#turpentine and pencil

[thebrigeedadraws]

Why yes, I DID decide to be extra as fuck for an office drawing contest that isn't that serious in the first place, thank you for asking.

The last one is the original before I had to get new watercolor pads cuz the off-brand (Arteza) shit decided to warp the paper and smudge the graphite

Stick with Strathmore kids, they know what they're talking about

[bobosmith01]

"out of my way"

you ever think about how grovyle was going to maybe straight up kill the partner for the time gear? anyways

[archiveofcanvas]

Joseph Beuys Frau/Tierschädel [Woman/Animal Skull] 1956 Pigment, oil, ink, turpentine and pencil on paper

[amelialately]

Damon Albarn

Referenced of a photo by Koh Hasebe

[crankybutthead]

Rabbit Book Part 3 page 70

The queue is active once again!!!

[starlost-mochi-x]

landscape - hwang hyunjin

pairing: hwang hyunjin x reader

summary: while hyunjin is gone on a trip, you decide to surprise him

genre: fluff, non-idol! au, reader described as the artsy type

a/n: thank you all sm for the support so far!! i woke up to 99+ notifications this morning, i'm so glad people enjoy my work 🥹

Your white shirt is streaked with another smear of peachy paint, right down the middle. Several other miscellaneous shades haphazardly decorate your front and back. Your jeans, to say the least, are permanently ruined. Your overall appearance right now gives off the vibes of an abstract painting that was left to dry, but then was accidentally dropped on the floor and forgotten about.

You couldn't care less.

Giggling to yourself, you reach up and swipe another streak of yellow across the wall. The room is a mess right now. A large white sheet is spread across the floor to protect the floorboards, and a load of different paint tins and cans are scattered throughout the room, crowding at your feet. Paintbrushes clutter the desk, and Lana del Rey echoes in the background, reverberating off the walls and swelling to fill the messy space. Almost every surface of the room is covered in paint and markers and pencils and a miscellany of other items that makes it look more like a art-dumping ground than Hyunjin's little art studio.

He's been gone on a work trip for the past few days, and without his presence to entertain you, you endeavored to start a project, something that would keep you busy until you returned. Safe to say, it certainly has.

You're currently painting a massive landscape across the back wall of the art studio, where it will best catch the light from the window opposite. The wet paint glows with the dappled sunlight that filters in through the window, making the rolling hills and fields of the painting look like they're under the summer sun. You asked Hyunjin beforehand about what he might do to decorate the studio, since the walls were bare and blank. He had simply laughed and kissed your nose, saying 'you decide, love.'

You're not really sure what he would think about the current mess on the wall. It's distinguishable, but you know it would have looked much better if he had been here to help. But you've tried your best, and it looks a lot better than you thought it would, so you continue, streaking sage and sky blue across the surface of the wall.

You've never felt so free. You understand why Hyunjin loves his craft so much, spending almost every free minute in this studio, with his paintbrush flicking expertly across the canvas and his slender, pretty hands tinted in reds and blues.

A sudden gasp from the studio door makes you drop the paintbrush. It clatters to the floor and you freeze, turning your head to the doorway.

Hyunjin stands, tall and elegant as always, both hands clasped to his mouth and eyes wide open. He's dressed in a smart, black suit, but his socks are mismatched and his hair is falling out of his hairstyle. One silver earrings clings to the lobe of his ear. He must have lost the other one, or been in the process of taking it off when he found you here in the studio, making an absolute mess on the walls.

But he doesn't look horrified at all. You thought at first he looked the way a parent might, when they walk into a room and find out their toddler has been drawing on the walls with coloured sharpies.

He looks delighted.

Rushing towards you, he sweeps you up in a hug, spinning around and laughing. You wriggle, not because you aren't pleased to see him, but because he's wearing a Versace suit and you're a mess of mismatched paints barely resembling a human being. He only holds you tighter, burying his face in your neck and streaking his cheek and hair with scarlet in the process. The scent of his spicy, woodsy perfume mixes with the smell of paint and turpentine, and you inhale deeply. He's bouncing on the spot, hands gesturing wildly and feet shuffling in a way that reminds you more of an excitable golden retriever puppy than your boyfriend. You're not sure if he's happier to see you or the half-painted wall. You open your mouth to express your surprise and delight at his sudden arrival, but are interrupted.

He squeals, hands flapping. "The WALL! Did you do it all by yourself? Oh, and you raided all my art supplies too- is that a landscape of Jeju Island, where we went last year? Oh, it is! I remember you stood there and i took photos of you- love, you really should have painted yourself into it, i would have loved that-"

You cut him off with a kiss. Pulling back, you whisper.

"Help me finish it? It doesn't feel perfect like i wanted it to..."

He's already stripping off his Versace jacket, throwing it to the paint-smattered floor.

"Hyunjin- why would you throw it on the floor, that's expensive-"

"Don't care."

He's already picked up your fallen brush, handing it to you and selecting one of his own. Crouching down, he delicately dips it into a tin of black paint and adds two little stick figures in the corner- a tall one with a paintbrush and a shorter one holding its hand. He changes brushes and gently dabs yellow and red to its face, similar to your face in its current state. It takes you a moment to realise that it's you and Hyunjin. He grins, setting his brush down.

"Now it's perfect."

a/n: don't forget to request ! likes and comments are so appreciated, and again, thank you for all the love <3

[daisychainsandbowties]

ava only fully understanding now what mary had lost in shannon, having picked up more of the story than mary had been willing to share in those scant few weeks before her disappearance. having had time to sit with herself and be able to look back and see the way mary had been so thoroughly wrapped around an absence, a corpse, and now in the aftermath clinging so tightly to her, to this idea of what she could have done to bea had she not survived

picking the story out of bea like unwrapping a wound. nights in switzerland with the windows open and the lights off and the whole world reduced to beatrice’s voice.

talking about mary so precisely, never slipping on the grammar. always mary is, like words alone could bring her home. but then the shift, inevitable, as beatrice draws the past out of her pocket like an old receipt and smooths it onto the table so that ava can look, breathing in a half-forgotten scent.

cedarwood and oil paint drying (‘it takes a very long time’). turpentine and a mug full of paint water and shannon’s mouth against it. charcoal dust and pencils scattered over her desk. boots propped by the door.

how mary would look at her. the glancing touches, the way they’d hold each other after missions and it made beatrice think of atoms colliding at great speed. turning into light, turning everything to dust.

beatrice looking down at her hands as the grammar shifts to shannon was.

when ava phases, her body turns to diffuse light, threads of scattered gold. she wants to ask beatrice if there’s ever a trace, a sketch, a silhouette of someone else inside that light.

she doesn’t ask, but when mary comes back she tells ava that she sees shannon everywhere. in the light falling down behind the hills. in roof tiles and old hoodies and too many pairs of boots.

‘do you see her in me?’

‘i see her in beatrice. with you it’s… more of a feeling.’

‘like a vibe?’

a slow, fond smile. ‘sure. it’s like a vibe.’

both of them roasting marshmallows on a campfire and beatrice just visible between the trees, stooping to collect more wood. when mary speaks again her voice has an ache inside it.

‘sometimes when i’m standing next to you i forget where i am, and it’s like i’m catching her light, casting her shadow.’

ava taking her hand, putting her head on mary’s shoulder and feeling a sudden surge of warmth in the halo. like a hand reaching out to grasp them both.

but all she says is, ‘you fucked up your marshmallow.’

they swap sticks so that when bea comes back she kneels next to ava, puts her hand over ava’s hand to teach her how to do it right. mary shaking with silent laughter as ava pretends to be clueless for the sake of bea saying, ‘here, like this. close but not too close to the flames.’

ava thinking too late, i’m already in the fire. i’m already alight.

kissing bea when she’s finished her demonstration and making her taste-test the perfectly cooked marshmallow. mary groaning and ava laughing into bea’s mouth, tasting sugar, carbon, fire.

watching mary sit next to the dying light as bea sets up their sleeping bags. ava privately of the opinion that they definitely don’t need two of them. then turning, seeing mary upset the ashes, look into the sky, lips moving.

maybe it’s prayer. ava knows she prayed to beatrice on the other side.

going into the tent and kissing bea slow, tender, hiding an apology in her mouth, on the inside of her arm, between her breasts. knowing she was almost an absence, like shannon. a loss, a thing of light and dust. knowing mary will never unravel it from her bones. but knowing, as she did when she kissed bea the first time, that love is worth holding, worth having. even for an instant, for the length of a kiss and a goodbye.

that a house is only ever haunted because someone lived in it, slept in it, painted its walls and ate meals in the kitchen. she wakes up in the morning and mary’s there, making coffee, telling ava that shannon always put a spoonful of sugar in hers, but no milk.

‘bittersweet?’

‘yeah.’

and ava knows from bea that mary drinks her coffee unsweetened, but sometimes with a little milk. and yet watching as mary pours out the coffee and empties a sugar packet into hers. sipping it and looking out at the trees, at the forest, at all these places shannon has never touched.

[arthuntblog]

Takesada Matsutani [Japan] (b 1937) ~ ‘Fenêtre’, 1986. Graphite, coloured pencil and turpentine oil on paper (42 × 29.8 cm).

[astronicht]

1, maxiel or your choice ❤️

1. Touching foreheads!! (from this prompt meme)

This is written in a universe where maxiel are uh famous Baroque painters. For reasons! Here they are in their Red Bull Amsterdam era:

Daniel stumbled in drunk from De Druif — Max knew it was De Druif; he could smell the frosty juniper scent of the jenever in Daniel's sweat — and said, "Ahh, Maxje, you should have come."

"You did not invite me," Max said, not looking up from his canvas.

Daniel stumbled over his own painters stool in the background.

"Exactly, that was the whole problem, I think," Daniel said. Or that's what Max thought he'd said. Some of it was in Sicilian, which Daniel still refused to teach Max. Hadn't Max learned Romagnol? It was insulting, frankly, this stance of Daniel's. They might as well speak Dutch at this rate.

"Don't trip over the heater." Max said. The heater was little cat-sized thing, a metal box stuffed full of coals, and both of them tripped over it constantly in the shared studio space.

"Shit," said Daniel, tripping over the heater.

Max bit down a laugh. It was easy when he remembered that he had not been drinking any of the jenever with Daniel.

“Ugh, the hangover is starting." Daniel said. Out of the corner of Max's eye Max could see him: rubbing his face, curly hair sweaty from the heat of the distillery, sawdust still on his high boots.

"So is church," Max said, deadpan. Morning light, glorious and delicate and clean, was shining through the big windows. Jenever, Max thought mutinously, was a liquor that was also glorious and delicate and clean-tasting. He liked it. He liked it with Daniel, at their regular drinking place. That it seemed like last night involved a big crowd would have been fine, perfect even; Max liked the roar of a crowd.

Daniel was tugging his high leather boots off. His feet probably smelled. "Have you seen my slippers?" he asked Max. "Ow, my head."

"...By the heater," Max said, staring straight ahead. He was only working on a small section of an underpainting. It did not require this much focus.

"You're the best," Daniel said, like he always said. “Agh. I think I’m just gonna… yeah lay down.”

He did, right on the studio floor, in the clean bright light. Max swiveled almost immediately to look at him. His hat was off, his hair dusty and sweaty despite the cold outside. His slippers were red. He must have stopped by the studio last night on his way to De Druif, because when Max had come in this morning, someone had cleaned up the mess he left, and put all his pencils into turpentine to soak.

Max sighed and got up and went over to crouch by Daniel, who was still laying on the floorboards like a madman, eyes shut.

“You are so stupid, Daniel,” he said, and rested his forehead against Daniel’s, because it seemed like he could.

Daniel’s breath was rank, really, and his breath hitched a little, but he just relaxed further into the floor. “Thanks, Max,” he said.

[trigunwritings]

Blue Period

Summary: You have never seen the sea. You paint it anyways.

Rating: General Audiences

Relationship: GN!Reader/Vash

Written by @blood--hunter

Note from author: I know very few things about oil painting

Blue. A rare color, all things considered.

The only thing on Noman’s Land that echoed it was the never ending sky. It stretched as far as the sand until it kissed the horizon and disappeared beyond. The desert was vast—so much so that they named it The Great Sand Ocean in an ironic twist of words.

Your grandmother had told stories of the ocean. The old one, on a planet whose name you scarcely remember from her storied whispers. She had lived there when she was very young, somewhere near the sea before it had dried up and humanity itself was forced to take to the stars. She often whispered in your ear when she grew too frail to get out of bed; about dipping her toes in wet sand, watching seaweed wash up on the shore, of catching fish and finding shells and crabs and a bounty that seemed impossible to visualize.

She was gone now. Along with the last memories of something that often filled your dreams from her old stories of childhood. Sometimes you imagine how it tastes when the tears fall over your cheeks and reach your lips, but that’s only on days when you have the strength to cry.

“—Hey!”

Your thoughts, the ones that tended to drag you down into their dreary depths should you stay in them too long, are suddenly broken.

You have to squint your eyes, smiling at you is Vash, his grin so wide and so big that you it matches the sun.

He is holding onto something in one hand. You raise a brow and, with the slow uncurling of his fingers, he reveals its secret to you.

Small, no longer than his palm, is a tube of oil paint.

It can’t be helped. Your eyes widen. You climb down from the hood of Meryl and Roberto’s truck. The two had decided to trek along the expanse, accompanied by Wolfwood, in order to retrieve parts for the broken down vehicle. With the “Undertaker’s” help they were certain to return unharmed, but it the nearest outpost was still a full day’s travel or more. Vash had volunteered to stay with the truck in order to protect it from bandits and varments alike. You had voted to stay with him.

It gave you time to think. To create.

“Where did you get this? And when?” You snatch it out of his hand, holding it up to the light as if you didn’t have enough already, the midday sun baring down on you.

Vash only smiles conspiratorily. It was your ongoing hunch that whenever you started feeling down, he would provide you with another tube of paint from wherever or however he gets it. This only lended more evidence to your hypothesis.

“Pthalo Blue.”

So far you had red, orange, black, white, and yellow.

You smile to yourself. With this, you could create so much more. Paint, especially oil paint, was hard to come by in the desert outside of large cities. It was simply too difficult to produce for anyone but those with the most double dollars, and there weren’t exactly very painters this far into the open terrain.

Vash’s own smile only brightens. “Well,” He says, something eager in his eyes, “Are you gonna use it?”

Without a word you walk towards your pack, thoughts rolling through your mind like the morning fog. Canvas was another thing hard to come by, but if one knew how to use it correctly, it could be taken a long way. You often make your own canvases; stretching the material over wood, nailing and gluing it down piece by piece.

And unfortunately, being around Vash meant being around danger. And being around danger meant getting your stuff damaged. You had only one fully formed canvas left. You would have to wait until you got into town to make more, but that was a problem for later you.

Right now, you wanted to create.

“Blue...” You hum to yourself, beginning to lay out your supplies. Your palette, your brushes, the small bit of turpentine you have left, and of course your canvas and pencils.

Vash stands over you, watching as you plunk right down in the sand and begin drawing.

The scene doesn’t start with any concrete ideas, but it comes to you slowly.

The ocean takes a vague form as you recall the old stories from your grandmother. You don’t know what it looks like. You can’t imagine that amount of water in one place, just waiting to be swam in like a giant bath, but with all sorts of creatures native to living in the waters.

You can’t drink from the ocean—you remember your grandma telling you that. It’s too salty, like tears. But it’s big and blue, just like the sky.

It takes an hour, maybe two, but the piece comes into focus eventually. A careful sketch of ideas that, to an onlooker, seems like a chaotic mess.

And then you start painting.

Vash watches every stroke of the brush as it carries color across the canvas; some smooth and long, others short and targeted. It takes the better part of a day. The color piles on. Thick on thin.

The ocean forms beneath your brushstrokes.

When the morning sun rises Vash is still asleep, so you slide away from your canvas and settle in the front passenger seat of the car, hoping to get a few hours of shut-eye at least.

. . .

“—Whoa!”

The words wake you with a jolt. You pop your head out the window so you can view your art laid out on the hood of car.

“This is amazing!” Vash beams at you.

You stumble out, sleep deprived and a bit hungry. You hadn’t seen your work in the light of day—hadn’t truly seen it finished.

There it is.

The ocean (or maybe it’s the desert? It is the only thing you know,) lies under the dark sky, stars beaming down from their lofty thrones. Kissing the horizon is the pthalo blue, mixing from light to dark as it sweeps across the space. Walking along a wave’s (or a dune’s?) edge is a red cloaked man. His back is to the viewer, but he leaves footsteps in his wake, his hood up, his journey long.

You blink at it, only when you look at your hands do you realize you are the one who made it. The paint is still there, the blue hiding your nails with how thick it is.

“Is that me?” Vash asks, grinning wide again and pointing to his own face.

You smile back at him, nodding. “Yeah.”

“It’s amazing ... but it’s missing something.”

“Like what?”

And when he tells you, you smile.

When the others come back, supplies and parts in hand, they all view your newest painting with amazement. A second figure now walks beside the first:

Vash is still crossing the vast ocean but beside him is you, your footsteps overlapping as your journey together.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

I would leave (if only I could find a reason)

More Painter Husk au! Featuring Molly! This AU's going to be going some rough places after this so enjoy the soft for now! Huge thanks to @minky-for-short who co created this AU with me <3

cw: mentions of past child abuse, period accurate homophobia

Please consider reblogging and commenting over on Ao3!

---------

Husk could still remember his first day in the city. The day had been close, the sky had been gray, just like today, and as he’d stepped off the train, he could actually remember thinking that it would be a fresh start. 

He’d told himself that, away from home and the flashing lights and beckoning fingers at the tables, the debt he’d built up from answering that call one too many times, he’d have a chance. He’d taken a lungful of air, scented with the river instead of desert sand, and he’d hoped, just for a moment. 

And in that moment he’d been a fucking fool. 

Husk should have known that his demons didn’t need tickets, they didn’t need passports. They’d followed him out of Las Vegas, they’d marched beside him on every tour of duty, to Germany and Italy and Japan, across the whole damn planet in the wake of yet another war to end all wars. Why had he thought the span of the Hudson River would be enough to keep them at bay?

He knew better now. He was still a fucking fool but at least he was an old one, one who’d made a meal of that poisonous hope only to realise he was still empty inside. He wasn’t surprised by the voices clamoring in his head as he strode quickly through the city streets, he knew what they would tell him. 

They whispered about the place down on fourth street where the whiskey was sour as bile but he had enough in his pocket to afford three. They wondered if there was a card game going down in the basement of the Black Olive, pointing out that the bouncers and back room staff would be just drunk enough that he could take them for all of their tips. They told him that the heaviness in his heart would ease with a drink, that the itching in his fingertips would go away and be replaced with a rush of dizzying euphoria if he could just roll a dice. 

Husk knew all that. He’d been hearing that kind of shit his whole life, he’d been born with these voices in his mind. What was new was the fact that they weren’t winning. 

He didn’t even realize it until he was a block away from his favorite art supply place, where he’d told himself he was going when he’d stepped out of the apartment. Shouldn’t really have been a fucking revelation, but he shouldn’t have made it this far. The voices had been plucking at him since he’d left, tugging at his sleeves pushed up against the sudden spring heat, trying to pull him towards his well worn vices. 

And it should have worked. Any other day it would have, Husk would be ankle deep in some kind of debauchery by now, pissing away the rest of the day only to wake up the next morning with a dry mouth and an aching chest and still no fresh brushes. Ready to do the whole song and dance again. 

Husk shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and ducked into the store, his mind easing at the comforting smells of old paint, turpentine and fresh cut canvases. He didn’t need to wonder why he’d managed to stay on track today, he just needed to get his errands done. He needed more draft paper, more pencils, maybe some new oils if any colors took his fancy. He had more commission requests than he’d had in years and if he was going to pretend he was functional, he at least needed the props. 

And you know why you didn’t stop. 

Husk’s hand froze over a set of brand new brushes. He didn’t like this new song the voices were singing, the new refrain they’d picked up in the last couple of months. It was enough to make him try and push them away, even though he knew better. He tried to focus on the candy land in front of him, rows of brushes soft and fine as feathers, pots of every color he could imagine arranged in just the right way so his eyes slid right across the rainbow as he scanned the shelves. And he actually had enough in his pocket to buy whatever he wanted, given that his advances had survived the journey. Getting his life together was paying off, figuratively and literally. 

But no joy kept the voices away completely, as Husk well knew. It didn’t help when running his thumb over the brushes made him think of white blonde hair just as soft carding through his fingers, when his eyes were drawn to a soft, dusky gold perfect for freckles he’d once hunted down and kissed every one of. When every thought was pulled in the same direction, a galaxy spinning inwards on itself, down to the one star in the very center. 

Not a new vice, not a new addiction but it was close. Something so much more dangerous, the same thing he’d tasted on that very first day in New York. A new reason to hope. He had Angel Dust.

And it’s going to end the exact same way.

Husk’s mouth twisted, that thought sliding between his ribs to hit somewhere soft. Because the voices didn’t lie. They were cruel, they played dirty, they did everything they could to ruin him. But they didn’t lie. 

And what did Husk have to prove this new hope wouldn’t whither and die like all the others before it? He had an honest, endearingly gap-toothed smile hidden to everyone else but him, a crude sense of humor that went through Husk’s walls like a wrecking ball, a burning desire he thought had long guttered out of his life. He had a marker painted directly onto the wall of his studio, the total they were aiming for written at the top in Angel’s own hand because Husk had been too short to reach. It seemed like an impossible amount but, day by day, the tally was growing, the painted red line was creeping up towards it. 

Between the commissions flooding in now Miss Morningstar was deliberately gushing about him to her high society friends, between the money hidden under Angel’s mattress at the club that was supposed to be spent on blow and booze, the tips he was skimming from clients, they were climbing towards his freedom. 

But it still felt like the biggest gamble Husk had ever taken. 

Sighing, Husk pressed his thumb into a sample pot of red pigment, drawing a line across the palm of his hand to see if it was bright enough. Red as blood, red as love, red as a heart that had only just remembered how to beat for someone else again. Red enough to save the man he loved.

Because however unsure Husk felt, however much doubt the voices planted in his mind, he knew Angel Dust was sacrificing more. He hadn’t told him everything, some things were too hard to say, putting them into words brought them too close for comfort. But Husk had met Valentino’s kind before, they grew right up out of the sand in Vegas, flourishing where nothing decent would. He knew what would happen if Angel’s pimp found out what they were planning, if Angel proved he was more trouble than the money he made was worth. 

And, maybe even more than that, the faith he was putting in Husk. Valentino had given Angel ample reasons to cut and run but Husk had to stand there and wonder what it was about himself that made Angel brave enough to try. He loved him, he could be sure of that, he’d tried to show it in every way his dusty old heart knew how, but it seemed like a pretty poor stake all the same. If Angel took his freedom at the end of this and fled Manhattan for good, Husk wouldn’t blame him. And he’d still say it had been worth it. 

All he had to do was not screw it up. Just succeed where he’d failed so many times before, with so much more on the line. And with nothing more than the paints and brushes in his hands and the fragile hope fluttering inside him like a bird snapped at from all sides by the snakes lurking there. 

There really was no fool like an old fool. 

By the time Husk was done indulging himself and talking shop with the lady behind the counter, the city crowds had thickened. The heat had dissipated slightly, slipping through the clutching fingers of the skyscrapers so the people jumped at the chance. Children dragged their parents by the hand, going to spend a few hours in the park to burn off their energy before bath and bed. Couples strolled more leisurely, men and women in perfect, matching pairs off to the pictures or a restaurant or the theater, maybe for the first time, maybe for the last time, maybe on the road to having children of their own tugging on their sleeves. Elderly people settled into favored benches to toss crumbs to eagerly waiting pigeons, maybe finding some kinship with the forgotten, ignored birds, or maybe just pleased to find something to still need them. 

Husk shifted the paper wrapped canvas under his arm, trying not to bump into anybody, ducking and weaving through the press. His thoughts zig zagged in a similar way, trying to wander towards other things but every path seemed to lead back to Angel. 

He wondered what he was doing right now, where in the vast expanse of the city the other half of his heart was beating. Maybe he was sleeping, his work schedule left him damn near nocturnal from what Husk had observed. Maybe he was with his friends, drinking wine on the fire escape with Cherri or even Miss Morningstar, whatever it was an escort and the daughter of the richest, most powerful man in the city did together. Or maybe it was already too late, maybe he was trapped in the club, putting powder over bruises so they wouldn’t show under the stage lights, not allowed to even see the sunshine everyone else was enjoying. 

Or maybe he was sitting in the window of the diner just across the street. 

At first Husk wasn’t even sure it was his Angel. He was dressed so plainly, in a simple white shirt and dark jacket that any respectable young man might wear, which should have automatically disqualified it from Angel’s wardrobe. His blonde hair was stuffed into a battered old ivy hat, brim pulled low to shadow his face, free from any kind of cosmetic. Like he was trying to blend in rather than stand out, the complete opposite of his usual flamboyant defiance. A mug of coffee that looked bad even from this distance congealed unnoticed between his cupped hands, his eyes fixed on something else across the street. He looked like any of the hundreds of overgrown, but not overgrown enough, kids haunting New York, looking hollow eyed and downtrodden, the slope of their shoulders telling you how far they were down the slippery slope towards a life they’d never imagined they’d be living. 

But Husk had spent far too long lovingly sketching that face to not recognise it, he’d spent days mixing half a hundred shades of blue to get those eyes right, he could map those freckles the way a sailor who’d spent his life at sea could map the stars. That was Angel, sitting in a shitty diner and trying not to be noticed. 

Of course by the time Husk realized it really was him, he’d been staring too long to get away with it. 

Like a bird feeling the gaze of a cat, those blue eyes shifted to Husk. At first there was only panic, like he’d been caught red handed doing something he shouldn’t. Husk winced until those eyes suddenly softened, relaxing into something fond. One of his hands turned, long fingers beckoned Husk over in an uncharacteristically shy wave. 

Husk didn’t even hesitate, winding through the cars scurrying like ants across the street, ducking into the diner. It looked worse on the inside, though at least it wasn’t so nice he had to worry anyone would stare at a black man taking a seat across from a white man. 

Husk smiled, wishing he could reach across and take his hand, try and shake some of that lost look from his eyes, but no place would let them have that, “There’s no way I can avoid looking like a creepy stalker, huh?”

Angel gave him a small smile, “Well, you can join the club I guess…”

Husk lifted an eyebrow, unable to deny the spike in his curiosity but he knew how things worked with Angel. Gentle steps, kid gloves, hovering on the stoop long enough to prove he really was interested until Angel opened the door.

“Figured there was a reason you were in a dive like this,” he hummed, eyeing the coffee, “A reason other than that shit.”

Angel tipped the mug, laughing grimly, “Oh yeah. Would you believe the cherry pie here is actually incredible? It’s the only thing on the menu that’s edible but, y’know. They got one thing right.”

Husk chuckled, “Well in that case…” 

The place was fairly dead, it didn’t take long to flag down a waitress and order two slices, a la mode for Angel because Husk remembered him saying that eating pie any other way was heresy. The expression on the younger man’s face was worth not being able to reach across and take his hand, a slab of golden crust and berries red and shiny as Christmas tree ornaments was apparently a good enough substitute. 

They were halfway through before Angel eventually shifted and murmured, “I ain’t looking to score if that’s what you were worried about.”

“I wasn’t,” Husk lied smoothly, drowning out the sour taste of guilt with cherry syrup, “This place is a dive but it ain’t rough enough to have drug deals going on under the table. Besides, you said you were clean.”

Angel gave him a soft, grateful smile, like he wasn’t used to his promise being enough. His eyes wandered back across the street, like there was some magnetic pull drawing them there. Husk could tell words were hovering on his lips, crowding nervously like baby birds afraid to take that first step into open air. 

Husk reached across and snagged that mug of muddy looking coffee, dragging it to his side of the dented metal table. He took a drink, right where Angel’s lips had touched it, feeling the warmth of them there. 

It was a poor excuse for a kiss, secretive and indirect, but it was the best he could do in public, a lukewarm substitute for the way he wanted to comfort his lover. But Angel received the message loud and clear, eyes misting slightly and sighing in the unmistakable sound of pressure being released. 

“The candy store across the way,” he murmured, fingers tapping anxiously on the table, “You see it?”

Husk looked, having to squint a little now his eyes weren’t what they used to be. The store looked like a kid’s dream, just looking at it made his teeth ache at the roots. The walls were just shelves crammed with rows and rows of jars, the old fashioned kind, each with a different treasure inside. Bright, crystalline hard candies, pillowy marshmallows, stark black and white humbugs. It was a riot of color, artificial color right out of a bottle, but it was the kind that made your mouth water. After the long gray days of the war, that store was something close to heaven. 

“She always did have a sweet tooth,” Angel murmured, voice soft and sad, “Guess we both have a thing for harmful, addictive substances. Just that her’s ain’t illegal.”

At first Husk was confused but then it hit him. The girl behind the counter, currently smiling kindly down at a pair of wide eyed kids, clearly an older sister and younger brother. By the looks of her delighted expressions, there were a lot more lollipops going into that bag than they actually paid for. If the blonde hair that seemed to have a mind of its own or the freckles or the height or the crooked grin didn’t give it away, that act of kindness would have done it. Maybe Husk’s eyes weren’t what they used to be but he could have been blind in one eye and still seen the family resemblance. 

“I know it sounds crazy because I could just look in the mirror but I can’t believe how grown up she looks,” Angel’s voice was heavy, bowing under the weight of the emotion in it, “In my head, I was always picturing the girl I left behind. But she changed too, I just…I just wasn’t there to see it…”

“Good looks run in the family, huh?” Husk swallowed hard, feeling a physical pain in his chest from how badly he wanted to take Angel’s hand. 

“Oh Molly always looked pretty damn angelic. We were about as identical as a boy and a girl could be. Used to dress up as each other sometimes to see if anyone would notice. Only Nonna ever would.”

Husk watched sadly as the girl- Molly- waved goodbye to her customers with a smile just like Angel’s, “Guess you haven’t spoken to her? Since you left?”

He swallowed hard, like the words were having to get past something in his throat, “God, Husk, she probably doesn’t even know I’m still alive. Last time she saw me, my father was throwing me down the stoop and calling me a faggot for the whole neighborhood to hear.”

They’d been together long enough now that Husk didn’t have to hide his pained expression, hating the gaps in his words where the softer, gentler words for their love should go but couldn’t, just in care they were overheard. Hating that they still had to duck and hide from that kind of poisonous hate.

“But there’s a reason you’re sitting here. A reason you’ve been sitting here enough times to know the only good thing on the menu, I don’t think you’d do that for a sister who wouldn’t care if you were still kicking.” 

Angel’s expression twisted, memories of that day clearly painful to touch, “She got right in his face, he was twice her height, towered over all of us but she met him nose to nose. Told him the only one who oughta be ashamed was him, throwing his own son out like trash. Quoted the damn Bible at him, told him he had too many sins of his own to be casting stones at me.”

Husk’s chest burned fiercely, “Smart kid.”

But Angel only closed his eyes against a rush of remembered pain, “And then he backhanded her right across the face. He’d never hit her, not once, he saved that for me and my brother, but that bastard did it, right in front of everyone. Knocked her to the fucking ground. It was the only time Johnny looked at him like the monster he was.”

The bitter taste on Husk’s tongue had nothing to do with the bad coffee and everything to do with not being able to get his hands around the throat of a man he’d never even met. 

And with knowing exactly what was going through his lover's mind.

“Angel,” he murmured, “You can’t think that was your fault.”

“Husk, she got hurt defending me. Loving me put her in the damn firing line,” a desperate anger bled into his voice, “No fucking wonder she never tried to track me down or write me or anything. She did the right thing and, before you say a word, I ain’t going over there to drag her back into my bullshit. Not when I turned into everything the old man said I would.”

“Angel…” Husk groaned.

“No,” he shook his head tightly, fingers still tapping, keeping time with his racing heart, “Knowing she’s okay is enough. And if I go over there, all I’ll do is make it so she ain’t. Better off she thinks I’m dead, that way she still got a hope of loving me. A dead brother is better than a living whore.”

“Angel.”

He felt it come out harsher than he’d meant to but it did what he wanted, it was a hand thrust out to catch Angel by the collar before he fell any deeper. The younger men fell silent, his hollow eyed stare becoming something desperate as he stared back at Husk, something pleading. Husk didn’t dare ask if he was begging him to pull him up or just let go. 

Not that it mattered. He’d pull him back, every time. 

“Sorry. Shouldn’t have snapped,” Husk shook his head tightly, exhaling deeply, “Listen. You can tell me to mind my own damn business after, if that's what you want, but can you just let me try?”

Angel swallowed hard, “Alright…”

“Look, I know how much you’re running from. No kid should have to go through half the shit you did and if I ever meet your daddy, I won’t waste my time quoting scripture at him, I’ll tell you that for free,” Husk growled before forcing himself to relax, his fingers to unravel from the fists they’d made on the tabletop, “But Molly…I think you got to ask yourself why she’s even still here. By rights, she should have moved halfway across the country, put as much distance as she could between her and your daddy’s rotten business. Hell, you both should. I don’t know why either of you are still here, there’s so many reasons you should have run for the hills.”

Angel fidgeted, his eyes drawn back across the street, as if to make sure Molly was still there. 

“But you’re both still here,” Husk murmured gently, “And my guess is…well, that you’re both still hoping. You want a fresh start but there’s some things you ain’t ready to leave behind and why should you have to?”

Angel’s blue eyes were swimming, his voice sounding like it scraped his throat on the way out, “Hope’s a dangerous thing…but God, what the fuck do I even tell her? About Valentino, about the club, about anything?”

Husk shrugged, wishing he had a better answer but sometimes the truth was all there was, “Tell her you’re in a bad spot but you’re trying. That you’re doing your best. What else is there?”

“And you think that’s going to be enough?” Angel bit his lower lip. 

“I’d put money on it,” Husk smiled crookedly, “Were I a betting man.”

That made Angel laugh, a weak, raspy, sarcastic thing but Husk treasured it more than anything, “Well, I’m sold. After all, when was the last time you made a bad bet?”

“Not since I met you,” Husk promised, with a smile as honest as he’d ever given. 

Angel took a shuddery breath, clearly steeling himself, the same way he did for Valentino’s club. Even without all the makeup and glitter and the knife smile, it was the same bravery. Husk hadn’t known him as a soldier but it was there in his face, a familiarity with shutting off that instinct to turn and run, to just putting one foot in front of the other. 

“Will you stay here? Wait for me?” Angel’s voice shook a little even as he asked for that small reassurance. 

Husk damn near melted, meeting his eyes without hesitation, “I won’t move a muscle. You’ll be able to see me the whole time.”

Angel relaxed slightly, nodding and standing up, taking that promise with him out of the diner and across the street. He did glance back a few times, blue eyes wide and uncertain, but he always kept going at a gentle nod from Husk. They probably both breathed a sigh of relief when he actually managed to cross the threshold of the candy store. 

Husk liked to think he’d gotten his tells under control after so many years with a gambling addiction but his leg was bouncing hard enough to rattle the table, accusatory ripples in the surface of the coffee. He ignored it, taking a long sip and finding it wasn’t so bad when the warmth of his lover’s lips still clung to the rim, his eyes clinging to Angel. 

Molly was wiping down some empty jars, her back turned to the door when he walked in, though her mouth moved, probably a promise that she’d be right there. Husk didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, watching as Angel took off his hat and hovered in the doorway. The whole damn world seemed to be holding its breath, even the voices in his head bit their tongues for once. 

Until finally, in a flinching moment made of equal parts relief and horror, Molly turned around. Instantly her face froze, shock crystallizing her features, like a ghost had just walked through her door. They looked so alike, standing across from each other, there may as well have been a mirror between them. Not just in their features, in the exhaustion that hid behind their mouths made for smiling, in their eyes that looked so much older than they should, in the shadows that sleepless nights had carved onto their faces. They were twins in more than just a physical way, they were twins in grief, in trauma, in hurt. 

But despite that, in that frozen moment, Husk didn’t see how they fit together, it seemed like their edges were just too jagged. 

Please, Husk willed fiercely, the same way he’d once willed cards to show a straight flush, the way he’d stepped off a train all those years ago and hoped, please.

But this time someone was listening. The man upstairs or their Nonna or maybe he was begging loud enough for Molly to hear him across the street but someone heard and someone took pity. With a soft sob, she dashed forward, throwing herself into Angel’s arms so hard he nearly fell over. The two of them clung so tightly to each other it was like they were afraid the other might disappear, two pairs of shoulders shaking with tears Husk couldn’t hear. 

Blinking back tears of his own, he pulled his eyes away, getting the sudden sense that this moment was too private for an audience. But he’d promised his Angel so he stayed in the booth, pulled out one of the fresh sketchbooks he’d just bought and set it on the table. He’d bought fresh pencils but old habits die hard and ones from times you were so poor you could manage one meal in three died the hardest. He would use the one he carried in his pocket until it was down to nothing. 

Husk signaled for another coffee- it was actually starting to grow on him now- and let his pencil move across the page. He glanced across to the store a few times as the sunset washed the world in orange, as the candy store became a square of golden light surrounded by shadow that couldn’t touch it. Angel and Molly were sitting on the counter, never talking anything less than a hundred miles an hour, looking like the light was coming from their smiles. They were laughing, they were crying, they were hugging tight, it depended on when Husk looked over but it always made him smile. They could have as long as they damn well wanted.

By the time the sketchbook page showed a study of the two of them and he’d drunk three more coffees in sheer defiance of the hour, Husk felt the prickle of eyes on him. This time when he looked up, Angel and Molly were there to meet his gaze, Angel gesturing to him and saying something that made his twin’s smile grow and soften. She waved excitedly, beckoning him over, Angel giving a reassuring nod behind her so he knew it was okay.

They met him outside the now dark candy store, Molly rushing up in a way that told Husk she was only barely restraining herself from giving him the same bone crushing hug Angel got. 

“Thank you!” the first words out of her mouth were breathless, leaving her in an ecstatic rush, “Thank you so much, Tony’s told me everything about how you’ve helped him get clean and try to get away from that awful man and how you helped him be brave enough to come talk to me, just…thank you. Oh, I’m Molly!”

Husk smiled warmly, taking off his hand and inclining his head, “Husker, ma’am. And there ain’t no thanks needed. It’s my pleasure, I’m just glad your brother lets me.”

Angel smiled at him gratefully, turning to Molly, “You’re sure you have to go?”

Her face creased in disappointment, “Sorry, I’ve got a night shift to get to…but you’re going to come by tomorrow, right?”

Angel nodded, “I got the whole day before work, I’ll be right here.”

She kept smiling but some of the light in her blue eyes dimmed, “Promise?”

The fact that she had to ask clearly stung but there was understanding in his reassuring nod, “I promise, Moll, I’ll be right here as soon as your shift starts. Husk will keep me honest.”

That earned him another thousand kilowatt smile as she reached out and took his large, scarred hands in her own delicate ones, “I’m really looking forward to getting to know you, Mr Husk.”

“Likewise, ma’am,” he smiled, startled in a good way. 

“Good…oh! I meant to say!” she tilted her head sweetly, “If you ever break my brother’s heart or hurt him, I’ll break your legs. Okay?”

There was a moment’s pause before, simultaneously, Husk burst out laughing and Angel gave a scandalized squawk of disbelief. 

“I appreciate you saying that, ma’am,” Husk grinned, “And believe me, I ain’t gonna give you reason to. Angel’s not going anywhere…and neither am I.” 

“Glad to hear it,” she shouldered her bag, “And call me Molly. See you tomorrow!”

She gave Angel a last kiss on the cheek before disappearing into the nighttime crowds, waving until the corner took her out of sight. It was a long moment before Angel could turn away from the spot where she disappeared but when he did, his eyes were shining. 

“Husk…” he shook his head, unable to find the words, “Husk, I can’t thank you enough..”

“You can start by coming home with me,” he cut across him gently, “Get off this damn street so I can hold you the way I’ve been wanting to all fucking day.”

Angel opened his mouth at first, like he was going to protest that it wasn’t enough, that Husk should ask for more than just himself. But after a moment, he closed it again and just smiled. 

“Yeah. That I can do, baby.”

And that alone was worth more than anything. 

They walked through the streets together, as close as they were allowed, letting their fingers brush and tangle whenever they were out of the puddles of streetlight. And it didn’t feel like a compromise, it didn’t feel like a watered down version of everything exploding inside their chests right now. It just felt like a promise for later, a moment in a future they were both really starting to believe in. 

Husk found himself remembering his first day in the city again, a younger man still old before his time, daring to hope that the paintbrushes and pencils in his pocket would be enough to make people notice him. That he’d leave his demons behind and become something great. 

Husk took a deep lungful of night air, still sharp with the smell of the river and softened by Angel’s perfume. It wasn’t the life he’d imagined, it was tangled and thorny and fucking hard. The voices were still lurking, muzzled for now but he knew they’d come back in the quiet moments, when Angel’s fingers weren’t entwined with his own. 

And maybe they were right, just like they had been every other time before. Maybe this was another bad hand, another roll of life’s fixed dice. 

But Husk supposed he was still a fucking fool.

[cccotard]

What brush have u been using… owo

i only use 4 brushes for everything i will show you dear anon

these are all procreate brushes but they are so basic that i am Sure you can find them for any other program

sketching -

i Only sketch digitally with this brush, i used to use it with the grain texture it usually comes with but i took it off a few months ago and havent looked back

lineart-

literally only this brush for lineart

heres the pack that it came in its FREE - https://georgvw.sellfy.store/p/xuha/

^the ‘elder’ brushes in there are also good

but im content with literally any hard brush with pressure sensitivity

coloring-

ok so heres when it gets kind of complicated so ill just explain my process

basically i fill in the lineart (with any basic flat brush), then in a clipping layer i put in 3-4 value colors (usually yellow, orange, red, blue), and then in Another clipping layer i put the Actual colors.. so any brush with density pressure/really grainy texture can work

^ with this one i used the basic ‘Turpentine’ brush under ‘Painting’

^thats how it ends up

with the other brush i use….. unfortunately i have to gatekeep because one of my teachers gave it to me and he doesnt have it up to download anywhere😫.. But its pretty close to my sketching brush or the basic flat brush

ive used this way of coloring with the HB pencil With the grain that looks cool too

ok thats it :p

[pastellich]

Self portrait

Soft pastels, hard pastels, semi hard pastels, mechanical pencil, ink, turpentine, bleach, pva glue

[crankybutthead]

Rabbit Book Part 2 page 63

[ausetkmt]

What started as an accusation from a white woman from the nearby town of Sumner, would become an escalated situation of retaliation and the eventual massacre of an entire community, as well as the complete destruction of Rosewood, an unincorporated black community in Levy County, Florida.

Rosewood was a community built in 1845, nine miles (14 km) east of Cedar Key, near the Gulf of Mexico. Powered by the timber industry, the community was purely black-populated, with the closest communities around it housing white people.

With two pencil mills nearby in Cedar Key, the existence of turpentine and sawmills in Sumner helped support local residents, as did the farming of citrus and cotton.

And with a growth that required further development, a post office as well as a train depot on the Florida Railroad in 1870, were built.

In January 1923, just around a period of the repeated lynching of black people around Florida, a white woman, Frances “Fannie” Taylor, a 22-year-old married to James, a 30-year-old millwright employed by Cummer & Sons in Sumner accused a black man from the town of Rosewood of beating her and eventually raping her.

From the accounts of what happened, Frances and her husband lived with their two young children and James was mostly at work from early in the mornings. Described as “meticulously clean and scrubbing her cedar floors with bleach so that they shone white,” other women attested that Taylor was aloof; no one knew her very well.

On January 1, 1923, the Taylors’ neighbor reported that she heard a scream while it was still dark, grabbed her revolver and ran next door to find Fannie bruised and beaten, with scuff marks across the white floor. Taylor was screaming that someone needed to get her baby.

According to her, a black man was in her house, who she said came through the back door and assaulted her. The neighbor found the baby, but no one else.

Taylor’s initial report stated that her assailant beat her about the face but did not rape her. Rumors circulated—widely believed to be by the whites in Sumner—that she was both raped and robbed. It would emerge later though that she lied concerning what happened as what did happen was that she was beaten by her lover while her husband was at work.

She decided to pick the more vulnerable black people of Rosewood to lay the blame on them to save herself the embarrassment.  

She might not have hoped that it would escalate but upon hearing her lie and noting that in Florida at the time, the charge of rape of a white woman by a black was inflammatory, men from her Sumner community invaded the Black community, lynching a number of them.

The black citizens had to defend themselves and so they did. In their attempt against further attacks, several hundred whites re-organized themselves with many coming in from all over upon hearing the news combing the countryside in a hunt for black people to kill and to set fire into almost every structure in Rosewood.

It was a complete massacre!

Sylvester Carrier took up arms and did a brave thing by fighting against the men, killing two whites before he was taken out in that shootout. His bravery was short-lived but it encouraged them.

By the time the mob had dispersed, the town had been almost totally destroyed, with businesses, churches, and homes in ruins or burned to the ground.

Surviving residents fled, with many settling down in nearby Gainesville or moving to cities in the North. Although state and local authorities were aware of the violence, they made no arrests for the massacre in Rosewood.

Although the surviving members of Rosewood went away and forgot about the town and all that happened there, in 1982, Gary Moore, a journalist for the St. Petersburg Times, resurrected the history of Rosewood through a series of articles that gained national attention.

At that point, the living survivors of the massacre, most of them in their 80s and 90s, came forward led by Rosewood descendant Arnett Doctor and demanded restitution from Florida.

The action led to the passing of a bill awarding them $2 million and created an educational fund for descendants. The bill also called for an investigation into the matter to clarify the events, which Moore took part in.

Further awareness was created through John Singleton’s 1997 film, Rosewood, which dramatized the events.

[daisychainsandbowties]

smth smth the way you have to layer oils, ensuring the base is thinned more than the next layer, and the next, and the next, leaving only the top layer fatty so that everything can dry in a timely manner, lest the uppermost layers solidify first and then get cracked open by the shift of drying bottom layers. shannon is so careful in this, in thinning with turpentine, in layering just so, in the thick impasto smears she draws across pieces as they reach their conclusion, adding that last touch of movement, of emotion

she doesn't typically use oils. too long to dry. not long enough to live. she prefers the messy-fingered shadows of charcoal, the impermanence of a watercolour bleeding in the rain when she dashes for shelter from a sunshower. prefers mediums that feel as fleeting as she does, as expendable. pencil sketches in the margins of her field notes when she's on assignments, bouquets drawn for mary of hyacinths and cornflowers and pansies and lilies that she'll touch up later with coloured pencils, shade in blues and yellows and whites. I'm thinking of you and be gentle with me and my love is pure.

it's one of these cornflowers that mary gets inked on her forearm, in the after. she'd kept them all, every scrap of paper shannon had pushed her way with solemnity or with a sparkle in her eye, every sketched bouquet or three panel comic gently mocking one of their sisters. had framed the charcoal sketch of herself that had hung so long at the head of shannon's bed. where, mary had realized all too late, she would have seen it each time she entered that secret room. would have looked upon it and confirmed to herself that this was worth protecting. and now it sits atop the fireplace mantel and reminds mary what she's lost. what she still has left to carry, the burden shannon had thought she needed to shoulder alone.

we protect the ones we love, she thinks, fingers stroking across the careful curves of petals, and i'm protecting them. for me and for you.

ocean vuong - notebook fragments