nekare

One thing that's always bothered me in literature (and fic, as well) is the portrayal of artists and their work. Most of the times, whenever a character has any artistic talent, it'll have long scenes of said character remembering another one and drawing him/her so realistically it 'jumped out of the page' or something like that. No matter the technique, or style. No. It'll always be realistic and so painfully detailed it'll be just like a photograph. Every. Single. Time.

Art doesn't work like that. What's more, an artist's mind doesn't work like that. Art is much more subjective, and no artist ever paints the same way. Besides, without a model on sight, even the most hardcore of realistic painters would have trouble portraying it with 99% accuracy.

I don't know. Most writers seem to have a very precise outlook of what they think art is - when was the last time you ever read about a abstract artist? Or a cartoonist? Or manga-styled drawer?

Possibly the best potrayal of artist I've seen in a book was in The Time Traveler's Wife, which has everything to do with Audrey Niffenegger being an artist herself. Every single thing Clare creates is really personal, and somewhat abstract, and the one time she paints someone - Alba - she does it using her as a model, and even then she applies her own touch. And, of course, the descriptions of how a pastel bar feels on one's hands, how it looks, are really accurate, and add quite a touch.

I don't think I'm a great artist. I'm not, right now I'm much more of a designer, or a writer, but I've been drawing for my entire life, and the way literature sometiems devalues anything else but realistic art (and even that, it's always with pencil, or maybe with charcoal, if the writer is creative enough. Oils are somewhat standard too, but whoever has heard of acrylics? Or gouache?), sort of offends me. Dunno. This post was brought to you by a great, beautiful book that shouldn't bother me with such small a detail, but does. And by having crap like Cassie Claire's books run with the stereotype as well.

Discuss! I know I have both writers and artists in my flist. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON YAOI ART IN LITERATURE?

I spent most of the evening sewing a stuffed bird. Yes. You heard that right. A stuffed bird. And it is ADORABLE. :D (even if it took two tries, lol) I found the pattern in here (here's the .pdf), and it was free so I figured why the hell not. I'm pretty lousy at sewing, but I actually love it, and would really like to get good at it. In between that and the stuff I'm painting, I'm dripping artsy fartsery all over, haha.

I'm about 6400 words into my apocalyptothon fic, and it seems like I still have about 2000 words to go. Yikes. o_O I finally overcome my block, though, which fills me with glee.