want the motif to be still. It’s hard to make adjustments afterwards. It can distort everything you achieved and force you to start over from the beginning. Some motifs can get quite angry if that happens, not to mention that you lose time and som will also refuse to pay.”
“I understand” she said. “Adjustments to a painting afterwards can distort the whole picture.” She didn’t know what else to say, than to repeat his words in order to show that she was listening and learning.
Finally Arbin stopped adjusting his motif. He told her to sit still and started to work at the easel.
“Can you not just paint both the sides of their face” said Yrmellyn. “I mean, the halves of a face isn’t really halves. It’s not like they are separate. They are just two sides of the same face.”
The courtesan had never spoken about this kind of topic before. It felt weird. She also felt stupid. She started to life her hand, because she wanted to check her hairdo. It was the same hairstyle as last evening, her hair put up in a manner that was carefully calculated to look artless and on the verge of escaping from the pins and come tumbling down, though it was actually very firmly fastened and no at all random.
“Sit still! Don’t move!” The painter spoke calmly, but she could tell that he would get annoyed if she didn’t do as he told her.
Yrmellyn obeyed, feeling stupid for having moved.
“As for your question about the two halves of the face” the painter said after a while. “It’s essential for a painter to know that the left side of the face look better than the right side, on most people. For this reason it’s important to portray them so the left side of their face is slightly closer to the viewer, with somewhat more light on it, and the right side somewhat more in shadow. Some would maybe call it to smooth over the truth, but I don’t think so. There’s no way to say that the more beautiful side of people’s face is less true than the right side. They are both equally true, as I think of it. There’s no harm in wanting to show themselves from their best side. Isn’t it better to paint people the way they want to be seen than to strive to show them as lesser than they are?”
“Really?” Yrmellyn didn’t fake the interest she showed. This was knowledge that could be exploited by a courtesan as well as by a painter. “So the left side of people’s faces is more beautiful than the right side is. And I’m sure it’s better to let them be as beautiful as possible on the pictures, because the more beautiful side of them is as true as the duller side. I use to think that way too, generally speaking. I don’t know so much about painting, but I find the things you tell me very interesting.”
“You are a good listener, Miss Cole. A good listener and a good learner.” While Arbin worked he continued to explain to her what he was doing, and why. “I’ll start by sketching. I want to get the lines in place before I continue. I use coal for this ... sit still please Miss Cole. Don’t move again!”
Yrmellyn sat totally still. It felt like there was a hair on her cheek. Fingerprints too, if the painter had messed up the powder when he had touched her face. She had been on the verge of doing something about it, but the painter seemed to somehow have felt this and stopped her before she had moved one more time.
“How long time do you think this will take” she asked.
“One break. Please sit still miss Cole, or else it can take longer time.”
The painter spoke politely but there was a streak of temperamental impatience in his voice. Yrmellyn tried her best to do as he told her and by focusing on nothing at all, like she used to do at the times when boring sides of a courtesan’s job had to be carried out with quality despite how she would have preferred to not put in the effort, just like bread and butter had to be served at breakfasts for people who didn’t find porridge good enough. She had agreed to sit for this stupid portrait and it wouldn’t be smart to insult Mariuz Arbin by interrupting the sitting, but she sure hoped he would soon be done. If this was how it was to be painted she ought to be paid for being his motif!
The painter continued to work and the courtesan continued to meditate by thinking of nothing at all. An eternity passed, but truth to tell it was only a break. Yrmellyn felt relieved when it was over, until she discovered that it wasn’t over. The painter had only made the sketch. She would have to come back and sit again, for the real painting.
If it hadn’t been for that special feeling of being important that seized her when she looked into his smoky blue eyes and listened to him speaking about the plans for the painting she would have refused to come back. As it was, she agreed to a second meeting.
This was only the beginning of a series of meetings during Zida 706.
Yrmellyn waited and waited patiently, but nothing happened. She countered the awkwardness she felt by donning the kind of alluring smile she assumed would be suitable for the picture. I was her come hither smile, not blunt and blatant, but definitely inviting. Like so many other parts of her arsenal of seductive tricks it was a well-practiced expression. The courtesan had spent hours in front of her mirror, working at her smiles. The come hither smile had several variations: the brilliant, the shy, the capricious, the mischievous, the sultry, the “innocent”, the decadent and more. Brilliance seemed to be just right for a portrait, she felt. In addition this wide smile could sometimes also serve to stare other people down, for example when competitor courtesans tried to outshine her. She waited, until it felt like her face was hardening to an immovable mask of eternal happiness, as she kept her brilliant smile shining while the bits passed by. Finally she felt she must stop smiling before it would get too unnatural to bear.
“Am I sitting the right way?” she asked, in order to have something to say.
The painter finally moved out of his odd stillness.
“Yes, it is fine, but I would like to ask you to turn the left side of your face slightly, just slightly closer more towards me. Just a little bit...yes...wait...please allow me...”
Arbin took a step forward, put his hand to her cheek and adjusted her head, slightly so slightly. Yrmellyn sat still and allowed him to do so, hoping that her meticulous makeup wouldn’t be ruined by the painter’s warm fingertips. She looked up at him, feeling as nervous as only the risk for ruined makeup could make a professional beauty feel. Well, perhaps the fact that she was alone with a stranger in his house added a bit to her nervousness, to be honest, mostly she was concerned with if she was looking beautiful l enough, to the standards of an artist. It occurred to her that it was easy to come off as good looking to people who didn’t pay enough attention to her to see the flaws she fretted over when she studied her naked face in the mirror and always painted over with cosmetics. She had painted over these flaws today too, of course she had, but still...
What did he see? All her little defects came to her mind, feeling big as dragons. She knew they were there, those defects. Normally she dismissed them as unimportant and told herself that other people surely didn’t find her significant enough to care, even if they would occasionally notice a flaw. Other courtesans were an exception of course. Competitors were always eager to find as many flaws as possible to point out, often while playing “helpful” and pretending that their subtle needle picks were meant as “good advice”. A courtesan had to be on her watch and not leave too many weak spots open for attack from other girls like her. Now when the painter looked at her so closely it actually reminded her about being scrutinized by a “colleague” aiming to make her lose her edge.
Yrmellyn cringed inside, but she acted unaffected. She sat obediently on the chair and let the painter arrange her in the right way for the portrait. This took a bit longer time than she would have thought, but Arbin told her the preparations were well worth the while if she wanted the portrait to be good.
“So it’s important to arrange the motif exactly as you want it, before you start to paint” said Yrmellyn, who wanted to show Arbin that she was listening with interest to what he told her and learning from it.
“Yes. Once you start to work you want the motif to be still. It’s hard to make adjustments afterwards. It can distort everything you achieved and force you to start over from the beginning. Some motifs can get quite angry if that happens, not to mention that you lose time and som will also refuse to pay.”
“I understand” she said. “Adjustments to a painting afterwards can distort the whole picture.” She didn’t know what else to say, than to repeat his words in order to show that she was listening and learning.
Finally Arbin stopped adjusting his motif. He told her to sit still and started to work at the easel.
“Can you not just paint both the sides of their face” said Yrmellyn. “I mean, the halves of a face isn’t really halves. It’s not like they are separate. They are just two sides of the same face.”
The courtesan had never spoken about this kind of topic before. It felt weird. She also felt stupid. She started to life her hand, because she wanted to check her hairdo. It was the same hairstyle as last evening, her hair put up in a manner that was carefully calculated to look artless and on the verge of escaping from the pins and come tumbling down, though it was actually very firmly fastened and no at all random.
“Sit still! Don’t move!” The painter spoke calmly, but she could tell that he would get annoyed if she didn’t do as he told her.
Yrmellyn obeyed, feeling stupid for having moved.
“As for your question about the two halves of the face” the painter said after a while. “It’s essential for a painter to know that the left side of the face look better than the right side, on most people. For this reason it’s important to portray them so the left side of their face is slightly closer to the viewer, with somewhat more light on it, and the right side somewhat more in shadow. Some would maybe call it to smooth over the truth, but I don’t think so. There’s no way to say that the more beautiful side of people’s face is less true than the right side. They are both equally true, as I think of it. There’s no harm in wanting to show themselves from their best side. Isn’t it better to paint people the way they want to be seen than to strive to show them as lesser than they are?”
“Really?” Yrmellyn didn’t fake the interest she showed. This was knowledge that could be exploited by a courtesan as well as by a painter. “So the left side of people’s faces is more beautiful than the right side is. And I’m sure it’s better to let them be as beautiful as possible on the pictures, because the more beautiful side of them is as true as the duller side. I use to think that way too, generally speaking. I don’t know so much about painting, but I find the things you tell me very interesting.”
“You are a good listener, Miss Cole. A good listener and a good learner.” While Arbin worked he continued to explain to her what he was doing, and why. “I’ll start by sketching. I want to get the lines in place before I continue. I use coal for this ... sit still please Miss Cole. Don’t move again!”
Yrmellyn sat totally still. It felt like there was a hair on her cheek. Fingerprints too, if the painter had messed up the powder when he had touched her face. She had been on the verge of doing something about it, but the painter seemed to somehow have felt this and stopped her before she had moved one more time.
“How long time do you think this will take” she asked.
“One break. Please sit still miss Cole, or else it can take longer time.”
The painter spoke politely but there was a streak of temperamental impatience in his voice. Yrmellyn tried her best to do as he told her and by focusing on nothing at all, like she used to do at the times when boring sides of a courtesan’s job had to be carried out with quality despite how she would have preferred to not put in the effort, just like bread and butter had to be served at breakfasts for people who didn’t find porridge good enough. She had agreed to sit for this stupid portrait and it wouldn’t be smart to insult Mariuz Arbin by interrupting the sitting, but she sure hoped he would soon be done. If this was how it was to be painted she ought to be paid for being his motif!
The painter continued to work and the courtesan continued to meditate by thinking of nothing at all. An eternity passed, but truth to tell it was only a break. Yrmellyn felt relieved when it was over, until she discovered that it wasn’t over. The painter had only made the sketch. She would have to come back and sit again, for the real painting.
If it hadn’t been for that special feeling of being important that seized her when she looked into his smoky blue eyes and listened to him speaking about the plans for the painting she would have refused to come back. As it was, she agreed to a second meeting.
This was only the beginning of a series of meetings during Zida 706.