#for all the painters/artists out there

[quillsandblades]

Shades of Another World

Based on the art by @catyypss

Levi has a way with colors and paints that is unlike anything Hange has ever seen before. The moment he sets up his canvas and arranges his equipment, she knows that he’s just a paintbrush’s stroke away from capturing the whole universe and translating it on his canvas in streaks and splashes of color. 

It’s beautiful to watch, and she feels quite privileged to be able to see him paint. Best friend or not, Levi has always been secretive about his art. He stores his pieces in his workroom, letting only a few of them be seen by anyone (Which kind of makes sense because they’re the reflection of his innermost self). And Hange’s sure that no one in the entire world has ever been allowed to watch Levi Ackerman paint. So it’s only natural to feel absolutely giddy and warm when Levi finally allows her to see him while he worked—but only after years of insistence. 

Hange Zoe marvels at her friend’s command over the shades of the world, the way his slender fingers move the brush, and guide the reds and blues and greens. At first it looks like haphazard colors strewn over the white surface, but then they take shape and arrange themselves, and Hange realizes that each stroke had a meaning, a purpose to the bigger picture, and how the absence of even a single speck would have diminished the final effect. 

She just sits in wonder as Levi leans back on his chair, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth. He has made a horse galloping in a field, with the wide sky spread above. Sunlight plays on its mane and flank, and shadows dance on its body in just the right places. The field is full of flowers, lifting their faces in the gold pouring from the sun above. 

It feels like the painting is breathing. 

She’s sure she can hear the grunts of the horse, and the telltale whistle of the breeze. 

‘You’re amazing Levi,’ she says a little breathlessly, turning to smile widely at him.

He just clicks his tongue and looks away. 

Hange giggles. When will that shorty learn to take a compliment? 

‘You know what?’ Hange leans her elbow on his desk. His eyes narrow suspiciously. ‘You should teach me how to paint this good.’

‘Fuck no,’ Levi glares. ‘I don’t teach. And especially not to morons like you.’ 

‘C’mon Levi,’ she whines. 

‘No. You’ll probably manage to break everything you touch.’

‘Hey! I’m not like that!’ she cries indignantly. ‘And besides, I do know some basics; I just need to get my hands settled on it. I know it’ll never be as good as you, but I want to learn. Pleeeease.’

She stares at him with wide pleading eyes. 

He folds his arms and glares at the window beside him. Hange pokes his shoulder hard with her finger and continues to do that repeatedly when he ignores her. 

‘C’mon you grump, don’t be selfish. Share your talents.’

He grabs her finger and glares at her as she pokes him again. Anyone else would’ve pissed themselves at his menacing expression but Hange just grins.

‘You’ll love it too! I promise it’ll be fun.’ 

He sighs and pushes her away.

‘Fine,’ he grumbles.

‘Yesss!’ She punches the air. 

*****

 

Levi has a shed in his backyard where he has set up his art studio. Next morning, Hange walks into it for the first time ever. It’s as neat as she expected, with paint tubes, canvases, sketch pads and so many other colorful things arranged in neat piles and labeled boxes in shelves. An easel and a comfortable chair are standing right next to the window, and a large work table is set beside it. A fair few of his paintings are hanging from the walls. 

Hange takes off her jacket and hangs it. Levi follows her in and closes the door behind them quietly.

‘So what will we start with?’ Hange exclaims, picking up a brush excitedly, hovering next to the canvas.

‘Not that,’ Levi pulls her by the arm towards the table. When they’re both seated, he passes her a blank sheet, a paintbrush and a tube of paint. ‘First I need to see how good you are at handling a brush. Start.’

Hange looks at him uncertainly, ‘Um, so what exactly should I do?’

‘Anything. I just need to see how you use a paintbrush.’

‘Okay . . .’

She begins with simple shapes and figures and he silently watches her work. In between he sometimes asks her to make something.

‘Your grip seems fine, on the whole,’ he says when she’s finished. ‘But there’s still a lot you need to work on.’

Hange nods eagerly.

Levi then proceeds to explain the basics of using a brush, different types of grips for various strokes, when to apply pressure and so on. Then he observes her as she follows it all and guides her in places she goes wrong. They sit there until the sun dips low in the sky and the shadows stretch out against the ground. By the time Hange gets up to leave, she’s dead tired but happy.

Their routine continues, and each day he takes her one step ahead, explaining the basics of color theory, shading and so much more. Hange finds out that she’s seen Levi talking more than she ever had, in those classes; he seems relaxed, in his element. And Hange likes to think that it’s because he’s sharing his favorite thing, a part of himself, with his closest friend (as she prefers to call herself). And of course the thought makes her pleased beyond measure.

 

 

It’s another one of those days; Levi and Hange are in his studio and outside the summer sun shines in all its glory. She’s working on a technique he showed her, blotting a paper with paint-soaked fingers, trying—and failing—to bring about the proper effect. Levi is sitting by a canvas, painting away. 

Hange drops her head on the table, and regards him over the rim of her glasses; sunlight dips over his face, slanting along his cheekbones. His brows are drawn in concentration, eyes following the constant sweep of his hand over the canvas. 

‘Levi.’

‘Hmm?’

‘What’s your favorite thing to paint?’

‘Are you done with that?’ he points at the sheet in front of her.

‘I can’t get it right, but tell me—’

‘Then finish it up.’

‘Levi,’ she complains. ‘It’s a harmless question, I’m not gonna do anything else until you answer me. What do you like to paint the most?’

He sighs and puts his brush down, then leans back on his chair, contemplating her words. Hange waits in the wake of his silence.

‘The sky,’ he says after a while. 

‘Why?’

‘Can’t you be satisfied with one answer?’ he grits out.

‘Not in my nature, shorty,’ she chuckles.

He picks up his brush and starts working again. She’s about to pester him further when he speaks softly.

‘It just . . . makes me feel free. The sky is unrestrained, limitless. I don’t know but, something about it just draws me in.’

Hange waits, knowing there’s more. She sees his fingers tighten around the brush, knuckles turning white. His next words come out fast and fumbling.

‘Every time I look up, I feel like I can breathe a little more easily—I'm so damn relieved that there’s—that there’s actually an open sky up there rather than—’

The brush slips from his finger as he stops short, eyes wide and staring into space.

‘Hey, are you okay?’ Hange gets up, rushing over to him. Levi blinks rapidly, shaking himself out of whatever is going on in his head. Hange puts a hand on his shoulder and he turns to her.

‘’M fine,’ he mutters, brushing her off. ‘How’s your progress?’ he gets up. 

‘I can’t get it right!’ Hange grouches. ‘Why do I need to paint with fingers in the first place?’

‘It’s important for some pieces. It also helps to bring out a texture that a brush can’t manage at times,’ he explains patiently. 

He dips his finger in some paint and shows her once more how to do it. They sit side by side and work on the sheet, and Levi corrects her wherever she goes wrong. But Hange has to admit that it's a boring practice and she’s seriously lacking some entertainment. So when Levi is focused on the sheet in front of them, she stealthily scoops up some red paint and smears it right on his cheek.

He freezes. 

Hange knows she has a literal second before he’s after her; she jumps out of her seat with a shriek before he can snatch her arm and bounds to the other side of the room. 

‘You. Are. So. Dead,’ he promises darkly and chases after her in a flash.

Hange sprints around the table, cackling like a madwoman, with Levi on the tail. In her chaotic scuffle she grabs onto the rest of that paint and as he gains on her, she splashes it squarely at him. With Levi dripping in red, Hange knows she’ll be dead for sure if he catches her now. She pelts out of the shed and into his backyard. Her howls of laughter echo in the silent afternoon and they both run in circles around the garden like some frisky children. 

When he almost catches her, she turns around abruptly and jumps on him, taking him by surprise as they both tumble to the ground. He’s pinned beneath her and scowling through the mess on his face. 

Everything is silent around them save for the chitter-chatter of birds and Hange’s giggles. Summer seems to be pouring on them lazily and she can see how his face shines in the warmth of the sun. She’s left him quite disheveled; he’s panting slightly; his shirt is stained and streaks of red are sliding down his forehead, cheeks and nose and—

Shrapnel is embedded in his face, blood trailing down his once flawless skin. He lays limp in her arms, dragging down her heart like an anchor to the bottom of the sea. Don’t die, her broken, wounded heart pleads, please don’t die. 

Hange’s laughter tapers off. She stares at him with wide eyes.

‘Oi,’ Levi is frowning, sensing her sudden rigidness. ‘Four-eyes.’

She shivers violently and Levi pushes her off him gently. She sits upon the grass as her head pounds and her vision swims. She sucks in heavy breaths feeling like her lungs are in a chokehold. With a long breath, she pulls herself together and looks around. Levi is nowhere and she’s sitting alone in the yard.

‘Levi!’ she shouts, irrational panic laces her voice. She stumbles to her feet, searching left and right. He was right there with her, where did he go? Where could he have—

‘Relax,’ his steady voice sounds from behind her. She whips around to see him coming out of the house, holding a glass of water in one hand and tissues in the other, with which he’s wiping his now wet and blood—paint-free face clean. Her anxiety diminishes a touch.

He hands her the water and she gulps it down shakily. The cool liquid soothes her throat and calms her jangled nerves. Levi is gazing at her apprehensively and she wants to tell him that she’s okay and it was probably just the heat, but the words are trapped in her throat and nonsensical thoughts are swirling in her head—thoughts that are screaming that he’s gonna slip out of her grasp and die any second if she doesn’t do anything right now because he’s bleeding and dying out in her arms and they’re surrounded and there’s no way out. 

‘Hange,’ she feels a cool hand on her arm, her gaze catches his, steel-blue irises watch her intensely. 

She raises her trembling fingers and softly brushes them against his cheek, pale and smooth, not cut up and bleeding. He’s still under her touch, his eyes searching. She lets her gaze flit across his features, trying to release her throat from that chokehold.

‘You’re not . . . hurt?’ her whisper is small.

He frowns and seizes her hand, squeezing her fingers firmly, ‘No four-eyes. I’m fine.’

‘But you were,’ she murmurs feverishly. ‘And I . . . I couldn’t—’ 

She drops her forehead on his shoulder and shudders ‘Don’t do anything so reckless again.’

She doesn’t know how long they stand there like that, but Levi doesn’t move and she just breathes. Maybe he thinks she’s finally gone mad, but he doesn't say anything, doesn't push her off. In truth, she can’t understand a thing herself, or the words she’s saying, but she knows that something made her feel like she was losing Levi. And the thought was terrifying. 

‘Let’s go inside, I’ll make lunch,’ he sounds indifferent as ever, but she can detect hints of worry in his voice. She presses his hand.

‘Okay.’

*****

Levi eventually gives her the spare keys so she can come to his studio and practice whenever she feels like. It’s helpful, because now she has pretty much mastered most of the things he taught her over the months and she sometimes feels the sudden urge to paint something that pops in her head, and rushes to his shed right that instant if she can. She’s still not perfect, and there are many things she struggles with, but she likes her progress.  

‘Leviii,’ Hange drawls, slumped over the chair by the window, pouting at her canvas. 

‘I can’t draw the sea foam.’

He sighs from the other end of the room where he’s arranging his new supplies, ‘Have you learnt nothing all these months?’ 

‘But it’s difficult. I can try but there’s only a sixty percent chance that I’ll get it right and I don’t wanna ruin this canvas.’

Previously she made two paintings on a canvas, only because she was confident that she’d get them right, and she’d practiced on a rough paper beforehand. One was a sunset, and the other was a sea port. Both of them are now hanging on the walls. The one she’s currently working on is of a raging sea and so far everything’s going good except for that damned sea foam. 

Levi approaches her, observing her work critically. She extends the paintbrush towards him and grins, ‘You’ll do it for me, right?’

‘No.’

‘But it’s just one tiny detail, nothing will happen if you help me out shorty!’

‘I’ll help out all right, but I won’t do it for you,’ he grumbles. 

And before she can protest, he moves at the back of her chair and clutches her hand from behind, leading it to the blue and gray strokes she has made. He positions her fingers in the right way, ‘You do it like this,’ he says softly. His breath tickles her neck and she suppresses a shiver. He’s close. Very close. 

He moves the brush lightly over the canvas and she sees the sea foam manifest before her eyes effortlessly. He guides her hand over the rest of the painting in the same way. His grip is warm and steady, whereas her own hands are trembling slightly. Hange is not averse to physical contact, especially with her friends. But Levi has never before initiated it first, and she tells herself that it’s the sole reason she feels shaken right now. 

‘You get it?’ his low voice spills over her ear. 

‘Y—yes,’ she manages, feeling breathless for reasons beyond her. 

‘Good,’ he pulls away slowly and she exhales. ‘Don’t mess it up again.’

She’s sure she wouldn’t. Not when the phantom touch of his fingers is still burning on her hand.

Hange wakes up to the morning light with a start, gasping for air. Her heart is racing in her chest and cold sweat slicks her face. She looks around and realizes that she’s at home, at her desk where she fell asleep last night. Files and documents are jumbled around her, and her muscles are sore from sleeping in an awkward position. She checks her phone; it’s eight in the morning and Sunday. 

She runs a hand over her eyes. There’s an odd restlessness in her heart, and she knows it’s got something to do with her dream. Its memory is hauntingly fresh in her mind, so much so that she can even feel all those sensations. Suddenly the room is too hot and stifling. She gets up, grabs her jacket and the spare keys Levi entrusted to her and rushes out.

His shed is empty at this hour, and she knows he won’t be surprised to see her when he’ll come in as he’s already used to finding her cooped up in there at odd hours. 

She grabs a palette, paints, brushes and fixes a suitable canvas on an easel. Then she perches on that chair beside the window and starts to work. Colors merge and dance over the blank surface, filling it with life. She works with focus this time, and yet her hands shake, but not due to nervousness. Maybe it’s anticipation, because surprisingly Hange doesn’t know herself what this will lead to. Her muscles seem to be obeying that hazy, murky part of her brain that’s ruled by the incoherent; the part that perhaps knows and remembers the dream she had today, much more vividly than her. 

Red, blue, yellow, gray. There’s a story in every stroke. She’s waiting. Waiting for it all to come together and assemble, and finally give her the answer she craves. Outside, the sun climbs higher and the day gets steadily brighter. Light streams in, shining curiously upon her as she works, unaware of the world.

When she finally concludes her painting with a last shade of swirling orange, she freezes. Everything is silent around her, sunbeams dip into the room, her heartbeats are loud in her ears. 

In her painting is a port, and giant skeletal creatures wrapped in raw muscles are marching over everything. She’s high up in the sky, zipping towards them in rage. Burning. Below, in the shadow of it all, small figures of people are rushing around a plane. 

Hange drops her brush and stares at the scene before her. She’s not sure why she made this, or what compelled her mind to come up with an image like that. She wants to brush it off as a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, but the fact remains that she wasn’t even aware of what she was drawing half the time. The image made itself. And then there’s this suffocating ache in her chest that she can’t define, it’s squeezing her in an iron grip. She leans back and throws an arm over her face, breathing deeply. 

The fire licks at her body and screams rip her throat. Pain beyond measure stabs her all over but she has to move forward, she has to finish them off, has to buy them time, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much she wants to live. She must sacrifice herself. 

The door opens. 

‘What’re you doing this time?’ Levi’s voice pulls her out of the drifting currents of her mind.

She looks up at him with tired eyes. How long had she been sitting there, working nonstop?

‘What’ve you made?’ he comes over to her, leaning over to look at her work. Hange watches him closely.

She hears his breath hitch, sees his eyes widen and expression morph into something unguarded and open. He gazes at the scene for a long moment without saying anything. Then he raises his hand and touches the painting, the part where she is drawn in an odd suit, wielding swords and engulfed in flames. The painting’s still wet and the reddish orange color of the fire stains his fingers. 

‘You . . .’ he looks back at her, and this time Hange can see something more in his expression: pain. ‘Why did you make this?’

‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘It felt like my hands had a mind of their own. I couldn’t stop.’

He straightens and lets out a heavy breath. His eyes are weighed. He grabs her hand and leads her to a door at the corner of the shed that Levi never let her open before. They enter a small room which is full of paintings of different sizes—Levi’s art, she realizes. At one side, some of them are covered with a large white sheet. He yanks it away to reveal more pieces, only these are different from the others. 

As soon as Hange looks at them, the same restlessness she felt today crashes back into her heart. There’s something achingly familiar about those pictures. They show green fields, stables and dark, stone castles. They show people sitting around fires, but their faces are hazy, as if the moments were captured from wispy dreams. She does recognize some people though: a blur of color that resembles Levi, a similar one that could be her. She even spots Erwin’s indistinct form among many others. Then there are paintings with giant distorted creatures and people zipping through the sky.

She turns to Levi, ‘What is this?’ her voice begs for answers.    

‘I don’t know,’ he mirrors her words from earlier. 

It’s something for sure, they both feel it and she knows it’s important in some way. 

Levi seizes her arm suddenly; his brows are furrowed and his fingers are digging into her skin. 

‘You’re . . . here? Right?’ and the helpless look he gives her just confirms that he’s feeling exactly as she did that day when she splattered paint over him. He needs to know that she’s okay, and he’s not going to lose her. He needs her to destroy the images in his head that are probably playing a twisted scene of her death.  

Hange laces her fingers with his and presses reassuringly, ‘I’m right here shorty. And I’m not going anywhere,’ she promises. 

He nods, but maintains the death grip on her hand. They both walk out of his shed and Hange pushes all those tangled thoughts to the back of her mind. She’ll think about it later, talk to Levi and make something of this. But for now she has to assure him that she’s with him and they’re fine. They’re okay and they’re together and they’re alive.

And there’s nothing more she can ask for. 

[shoujoegg]

finished painting studies w/ the og dregs....

[bbeeew-boodles]

So I've never actually played the game, so if you see any inaccuracies, nuh uh

[eeveekitti]

hi pressurizers may i make a humble offering

[edwardian-girl-next-door]

John Hanson Walker (1844-1930), detail

via herta_d on pinterest

[liquidstar]

new oc batch ready! 8 more of these guys lol. the whole deal with this set is they’re from the artisan guild- lunar flair! intentionally spelled like “flair” as in “style” or “a flare for ____” rather than “flare”

basically all the members of the guild are different kinds of artists with different niches (and varying degrees of diva-ness). it’s pretty easy to tell who does what based on the everything about them, but if you want more info their bios are still under the cut!

Name: Jupiter

Name Origin: The planet of course

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 52

Guild rank: Guildmaster

Weapon: Lightning rods

Ethos (Power): Gigantomachy. He can make himself (even more) giant

Flaw power is based on: His overly protective nature, especially where the guild is concerned.

Notes: Literally the nicest guy ever until you provoke him though

Name: Erinome (Erin)

Name Origin: A moon of jupiter, the exact meaning of it’s name is murky but it can refer to grace or purity

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 13

Guild rank: 2 star

Weapon: A Book.

Ethos (Power): Poetic Imagery. Illusions cast forth by his her poems that change the appearance of the physical environment

Flaw power is based on: Her escapist indulgence in fantasy

Notes: You know, like, the pen is mightier than the sword and all that.

Name: Pictor

Name Origin: The constellation meaning “painter”

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 23

Guild rank: 3 star

Weapon: Giant paintbrush

Ethos (Power): Ardor. He can create three-dimensional things with his paintbrush. However they are not animate or alive.

Flaw power is based on: His conceited nature in regards to his own work.

Notes: Goes to museums to talk about how he could probably do it better anyway

Name: Oberon

Name Origin: A moon of the planet Uranus, it gets it’s name from the king of the fairies in Renaissance literature. Notably in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 29

Guild rank: 5 star

Weapon: Rapier

Ethos (Power): Fantasia. An illusion of changing his own appearance.

Flaw power is based on: His theatrical nature, of course

Notes: Why is he ourple?

Name: Syrma

Name Origin: A star in virgo, it’s name refers to the train of a garment (Typically worn by actors in tragedies)

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 25

Guild rank: 4 star

Weapon: Giant needle

Ethos (Power): Binding threads. She can create stitches on any solid objects and bind them to each other. Including people- The stitches are manifested energy and do not hurt.

Flaw power is based on: The dependency she often has on bonds- i.e. threads that bind people.

Notes: She makes and models all her own clothes.

Name: Parumleo 

Name Origin: A star in Pisces, it’s name means “small lion”

Pronouns: They/he

Age: 19

Guild rank: 3 star

Weapon: Microphone bardiche

Ethos (Power): Persuasion. If they can make you laugh you’ll temporarily have to follow his orders. Though it’s too weak to call full-blown mind control, and fairly easy to snap out of.

Flaw power is based on: His desire to be liked by others.

Notes: They’re like a lolcat. They can haz cheezburger.

Name: Leda

Name Origin:  A moon of jupiter, the name means swan.

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 28

Guild rank: 4 star

Weapon: Duel ribbons

Ethos (Power): Poise. Complete and utter weightlessness.

Flaw power is based on: Her carefree and utterly absent-minded nature.

Notes: You guys know swan lake right? Well, there ya go.

Name: Styx

Name Origin: A moon of pluto that gets it’s name from the river of the underworld. Yeah it’s also a rock band.

Pronouns: She/they

Age: 20

Guild rank: 3 star

Weapon: Axe-guitar.

Ethos (Power): Vibrato. Powerful soundwaves cast by her axe-guitar

Flaw power is based on: Her brash and blasé attitude

Notes: Calls everyone “baby” or “babe” because they’re a cool rockstar.

[friedwings]

i want to try a thing. does anyone want to collab with me on this piece? i finished this line art a while ago. it took me ages. but i haven't had the motivation or time to color it... i really want it to be finished though, for my fellow TFP lovers out there. please DM me if you want to help out. ty <3

(the idea: it's a Polaroid. KO is holding the camera. also they definitely killed someone to get it. they might be drunk. it's just a boy's night out)

[powpowchaos]

My current artistic goal.

It to digitally paint something so beautiful, with environmental story telling, something so incredibly symbolic that it truly is something people stare to observe and take it all in before getting angry at me that the piece has shadow t hedgehog as the main subject.

[askshivanulegacy]

These comments are a really weird take, and the video is less than fantastic. And also the comments are a complete tangent from anything the video actually says; i.e., the video does not support them.

I dislike Thomas Kinkade, but not because the art is "bad." It's not bad art. You don't make millions on art people think is bad, bottom line. His art is beautiful, and none of OP's negative comments about it apply. As the video itself points out, there's nothing wrong with creating art in the niche you enjoy. That is, in fact, the entire point of creating art. You don't HAVE to throw angst and drama into art to "say something." Art can just be beautiful and compelling, and speculative merely because it's beautiful and compelling.

The video compared Kinkade to Norman Rockwell, and ofc both the styles and subject matter are leagues apart - because the artists had different influences and wanted to pursue different subjects. This is normal. They don't even look similar. I'm not sure why you would bother comparing them in the first place, unless you are simply misinformed.

If you want to compare Kinkade, as beautiful artwork without a political message (which is a large majority of art), then he falls exactly among the ranks of:

Lisa Frank:

Christian Riese Lassen:

Bob Ross:

James Gurney (who worked with Kinkade, actually):

And all such artwork, like the painting of any sunset, landscape, or sailing ship ever. Most photography is in this category too.

Are Frank's, Lassen's, Ross's, and Gurney's artwork devoid of creativity, meaning, soul, and wit?

No. Neither is Kinkade's. Or maybe Bob Ross is a fascist too for the crime of (checks notes) creating beautiful and uplifting art.

You don't have to like the subject matter, but then you wouldn't like the above artists either.

I take exception to Kinkade too, but more because the cost of his prints are inflated beyond all reason. As an artist, if you make prints, the prints must be at a reachable price for the average person. That is the point of a print. Kinkade's prints are all at scalper prices which don't reflect their worth. Of course, this ties in to the "scam" he was running ... but honestly, if stupid people are willing to pay $200-$6000 for a print with a hand-painted rock in the corner because they think it's going to be worth more someday, then that's a personal problem. Buying a physical object as your investment mechanism is a risk, as is all investment. That's your problem and your own fault. Kinkade is detestable, not because of the art which is perfectly good, but because he found a way to exploit stupid people at scalper prices (also for his personality I guess, but that's not relevant to most people). But if you're convinced it's worth paying $6000 for a print with a tiny fragment of hand-painted something on it, that's not really exploitation if you knew about it, is it?

This is really more commentary on the idiocy of the average American person than on Kinkade himself. I object to his methods on a philosophical level because art prints should be accessible. I don't object to the art itself, or care that stupid people paid those prices.

Also, that video is extremely sub-par. Sure, they walk through Kinkade's life story, which is interesting, but they make fun of his personal appearance, which is extremely unprofessional and irrelevant. And this, despite the fact that the people producing the vid look worse than Kinkade does. The guest speaker artist adds zero value to the video. He also doesn't know who James Gurney is, which is ... embarrassing to say the least. I'm not sure why he's on the show because he's just not useful. Both men consistently speak over the lady on the show, and the number of words she says can be counted on one hand. Either she simply has nothing to add, or the two men are chronically obsessed with pointless quips to the extent that they never leave room for her to contribute. In essence, the main narrator simply reads from a script he's presumably written, and derails himself with bad taste jokes every two minutes, which the guest artist contributes to, and which the lady looks either unimpressed or disgusted by. The story they tell could have been interesting in terms of Kinkade's business practices and how he made his millions, had they actually dived very deep into it, but they didn't. It was a supremely superficial coverage that obsessed more over personality flaws extremely common to many famous people. That Kinkade also had these flaws is not remotely interesting.

Also the video says nothing about fascists, so defaulting to that opinion just because you hate everything conservative is weird and also a bad faith take. I don't care that many people dislike Kinkade and his work (I would never buy Kinkade, but more out of principle and because my tastes have evolved since then), but I do care when people take their own opinion as gospel regarding what is and isn't good art. Quite obviously, there's nothing factual about an opinion, and opinions about art are meaningless because they're about personal preference and nothing else of relevance.

Kinkade's art is good. It's real art. You don't have to like it. The people who paid more than $20 for a print of it are stupid.

You also can't psychoanalyze a fascist by their art preference or even make sweeping statements about the type of art they like. And even if that's what you wanted to do, one bad video about one artist isn't how you do it.

If you want a really good basic-level exploration about why fascists have no fucking taste and can't make good art, the Behind the Bastards episodes about Thomas Kinkade are fantastic.

Basically, the fascist view of art is that art should always be beautiful and uplifting, with an incredibly narrow definition of what beautiful and uplifting means. It's fundamentally anti-creativity and its art is removed of all meaning, soul and wit.

[coldnutparadise]

pov:u go into blue pe/riod goin haha i too went to art school n then u come out of the otherside holding ur head at "why did u choose art sen/sei" "i just chose a hell i could live with" and "do you even like art?" and "everybody is telling you about closure and how to move on from grief, but there's nothing wrong with holding that grief forever for the rest of your life" and "if u give it ur all and still fail, you should off urself?" and "does it even matter if your work is popular - isn't it enough for it to resonate with just the one person bc it moved them so deeply-"

[weaselle]

i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

[marzipanandminutiae]

could the beach painting not be intended as a somewhat ~racy~ depiction (see: the topless woman), hence the short/tight clothes?

oh it 1000% is

that is his Fantasy Version of Combinations, I'm convinced

it's like that one artist nobody now realizes loved to depict women half-dressed, because corset-covers look like tank tops to us and petticoats look like normal (even old-fashioned and concealing!) skirts. what was that guy's name? with all the blue silk?

...TOULMOUCHE

this woman is showing her underwear. a glimpse of petticoat might be fine, but Skirt Hiking To Reveal A Huge Amount? nope. that is a sexy painting.

Lounging About With My Bodice Inexplicably Open is a popular Toulmouche theme. the white "tank top" is also underwear. note the half-up hair- that is also sexy!

damnit, Toulmouche why is this lady sexy? there's a kid in the painting! have some decency! but no, Mama is praying with her child while inexplicably having removed specifically her bodice but not her skirt. nor has she just changed into nightclothes before putting the kiddo to bed like a normal person. also that is clearly her chemise and her skirt would not close over it without her corset on; the fat distribution would be all different.

this one is just gay. Mlle. Red is clearly into Mlle. Nightwear/Lingerie and her sexy 1880s pixie cut (I think? either that or her hair is blending REALLY well with the shadows). I'm here for it

"this letter is so distressing that I had to stop midway through getting dressed and put on my Bolero of Sadness. and lounge seductively against the screen. sad-ductively, I mean"

Get dressed to the point of putting bodice on

do not put bodice on

don Tiny Vest

pin roses to corset cover that would 100% negate purpose of corset cover if actually attached to it

???

Toulmouche(TM)

Once again, that's not even her corset-cover. It's the top part of her combinations. how is her skirt fitting without the corset it was fitted on top of? Seamstresses Hate Local Painter Of Specific Fetish For This One Weird Fitting Trick!

(also, "you wanted to paint a woman in this one very particular unlikely undress state you find hot, but you painted her making out with a mirror and called it Vanity etc." there's actually a version of this called Vanity, and she's fully dressed. this one is The Mirror.)

I've got nothing. Extremely obvious late Victorian undergarment on top normal late Victorian skirt on bottom, fucking Renaissance Revival pearl-encrusted sleeves. Why not. Why, indeed, the fuck not.

WHAT IS WITH THE LITTLE VEST

[sylvies-chen]

I’ve been seeing that couples paint each other challenge where couples will spend a night in with a canvas and some cheap paints and give each other 30 minutes to try and paint each other, and now I can’t stop thinking about armandaniel doing that one night and armand’s is yeah it’s good okay like it’s not great because of the whole vampire art struggles but he was around renaissance painters for a long time so he does a pretty good job of getting daniel’s minute features and shading and whatnot but daniel’s is just. lord it’s so bad. it’s like the most primal kindergarten painting you’ve ever seen but dammit all the right ingredients are there!! he got the orange eyes and the curls and he very proudly points out that he gave armand a little ipad in his painting like his fake rashid era which he cracks himself up with but he looks over and armand is in tears because not only is he looking at the first painting of himself in over 400 years but he’s also looking at the most non sexual artistic interpretation of him he’s ever seen. like it’s just. him. he’s just existing. he’s there. on the canvas. with literally no background. not a meadow or even a grassline or anything. all this blank white liminal space around his (horrendously drawn) likeness as if nothing else is needed. no body contortions, eyes too one dimensional to even hold all his pain. daniel is just kind of chuckling and bashfully being all “ah fuck it’s pretty bad isn’t it I mean there’s a reason I stick to words, I drew your nose all lopsided on that one side and—” cut to armand literally welling up and whispering like “no. it’s beautiful.” daniel doesn’t get it. this is a liberation.

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[sanchoyo]

ik i said i wanted to do at least 2-3 personal solo zines this year aside from the one i already put out but im having such a hard time deciding on a topic?? 'random art zine' or 'sketchbook zine' feel too random kadhfkj. and the only thing ive been MEGA into lately have been my own ocs but making a zine with them would feel weird..also very niche lmao

[humansofnewyork]

“Occasionally I’ll have a beer after work and break out the sketchbook. But I had wanted to be this great painter. I wanted to do these grand things: big, huge oil paintings. But those days of painting all the time were such a roller coaster. There were these periods of extreme depression, followed by manic states of trying to put myself out there. I couldn’t do it anymore. I mainly felt sorry for my dad. I know it was rough for him. My mom hadn’t wanted me to go to art school. She wanted me to do something more practical, but my dad said: ‘No. This is what he wants to do, and I want to support his dream.’ And then I abandoned it. That was the first time I had to deal with real failure. A lot of times when you’re an artist, it’s your job, it’s your lifestyle, it’s your entire fucking identity. It wasn’t like I failed to do a thing. It was like: I failed to be something, you know? It was a failure to live up to what I thought was my destiny. But then on the other side of that, there was this figuring out that there was nothing wrong with me the entire time. I didn’t need to be something else to have meaningful friendships, or a good relationship. I didn’t need to be something else to be loved and cared about. After work tonight I’m going to meet up with a person who’s in love with me, and I can’t wait. And that person met me long after I gave up on being a full-time artist. They met me when I wasn’t even a chef yet. I was a piss-poor, part-time line cook. But even then, they decided I was worth it. So you know, there’s something there. There’s something there that’s enough.”