#ive never worked with ink before and i only have worked with oil paint in that class

[vangoghmusings]

starving artist | shota aizawa x reader

hello!! this is chapter three of “starving artist” and i really hope you guys are enjoying it :) ive really loved writing it! i update primarily to wattpad (@/vangoghpoets) but i update here as well! also, don’t be afriad to reach out with requests <3 

You basically passed out the moment you arrived home, exhausted from your week. The following morning you forced yourself to wake up early and begin the sketch and underpainting of the first canvas for the first-year dorm common area. You're usually a scrambled mess when it comes to your artwork, but you wanted to try being organized for once.

Looking down at the half-finished brown underpainting, you sighed in frustration. Your fingers ached, not having done such a large amount of sketching in a long time. You grabbed your sketchbook for reference, noticing the numbers scribbled down in the corner.

"Aizawa..." you mumbled to yourself. A blush crept up your cheek

you: hi aizawa, i hope you got some rest! this is y/n btw :)

You didn't expect a reply right away, yet your phone chimed in mere minutes.

aizawa: i didn't expect you to be an early bird y/n. and yes i got some rest, thank you.

You giggled at his punctuation, even over text he seemed so serious. You left your art easel and went to sit down on your couch.

you: ive just begun my underpainting so i have a lot of work today

aizawa: whats an underpainting? i thought it was called a canvas

You laughed to yourself, curling up on your couch.

you: no no, an underpainting is first layer of paint applied to canvas, its a base for future layers of paint

aizawa: I had no idea painting was so intricate. i just figured you were either talented or not.

you: it's just like being a hero, you'll never be good if you don't put your all in it. And you want to do great, no matter how difficult it is.

aizawa: i'm guessing you're pretty tired then.

you: incredibly tired.

It was true, you were utterly drained from jumping back and forth from teaching to painting. It felt like you hadn't had a single moment to yourself since you started at UA. Your phone chimed again.

aizawa: do you want me to bring you a coffee? it's the least i can do since you picked all those leaves out of my hair and because i fell asleep on you.

You blinked at the text, surprised at the offer. You had a tiny crush on Aizawa that you were constantly pushing down. Maybe this could be an opportunity to prove yourself that you could get over your mushy feelings for him. You typed back quickly.

you: coffee sounds amazing actually! are you sure you don't mind?

aizawa: not at all.

You gave him your address and tried to bury the giddy feelings swelling up inside you. In an attempt to distract yourself from his impending arrival, you went back to your easel and continued your underpainting. You put your entire focus on completing the underpainting, working with both speed and detail. You were adding shading to the canvas figures when the doorbell rang. You shot up from your concentrated position and wiped your face flustered, forgetting about the orange paint that covered your fingertips.

You walked over and opened the door, smiling to see Aizawa out of his work attire. He wore a simple black sweater that looked a little too big on him, accompanied by black jeans and what appeared to be Doc Marten boots.

"Hello!" You smiled at him, letting him enter your home.

He smiled softly, holding the coffee cups in his hands.

"Hello, y/n. You have paint on your face by the way."

Your eyes widened in horror at his words. You began to laugh nervously as you hurried to the bathroom, Aizawa left standing in your living room and looking around. You scrubbed your face quickly, mentally scolding yourself for the careless move. You swiftly fixed your hair and walked back out to meet Aizawa.

He turned to you and handed you your coffee. "I hope you like vanilla, it was just a guess."

You grinned, taking the warm cup in your hands and taking a whiff of the sweet steam peeking out.

"It's perfect, thank you."

Aizawa nodded, looking around your living room. He looked odd standing in all black in your colorful home. From the rug to the furniture to the dinnerware, your home was eccentric, to say the least. Whether it was a souvenir from your travels or trinkets of a local artist, everything had its place. Aizawa looked like a goth at a child's birthday party in your home.

He took a sip from his coffee and gestured to a painting on the wall. It was an old painting of a village, filled with rustic colors and gentle strokes. You smiled softly at the feelings of home that surged over you.

"No, my grandmother made it. I inherited her quirk actually. It's a painting of the village we grew up in."

Aizawa turned to you and tilted his head, "Village?"

You chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, my family is from a poor island in the Caribbean. My parents moved us to America so we could have a better life. We as in my sister and me." You smiled to yourself, picturing your family back home.

"So why are you in Japan now?"

"I'd always save up money from my art shows to come here. Everything is just so beautiful and I'm a sucker for a good still life. I just figured I could save myself the money and move here."

Aizawa nodded, slightly confused at your art terminology.

"Can I see one of your paintings? Or your underpainting thing?"

You giggled and nodded, leading him into your mini art studio. The room had an easel and stacks upon stacks of prepped paper and canvases. Jars filled with brushes, charcoal, Indian ink, and pencils lined the shelves. A bucket sat on a small table, filled to the brim with acrylic paints. Another box filled with oil, one filled with gauche, and the last one filled with watercolor palettes.

"It's kind of a mess, sorry," you mumbled under your breath as he walked inside. Aizawa looked around entranced. Several finished and partly finished paintings hung from clips on a string, drying or waiting to be sold. He faced your easel and scrunched his nose in confusion.

"Why is it all one color?" He pointed to the orange underpainting.

"Underpaintings are monochromatic," you answered matter-of-factly. "It gives the painting more depth."

Aizawa nodded, his mouth forming a small 'o' shape in understanding. There was a moment of silence as Aizawa continued to look around in awe.

"This is really incredible, y/n," He said softly. You felt the heat take over your face, making you panic rather than take the compliment. "Who's your inspiration?"

You blinked, still flustered from your tomato red blush, "Huh?"

Aizawa stepped towards you, tossing the empty coffee cup in the trash.

"Who inspired you? Like, every young hero is inspired by a pro. Who's your pro?"

You smiled softly, "My grandmother, I mean she gave me this great quirk. Its nothing a hero could really use, but its been good to me so far. But as for a professional artist, I'd have to say, Matisse."

He tilted his head, clearly not knowing who he was. You chuckled, "He's a French painter." Aizawa nodded once again.

"I've been to France before, Paris specifically. It was for a pro hero conference but still."

Your eyes widened, "Of all the places in Europe I've traveled to, I've never been to Paris. It's basically my dying wish to go to the Louvre."

"I didn't get to do much tourism when I was there, I'd like to go back someday."

You smiled at Aizawa, he didn't strike you as someone who'd enjoy traveling or tourism, but you could still imagine him in a cheesy Hawaiian shirt and a camera strapped around him. The image in your head made you giggle softly. He eyed you and looked down at your hands.

"I heard about your quirk but I've never seen you use it."

"I could say the same for you," I said lying. Of course, you'd seen clips of him and his quirk on the news, but never really in front of you.

He rolled his eyes, "Show me."

You tried to hide your flustered blush that emerged from his sudden seriousness. You grabbed a paper from the stack and gently placed your whole palm on it.

"What's your favorite color?"

He looked down at himself and his black attire and back up at you.

"Yellow actually."

You nodded, remembering his yellow goggles and sleeping bag. Once you pulled your hand away, the paper had a mustard yellow imprint of your palm. You showed him your hand, the paint disappearing back into your skin.

Aizawa raised his eyebrows impressed, "You managed to match the color to my sleeping bag."

You grinned; proud he had noticed, "I'm pretty good at shade matching." He gently took the paper with your handprint.

"You have small hands." He looked up at your hands and lifted his up for comparison. You lifted your hand up and placed it on his. He was right, your hand was small compared to his. You stared at his hand on yours, not wanting to pull away. His palms were calloused, most likely from hero work. You gave him a sly smile. Aizawa furrowed his brows in confusion, "What?" He pulled his hand away, only to see an imprint of paint of your palm on his in your favorite color. "Hey!" He grumbled and pulled his hand away from you grumpily.

"Now you know my favorite color," you giggled. He sent a glare in your direction, swiftly running his hand across your cheek, covering you in the paint. You gasped, "Aizawa!"

He burst out laughing at the smear of paint on your cheek. It was the first time you truly saw him laugh and it caught you off guard. You narrowed your eyes at him, your hands prepping the paint.

"Oh, you are so dead Aizawa."

He gave you a smirk, "Oh really?"

You shot bright neon shades of paint from your fingertips, splatter painting his black sweater. His eyes widened.

"Yes, really." You answered, returning the smirk.

He stared at you and before you could realize, he had used his quirk to erase yours. Swiftly he wrapped his arms around you, like a tight hug, and covered you in the fluorescent paint. You gasped trying to break free. "Aizawa I can't believe you!" You couldn't help but laugh at seeing his body wrapped around yours, the usual dark figure covered in bright hues. He chuckled and slowly let go of you. As much as you hated being covered in paint, you missed his arms around you.

"You know you can call me Shota, right?"

You blushed, thankful for the paint on your cheeks covering it up.

"Okay, Shota."  

[bubblepunk99s]

Amara

Dust motes danced in the airy light of Anis’ study as he shifted through a storm of essences.

He had called his desk an ‘aromatic apothecary’. Amara had dubbed it a ‘scent bench’. Racks of essence bottles curved around him as he furiously scribbled formulas on to wafers of paper. Occasionally he would un-cork one, releasing a burst of scent that filled the room before dissipating just as quickly- rose oil, hyacinth, slowly burning sandalwood, even that metal stench Amara had always associated with the Void gates back home. Anis would take stock of it then return to his scribbling.

Another uncorking. A fierce note of burning pepper-bush flooded Amara’s nostrils. Then it was gone. More scribbling.

“That was a good one.”  

“Hmm.” Anis sounded unconvinced. “Bit too overpowering, might need a modifier, maybe a citrus ester or a floral one. But that’s in my rayiha so I’ve been told and I don’t think it’s very becoming of me to aim for a signature just yet...”

He continued on in this manner. Amara really didn’t mind. She’d learned a lot over the past week thanks to Anis’ ramblings- his role as a student in the school of extracting (itself part of the house of sciences) the nature of his craft, the Soljin’s nature as part of a greater whole- one of four peoples that had split apart from days spent as Void-wandering nomads, different in many ways but bound by the faith that had united them so long ago- the faith of midãd, the pursuit of the divine substance. Anis considered his work to be the greatest expression of that history, crafting multi-layered scents from countless differing essences.

“So, how’s your work coming along?”

“Oh.” Rising herself from her stupor, Amara glanced back at her sketches. Though Anis had provided a desk to study at right next to a disused alembic, her mind had been elsewhere. It was with Tia and the others now searching for ingredients in the shops and markets. Ingredients for Met’s...treatment.

“Something is in you.” She had said to her, sitting her down in the lovers’ small home. “Call it a baran, call it kaba, call it whatever you like. Just know it isn’t getting out unless we force it out.”

“A...” Amara remembered. “The bolt.”

“Yes, the bolt. The one you were struck by. It came from the god-grounds.”

“You knew about that?!” Tia had been aghast

“I sensed something in her when we shook hands. You telling me about the storm destroying your district confirmed my suspicions. Why do you think I chose to let you stay after your friend’s treatment?”

“So, you were keeping things from us.” Udana said. “Why should we trust you now?”

“It’s not about trust. It’s about necessity. You think the wights you met in the desert were bad? Whatever’s in you now is far older, far darker. I don’t know how it got into you but I know I’m the only one in this city that can get it out. You need more than a doctor, you need someone who understands the dead.”

Silence. Then Khedes had spoken up.

“We can help you.”

“Amara?”

Amara blinked. “Sorry... just thinking about-”

“About your condition?”

She nodded. Setting his work aside, Anis came up and laid a hand on her shoulder. Thankfully he wasn’t shocked back 10 meters.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you more. That way you wouldn’t have to rely on that frightful pair.” He rubbed his neck. “If only I could be more like En-Kindi.”

“Who?”

“En-Kindi, the founder of the school of extracting, part of the house of sciences first master’s council. He could do everything: perfume, metallurgy, astronomy, cryptography. A true polymath! He once said that “time exists only with motion.  Body with motion, motion with body. If there is motion there is necessarily body, if there is body there is necessarily motion.”

“How does that relate to all my problems?”

“It means if you keep moving forward then things will definitely work out in the end!”

They both chuckled at that. Then awkward silence resumed.

“You know” Anis continued. “He also said we should devote ourselves to the truth. Always keep looking for it, even if it came from peoples distant and nations different from us. I think he approve of you coming all the way out here...and that he would want me to help you.”

Amara gave a gentle, tired smile. “Thank you. That means a lot.”

Anis smiled back. He was about to say something more when suddenly there was a wrapping at the door. Perplexed, he went and opened it. He returned with a small wooden box. Lifting its lid revealed 4 small perfume bottles and a note with 4 words in the Soljinn script written on it. Amara recognised them as street names.

Anis’ smile faded.

“Come on. Time I showed you the other part of my job.”

Kuru’s house of sciences was an alternating mix of interior and exterior spaces. Shadowed hallways would lead to fragrant courtyards bordered by rounded pillars of Aban-Sad stone. Its student body a mix of promising young scholars swelled by the patronage of established academics and those who had been sent by less established families to rise through scholarship and intellectual endeavour. Anis was one such student.

“Wish you could have seen things when everyone was here. Boys would wear off-world jeans under their work robes. We dared each other to flip them up when to get a glimpse of what style they were trying out.”

“Did you really?”

Anis blinked. “Please don’t assume every strapping young Soljinn man is as socially awkward as me.”

That of course had changed with the Corvus’ arrival. The school was backed by public funding, along with that of the social elite- bankers, merchants and military officers. When the Corvus assumed command that wellspring quickly dried up. Students and teachers alike dropped out, some seeking to get jobs as translators and scientists, others hurling themselves against the walls of the Nest in protest.

So now the school Amara walked through was a ghost of its former self. A time when the sound of scratching pens on paper and all manner of scientific, philosophical and theological discourse that fell under the banner of falsafa- Natural studies- filled the air. A time when so many Rayihas joined together it was hard to tell when one person’s soul ended and another’s began.

“That’s one sad story.” Amara said sympathetically, as they head out through the school’s main embossed arch.

“Not half as sad as where we’re going, I’m afraid.”

Where they were headed was a street in the city’s old quarter. En-Yaqut it was called, the birthplace of some of the city’s finest biographers and renowned for its scroll-stores, literary cafes and abundant collections of ornate manuscripts. After all, was it not said that the ink of the quill was holier than the blood of the martyr?

Amara couldn’t see that beauty now. As they followed the street downhill, the air began to smell of smoke. Shutters covered the front of shops, emblazoned with graffiti of a bird spreading its wings between two trees. A young boy flicked rocks at these shutters, which quickly burst into flames, alighted by security lasers.

“Oh no...”

Amara turned to see what Anis was looking at. Standing at a bend in the road was a charred husk of a building. It looked like it had come from Amara’s ruined district, though it stood alone instead of being surrounded by others like it. A crowd had gathered, some dousing the charred walls with water jets.

“Not Shaba...”

“You!” An old woman cried, in black robes with embroiled cuffs. “You from the house?”

“I am... I am.” Anis confirmed. “Please Shaba...the owner of this place...he isn’t...”

The lady shook her head. “Some of his clients were translators for the Corvus. A fight broke out over it and then the fire started. He didn’t survive.”

Anis fell to his knees, his breathing ragged. Amara knelt with him.

“A friend?”

He nodded shakily.

Amara didn’t need to know any more. But she needed to snap Anis out of this.

“Anis, we came here to do something. Do you remember?

Another nod. With trembling hands, he took out one of the vials and poured its contents on to the ground, murmuring what sounded like a prayer under his breath.

Slowly a rayiha surrounded them. It smelled like drying paint and fresh parchment. Amara almost thought she saw it, as a hazy silhouette of a man standing before them.

Anis seemed to glimpse it to.

“You always were so accepting, Shaba.” He turned to the woman. “Make sure the Clerics find his body and give it the rites. We have others to see to.”

He then swerved back up the way they had come. Amara nearly had to run to keep up with him.

“Perfumes are an accompaniment to someone’s soul. Naturally they can be used to guide and heal lost ones. When a body is prepared for the rites, we provide perfumes to guide the rayiha back to it.”

He gave Amara a gentle, tired smile.

“The house of sciences may be fading, but that line of work keeps me occupied a lot nowadays.”

Why had they come?

To dethrone tyrants of course! The rulers of Kuru had become depraved and needed removing. Had they not rounded up dissident scholars, removed them from public office? Had they not charged exorbitant fees for the stone of Kuru, exploiting them over the years? Had they not acted to the detriment of every non-Soljinn in the city and punished those who practiced tolerance? Men like Shaba?

“Well that was a fucking lie.” Anis growled.

The Corvus’ defeat of these men- the feared mihna lawgivers- had been like something of out of a legend. The air had suddenly filled with white light. Spears of it leapt down to strike the lawgivers palace. Then ship after ship had floated down to continue the assault.

Such talk there had been! Anti-regime cells had gathered in the coffee shops whispering of plans that would never see fulfillment. Some wrote and translated advisory letters to the Corvus, others hoped that translation schools would be built to speed negotiations between the people and the invaders.

Such dreams- of translation, of communication- had died swiftly when the Corvus demonstrated how they translated with their first routine survey.

So, the days went on. Anti-Corvus groups making a scene, the Corvus themselves appearing out of nowhere to make a bigger mess of it. Men like Shaba- known for his tolerance of all peoples and the generosity of his spirit- killed in the crossfire, while others like Anis trailed after the violence, hoping to help in whatever way they could.

“So, you still don’t know why they are here?” Amara asked. By the time they reached the House of Science’s entrance the sun was setting. A day spent attending similar sites to the one on En-Yaqut street had left her drained. She would need to talk to Tia tonight.

“Don’t know don’t care.” Anis’ voice had seemed to age over the day, becoming as rough as Met’s at times “I’m just trying to survive.”

Just trying to survive. Made her little treasure hunt seem silly by comparison. Then Amara reminded herself she was doing it to help her own people survive as well.

Turning to the path to Met’s house, Amara thought about the violence she had seen here- how it could spread so easily to her own home, how many homes it had already taken. She thought about the artefacts lying discarded in the God-grounds and the wreckage of Shaba’s slowly burning shop.

As she did, the taste of electricity filled her mouth and goosebumps spread across her skin.

[joel-furniss-blog]

H. R. Giger

An artist who I have discussed briefly in my opening research is Swiss painter and illustrator H. R. Giger. I mainly wanted to focus on the imagery present in his work which is famous for its stark and surreal depictions of human forms spliced with industrial aesthetics to ultimately create nightmarish works.

Giger had numerous inspirations stemming from a fascination with the macabre in his youth—he described himself as ‘obsessed with skulls and mummies and things like that’—to real-world threats such as growing up under threat of bombing from Nazi Germany, and the following atomic threat during the Cold War. During his young adulthood he studied architecture and industrial design, which may have inspired the measured and mechanical precision of his artwork and would aid in him in designing his Giger Bars which were bars modelled by Giger and featuring furniture designed by him such as Harkonnen Chair.

 Giger eventually moved to visual arts, beginning with ink drawings to oil paintings before using an airbrush to create his work. Giger is now known widely for his collaborative efforts with other artistic media, such as his album covers for band Emerson, Lake and Palmer and singer-songwriter Debbie Harry, set design for a scrapped adaptation for Frank Herbert’s Dune, and most famously his costume and set design for the movie Alien—for which he won an Oscar—with the titular creature based off Giger’s prior print Necronom IV (1977).

Giger garnered his fame and success not just through his commercial endeavours but because of his signature style of painting and drawing. His unique imagery has become to be known as biomechanical, ‘bio’ meaning life and ‘mechanical’ pertaining to machines, which is represented by his blend of quasi-human forms with industrial textures and details. His works are filled with mechanical motifs such as running pipes, regimented ridges, sets of coils, and various exhausts, valves, buttons, bolts, springs, and rusted textures that create the sense of some nightmare never-ending decrepit factory. Paired with these industrial patterns and textures are human forms that are sometimes apparent and sometimes meld with their mechanical backgrounds. Some forms in some works are apparent such as the face of partner and model Li Tobler in Li I (1974), or the occult deity Baphomet from his artbook Necronomicon (1977).

There are also natural visual motifs in his work, mainly things coded macabre or unsettling such as snakes, skulls, boils, infants, claws, and tusks, but what permeates in his images in rather uncomfortable manners is his phallic and yonic imagery with many of his works featuring allusions to genitalia and penetrative symbolism, represented best in Work 219: Landscape XX—referred to as Penis Landscape—which is entirely composed of alternating layers of penises entering vaginas.

At the moment I feel very influenced by Giger’s imagery, especially the way he amalgamates his biochemical so seamlessly, like the way the ridged pipes of his background become spines with the addition of a slightly human form. My only gripe with his work is how he completely fills an image which, while impressive, is something I don’t particularly wish to pursue in my own work. I believe that negative space has a definite space in my own work to explore and experiment, and also because the method of etching doesn’t allow for a completely filled space. I might also lay off the phallic imagery.

[zuziasuchor]

Self Evaluation Form

CAP & BACA Self Evaluation Form and Research Summary

 This document is seen as an essential part of your summative assessment and must be submitted as part of your research folder alongside your studio work.

Please answer ALL of the following questions and hand in the finished document as the top pages of your research folder. 

Name:                    Zuzia                            Student No:  394733

 Module: 2D 

1 - In assessing your performance over the past module what would you say were your strengths?

Research, both in the contextual sense as well as personal research. This term, and working from home, granted me the time and space to question or analyze things that serve as a foundation for my practice. Things such as function, privilege, commodification, value and more importantly I was able to understand the cultural and historic context of painting practice. 

2 - What are your weaknesses?

 Being stubborn with material, I think there was more potential for my work to evolve or change if I had given more thought to material exploration. Although a combination of ink, gouache, charcoal and graphite worked, if I want to sustain creating work I have a feeling these materials would limit me. Another huge limit was surface, I think I would have produced much better work if I had ventured beyond paper. There were things I wanted to try that I never got round to like giving oil paint another try, or only half completed, like plaster surface carving.

3 - How do you think you could overcome those weaknesses (for example learning specific skills, reading/research, looking at more artists work, time management or getting additional support with essay writing etc.)?

I’ll have to move out of the comfort of things I know for sure, so I’ll have to slowly move beyond materials that I use on a daily basis. I think trying to stop making work with such preciousness, and allowing time for experimentation. Testing things before making large work, and getting out of a routine might help- so creating work which differs from one another, even if not all of them are successful.  

4 – which artist / designers, writers, themes and primary sources have most influenced your work for this module.

Helen Frankenthaler and Sam Lock’s works with their atmospheric character influenced my drawing. I noticed that there were shifts to large dark grounds, and black compositions acting  as both subject and background. Frankenthaler reflected greatly on place and landscape associations, which influenced my current research of St Ives painters and their attraction to location. The Sally Mann and Edmund de Waal conversation at the Frick in New York was an incredibly interesting start to my thinking about how landscape is perceived, and why certain places consume us mentally.

5 – Would you grade your work for this module as:- …70….%

Excellent 100-70 Very good 60-69 Good 50-59 Fair 40-49   Poor/Fail 0-39