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onlyforthedream in the_blank_slate

Drawing II and III

Sep 22, 2011 01:22

I'm holding the first class in the gallery, at Anthony Blunt's leave. The room is airy and more than large enough for the number of students who signed up. Some of the faces are more familiar than others, though I'm starting to recognize most of the island's inhabitants on sight, even if we haven't been introduced. There are chairs set out with ( Read more... )

loki laufeyson, maxxie oliver, jason todd, gathering, billy kaplan, bucky barnes, steve rogers, coraline jones, gabrielle

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prodigaljaybird September 23 2011, 01:34:30 UTC

Jason has totally not had the kind of experience Steve's talking about. He's drawn things, but always for a purpose beyond the joy of it, hard, utilitarian lines, building outlines, blueprints, designs for new and more spectacular explosives. Never...perspectives, shadows and lines, so mostly he's hoping Steve won't ask, because it's really friggin' hard to lie to the guy.

He sits near Billy in the classroom, slightly hunched over his notepad and staring at the few outlines of people he's tried to draw. He likes painting better so far. It feels looser, fluid, less precise. It doesn't matter there if his lines aren't straight so long as they're bold. Dragging the paintbrush across a page almost makes him happy.

Drawing people? Not so much. Jason looks up and stares hard at Steve's jaw. Maybe he can get by with scribbling eyes on a square...

onlyforthedream September 23 2011, 03:31:10 UTC

I wander over to stand behind Jason, look over what he's working on. The individual lines are exactingly precise, but as a whole don't seem to know what they're trying to form.

"You have an extremely steady hand," I comment.

"Can I recommend an exercise here?"

prodigaljaybird September 23 2011, 16:57:46 UTC

Jason's eyes slide sideways to his hand, his grip so tight he has to relax or snap the pencil. At least that sounded like a good thing, his steady hand.

"Okay," he says, looking up with as open an expression he can muster. Steve doesn't seem like he's about to kick him out, but he doesn't want to press his luck. "I was trying to do you," he offers, in case Steve can't tell.

onlyforthedream September 23 2011, 20:14:42 UTC

"It's a good start," I reply ( ... )

prodigaljaybird September 24 2011, 02:59:19 UTC

Jason continues stare up at Steve doubtfully, though he's listening and files away everything he's said. "Don't pick my hand up at all," he says. "Like an etch-o-sketch." That's going to look like crap, but at least this way he'll have an excuse.

Jason looks right up at Steve still standing there, half because his face is almost perfectly symmetrical, and half because he likes the attention, and Steve can't move if he's the subject. Jason does try, though, producing a few sketches, each slightly less mangled than the last. "You used to be an illustrator?" he asks after a bit, mostly to distract from his own sadbastard efforts. "Did you go to school for it?"

onlyforthedream September 24 2011, 08:48:13 UTC

"I did, though not a four year fine arts program. I'd been drawing for years by the time I left high school," I answer, remaining relatively still while Jason takes advantage. Everyone else seems to be falling into a rhythm, so it doesn't do any harm.

"I drew the covers and insets of pulp books for a while, as well as comic books. I actually drew a few Captain America comics, back in the early years. That was fun, if it all felt a little... strangely self-serving."

prodigaljaybird September 27 2011, 19:45:19 UTC

"You had to draw yourself?" Jason grins up at him, cheered even as the thought slides more darkly into him than it could. What he wouldn't give to refashion his own history...so many outcomes, choices would have been different, and Jason doesn't mean his own. "Did you draw Bucky, too?"

onlyforthedream September 28 2011, 05:44:44 UTC

"I did. They were especially interested in getting that story out. It was important to the government that everyone saw Bucky as just an American kid with extra gumption who fell into being Captain America's teenage sidekick. The Nazi propaganda machine was so strong, the Hitler Youth such a devastating concept, that having an American teen fighting alongside with their unstoppable Sentinel of Liberty was paramount. Not to mention that a whole generation's worth of fathers and big brothers had just been shipped overseas. It gave kids something to put themselves into, a way to imagine themselves that they desperately needed, at the time ( ... )

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