man fuck it im gonna start doin wip wednesdays here
Summer is sweet and endless and she has nothing to do but look at me. She's looking at me now, through the sun's glare on her mirror. She shadows the shapes of my mouth, but doesn't put her voice to my words.
My parents are worried about Grace. They think something's wrong with her - I know what it is. Grace knows, too, looking at me, looking through the glare in the mirror. Everything about her is wrong. I could fix her, if she would let me.
Solid, measured knocks. "Gracie?"
"Yeah?" She pulls her braids back to look at her shoulders uncovered. The angle of her jaw. She is trying to see how it matches up to mine.
"Your mother and I are going to go to the mall. Do you want to come?"
I've never been a fan of the sweltering heat of a cracked-asphalt parking lot, nor the chill on my skin in a Macy's. Grace says, "Okay." But she only said that so that she can look away from me. She is a fool. I can be found in anything that can reflect. I watch her in the windows, in silver lockets, in the mirrors she models new boots in. She parades about like a wind-up toy, a ballerina in a music box. Her mother hands her new skirts for the new school year, button-up blouses, low-cut but not whorish, and modest stockings.
The dressing rooms are hidden in the corner, neatly separated by two icons of triangles - one upside and one downside. I follow her to the wrong one, the wrong stall. It's cramped and ill-fitting, somewhat like a body. Grace tries her best to avoid me still. It's a valiant effort, I'll give her that much. But at some point, in a few minutes, maybe, she'll have to turn around and face me.
Grace takes off her tanktop like the accused pushing off concrete slabs. She hisses with impatience at the clasp of her bra and its stubborn claws in her skin, throws it on the bench with more violence than is necessary. Branded into her back it remains, aching, smoking. Cramped and ill-fitting. She itches at it like the fabric is stuck in her, like it still remains subcutaneously and she could pull it away finally, permanently, if she also removed the skin. Her nails are well cared for, and so, won't do the job. I smile at the sound of her bent elbows.
Her pants go too, her keys squeezing free of the claustrophobic pockets and diving with raucous applause to the floor. Her phone is in her purse, because the back pockets are only decorative. Grace doesn't curse. Her words are never ugly. Instead, her lips bend into the shape of: "shit", and then she bends and picks up the keyring. It is unadorned. Why should it be anything else? A key only has one purpose.
For a moment we stand there together, Grace's back to me, my back not quite to hers. She is hesitating, stretching out the moment between one set of clothes and the next. The blouse is slippery and coarse in texture, sends spider legs running over her back. The skirt is of good quality, but takes up in the back, so she is afraid to bend. No pockets.
I ask her if I can see it. She stares at the off-white wall in silence, and then she turns.
"Oh, no, Gracie. That won't do at all." I tell her. "That thing isn't even fit to be a tablecloth. It's see-through, it's itchy on my ribs. It's pushing my skin too close to my bones, the points of my ribs poking at my lungs. It's like a coffin leaking air, sighing its way into the ground."
Her breath hitches. "I don't know what's wrong with me." She's saying to herself, to the mirror, to me. I make a sound - in my mouth it is sympathetic, but in hers it is animal, pained, cornered.
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hi would you ever consider posting about your art process?? your style is so cool!!!!
oh sure ! its pretty simple.. ive streamlined a lot of what i dont like about art so i dont have to do it LOL.
heres like. a super average sketch for me. i really enjoy sketching... i like focusing a lot on the shapes and values of the image while im working so most often theyre two tone little things like this. sometimes ill be lazier and theyll just be scribbles but if i know im going to color something having this helps a lot. i tend to ignore the undo button and focus on just erasing or drawing over stuff. i tend to just do this with csp's default mapping pen. i like that pen.
linings pretty straight forward. i use the milli pen almost exclusively for this bit. its lining.
next i kinda just slap any base colors i feel are Fine Enough on. literally just a layer underneath i fill bucket and then throw bases on really fast. i like working with limited palettes so i tend to just color pick and reuse colors as much as i can here. i dont get a lot out of coloring in all the areas so i just kinda dont a lot. you can tell theres some images i just filled it all in with one color and skipped to the next step LOL
rendering! my other favorite part. i combine whatever layers i have into one and just draw on top. i shade here too, mostly cus shading the normal way is boring to me. all details are saved for this step cus i prefer having them interact with the linework. couldnt tell you how i pick colors all thats from years of overusing overlay layers LOL.
ermmm. hope this helps !
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