#misirlou raine holtz

[morelikesin]

He'd have expected pressed flora, or the gluing in with horse collagen or beeswax of an excerpt. . .but turning the pages had revealed a different medium altogether: a painting, the canvas frayed at the edges were it was torn in two and glued onto the paper. Looking at it for longer would make the assumption there were more pieces to the portrait, but its artist had removed them for what purposes he could not understand.

Oil paints, perhaps the ones they'd perused in Solitude, and natural pigments from charcoal and minerals, perhaps their own or perhaps from their time in Winterhold, blended to create the warm ambers and golds of skin, and hair, and jewelry, making up portraiture of themself. Their stylizations were intact as they were with pencil, but these struck as true studies; where their usual work was romanticized concepts of the company they've encountered, this looked much more like the effort between a muse and a mirror.

Fearful of the oil on his skin ruining the preservation of it, he made a conscious effort to not reach his fingers to touch the ambiently-cooled texture of paint, but oh, how dearly he wished to. He supposed he had them, blood and flesh, in the most favorable way, but something about the affection put into the reflection of the person he's so inconceivably tried to convince to care for themselves - yes, he supposed the draw had made sense.

. . .but the earring, painted warmly with ochre on the left, resembled that of the one they'd displayed during their time in Morthal and Labyrinthian: dangling chains and golden beads hugging peridot charms, a balancing vase that. . .carried cassia and cinnamon.

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I know it's said that going into too much detail and focusing on the minute in your writing will make your work tiring and bore the reader - to that, I say: I write how I think, and I'm a detail-oriented person, so I find this true to life. Real life isn't only the most important parts, nor is it all we remember; write how you wish and don't feel like you have to adhere to strict rules for your art.

Following that theme, I had done portraiture of Blóðhundr only to not love how the final product looked - but separating the painting into different pieces was what I needed to do so. This will serve me better for the storytelling, anyway, so benefits all around.