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dayenurose · 4 years

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A little while back @deadhermiteyes posted a lovely piece of Dick/Babs fan art she drew. (View it here! It really is lovely). And she happened to mention that she’d like it if someone would write something based off of it. Which, in turn, kick-started my writing brain and I was inspired to write this piece.

A couple of quick notes… The artist captioned her picture with the line: “We used to leave the galas and come here all the time when we were kids, Dick. They’re gonna find us!” I have included it in the story (with a minor edit). All credit for that line goes to her.

Also, she mentioned wanting something angsty, so there is angst.

[Read on ao3]

Enjoy…

Moving On

The gala was in full swing. Photo ops had been snapped and sound bites gathered. The charity had been praised—a foundation supporting adult literacy programs—and the family thanked for their continuing support. Especially in these trying times.... The evening had marched on at a maddening slow pace until Dick didn’t think he could stand another moment of this farce. Then, as it had always been the case since he was a child, there was a moment when the crowd ceased to pay attention to him and he might as well have been invisible. Taking advantage of this lapse of attention, Dick slipped away from the gala and made good his escape. He had a few minutes before he would be missed.

Leaving the party behind, Dick made his way to the roof. The access door shut behind him on groaning hinges, leaving him alone in the blissful silence of the rooftop garden. Listlessly he meandered along the path which wound in and out of various garden patches, while his thoughts wandered a less steady way.

They had convinced him to come tonight. They had told him it was time, that this was important, but the gala had been too much. Too many people with too many questions. He had to get away. Even if it was only for a moment. Closing his eyes, he breathed deeply and took in the cool night air heavy with the promise of rain. This he missed.

From this perspective, high over the city, Dick felt more at home than he did when he was on the ground below, mingling with people he scarcely knew. Playing a role and moving on. He hated that phrase. That was all anyone said to him anymore.

Dick sat along the low retaining wall, confident he would not fall despite being six stories above the ground. Shrugging out of his jacket and loosening his tie, he abandoned both on the ledge beside him. They were strangling him. He could barely breathe as it was. He needed...he needed her.

It had been too long since he’d taken to the rooftops. He couldn’t, not anymore. It would be foolish, irresponsible. He wouldn’t.

Still, Dick could taste the freedom which leaping off rooftops and gliding through the air had always granted him before. It had been too long since he felt like the “daring young man on the flying trapeze.” Oh, how she used to tease him.

Shaking his head as though it were possible to clear his brain of the unwanted thoughts. Too many memories clung to his shoulders —clipped his wings and pinioned him to the ground. The wind bit through the thin silk of his shirt and ruffled his hair. Tomorrow, he told himself, I’ll go back on the trapeze tomorrow. From there, maybe things would look brighter. It had helped in the past. He just needed this tonight.

Retrieving the device from his jacket pocket, Dick turned it over and over again in his hands. He shouldn’t be doing this. He promised....

With a click, Dick turned on the device, set it on the ledge and waited.

“Dick? Are you up here?” Babs’ voice rang through the otherwise silent night. It was too close, while at the same time being far too distant.

Hesitating for only a moment, Dick pushed himself to his feet and stood as still as stone. He shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t be here. He needed to stop living in the past.

“Dick, where are you? This isn’t funny.” Despite the rebuke in her words, there was amusement in her voice.

He didn’t rush to her as had once been his custom. Instead he stayed his mark. If he wanted this, he needed to stay here. To endure the wait, Dick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t quite fill his lungs.

“There you are, Hunk Wonder,” Babs called as she rounded the corner of the path. Her movements were slow and a bit awkward. After the experimental spinal surgery started to fail, she had good days and bad ones. More often than not, she spent most of her time in her wheelchair than not. But, for this occasion, she’d felt up to walking.

“Yeah, here I am.” His voice almost sounded normal. Not that she would notice one way or the other.

Dick opened his eyes and openly stared at Babs, drinking in every detail. Her smile lit up her face and a teasing glimmer sparked in her green eyes. At the sight of her, his heart raced in his chest. His expression softened and his lips curled into a smile. This...he needed this.

Her eyes. They sparked with more excitement than they usually did when they met for these secret assignations. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Dick grinned. “I needed to get away for a moment.”

“I know. Me too. No matter how many times we do this, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to all this hobnobbing.” The breeze caught at her hair as she pulled out the pins and allowed the long locks to tumble about her shoulders. The loose braid which had formally accented the updo was quickly lost amid the red curls. She massaged her temples and exhaled a sigh of relief. “That feels better.”

He wanted to run his fingers through her hair, but held back.

Taking a step closer, she shivered and ran a hand over her bare arms. “It’s getting too cold for rooftop meetings.”

“But the view is gorgeous.” His gaze followed the deep v neckline of her dark charcoal dress.

A rosy flush coloured her pale cheeks as she followed the progression of his hungry gaze. “Dick, not here. We used to leave the galas and come here all the time when we were kids. They’re gonna find us!”

“We have a few minutes before anyone will miss us,” he mumbled. Spinning her around so her back pressed against his front, Dick wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, interlacing their fingers. The pose wasn’t as easy or as comfortable, as it had once been. His left arm traced down the length of hers until he captured her hand in his. He tried ignore the missing cool metal of her wedding band. Babs giggled, the joy effusing every ounce of her being.

“The gardens look lovely. You did a great job.” Though he was trying to distract her from the cold and the thoughts of discovery, Dick truly meant the compliment. Babs had helped create this little haven of green in their city. Each of the half dozen or so plots contained a different colorful and fragrant offering.

Never one to forget the hardships of the No Mans Land quarantine, Babs had insisted they include vegetables among the gardens. There were tomatoes and peppers. Heads of lettuce and kale. Zucchini vines snaked their way through the neat rows.

Not far from where he stood now, a small patch of wild flowers grew nearby, offering a colorful bounty of flowers. A trio of beehives nestled among the daisies, clovers, and a myriad of other flowers he couldn’t name. The bee were quiet in the deepening night, though in the morning the buzz of an active hive would begin anew.

Closing his eyes, he dipped his head and tried to prolong the moment. Breathing deeply, he inhaled rose and lavender. The scent he loved—the one he longed for—was missing. Long gone was the subtle, sweet scent of vanilla. Babs had once admitted she preferred a perfume with a touch of vanilla. It reminded her of the old books she loved. She’d explained the chemistry—as the paper broke down, it carried the scent of vanillin. Her passion for books was one of the many things he loved about her. He could not count the number...

“Dick,” Babs’ voice interrupted his runaway thoughts. “I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Mmhmm,” Dick managed to choke around the lump in his throat, no longer able to pretend everything was okay. No longer able to stick to the script. Babs continued as though he had never missed his cue. He opened his eyes to see her face, needing to see it one more time.

Who was he kidding? Once more would never be enough. Her green eyes are bright with all the potential of bright tomorrows. She flickered in his arms.

“Dick...”

The access door creaked, breaking the moment before she could share the news.

“Daddy? Are you up here?”

Dick started. The image of Babs flickered again as he stumbled back and scrambled for the projector from its place on the ledge. He flicked it off, leaving him once again alone.

“Annie, I’m back here.” Dick dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief, though he couldn’t hide the red. He didn’t mind if his daughter saw the telltale signs of his tears. After all, It’s okay to cry, had become a near mantra around their home since Babs’ death six months ago. Over that span of time he had cried enough to fill the oceans of the world several times over.

No, he didn’t mind if she found him crying. Rather the problem was that once she located him, his time alone would be over. They would need to rejoin the gala. Once more he would be subject to the pitying glances, the uncomfortable silences, and—God forbid—the empty condolences. People were beginning to move from the ‘I understand, take all the time you need’ to the ‘Why aren’t you over this yet?’.

Their extended family was better, but none of them knew how to help Dick and his children grieve. They couldn’t adopt the family’s usual method for dealing with loss. Cancer left no enemies to beat up. No mystery to solve, no justice to enact. Death’s revolving door stayed firmly shut this time. He was no Orpheus able to charm open the gates of Hades.

Annie found him exactly where he had stood. She clutched a book in her hands, grasping the spine until her knuckles turned white. Allowing her to bring a book was the only way he could get her to come. Behind her glasses, wide, lost eyes searched the gardens. She ran the last few feet to him and threw her arms around his waist in an embrace. With her face pressed into his shirt, it was hard to hear her amid the muffled sniffles. “I was scared when I couldn’t find you. I thought I lost you too.”

“I’m sorry sweetheart.” Dick gathered his daughter in his arms and held her to his chest. It hurt to look at her. She was so much like her mother with her bright red hair and the liberal sprinkling of freckles. Annie had his eyes—the shape and colour—but he always thought they shone with the same bright curiosity which had been Babs’. Before his legs gave way, Dick sank down to the ledge and resisted the urge to break down in sobs. He needed to be strong for her.

When Annie’s sniffling ceased, Dick relaxed his embrace. Annie slipped out of his arms. A Grayson through and through, his ten year old daughter showed no fear as she sat on the ledge beside him. Her leg bounced in an unsteady rhythm. Resting her head against his arm, they sat in silence listening for the hum of the traffic below.

“Where’s Henry?” Breaking the silence, Dick asked after her twin brother, the two were scarcely seen without the other. He slipped his jacket back on, but left off the tie.

Between all his siblings, Steph, Alfred, Bruce, and Jim—Dick and Babs had never worried about their children at events like these. With the training ingrained into each of them from their nights working together to keep Gotham safe, his family watched over his children. It was almost uncanny how the children passed from one set of watchful eyes to another without the explicit need to organize the process. But, like everything since Babs had died, that too seemed broken. She had held their little world together. When they had Oracle’s all seeing gaze watching their backs, the extended family’s self-appointed mission felt a little bit safer, a little more possible. Now, the Clocktower was empty, the Oracle was silenced.

A sob hitched in his chest. He pulled Annie close and held her tight.

Annie shrugged. “There’s too many people here, so he left with Aunt Cass. Grandpa Bruce knows...”

“You didn’t want to go with them?” He tried to keep his voice light. He didn’t care if she attended the party or not, just that she was safe.

“I wanted to find you first.” She worried her bottom lip. Silently she ticked off each member of their extended family on her fingers as she mentally recalled their locations.

Dick’s heart ached. His bold, vivacious children had turned quiet, never straying far from each other or family. Annie needed to know where everyone was at all times and Henry couldn’t stand crowds. If they hadn’t inherited Babs’ brilliance, there had been rumblings of holding them back a year in school. Dick was all they had now. He couldn’t be risking his life on a nightly basis. He couldn’t leave them orphans.

Annie picked up the projector and turned it over in her hands. “Is this Mama’s...?”

“Yes,” Dick plucked the device out of her hands. His fingers hovered over the switch. From diagnosis to her death, it had been nearly a year. It was all too short a time, but Babs had never given up hope. Even in her last pain filled days, Babs had never stopped trying to find ways to take care of them all. Trying to extend her reach beyond her passing.

In the time she had left, she and Dick had created the projector. Adapting her training room technology, they had created a way to record memories and play them back in lifelike vignettes. They had started with her memories, then his. It was all they had time for, before it was too late. He was suppose to continue adding stories—and the twins’, and her father’s, Bruce’s, his siblings’, her teams’, everyone whose lives she had touched. There had been so many. Once the collected stories were gathered and woven together, they would have a comprehensive record of Babs’ life.

“I miss Mama.” Annie ran her fingers along the spine of her book. It was the last book Babs had given their daughter. Though Annie carried it with her everywhere, she had yet to read it.

“Would you like to see what I was watching?” It was time to share this memory.

She nodded.

Dick flipped the switch. The image flickered to life (a sick feeling twisted in his stomach at that turn of phrase) and paused where he had left the scenario. This simulacrum of Dick and Babs were so young. Even his daughter noticed the difference. She ran a hand through her dad’s hair, now liberally streaked with grey. He no longer tried to hide the passage of time. Pressing the button again, the memory played from where he left off.

“Dick,” The memory-Babs repeated his name, making certain she had his attention. Their eyes locked and the love was unmistakable. Eager and hopeful. Even back then, he already knew what she was going to say. How could he not? Babs took one last deep breath, before announcing her news with a radiant smile. “I’m pregnant.”

The smile on Dick’s face was as brilliant as the sun. He swooped Babs up in his arms and spun her. When at last he set down his wife, he kept a steadying arm around her waist. Lightly pressing his free hand to her stomach, he leaned in and kissed her.

In the present, Dick allowed the image to linger for a moment before turning off the projector. Tears ran down Annie’s cheeks at the sight of her mama alive and vibrant.

“That’s the night we learned about you and your brother,” Dick murmured into his daughter’s hair, holding her close.

“I wish...I wish she could come back to us,” Annie whispered. “I miss her so much.”

“So do I sweetheart. So do I.” Dick closed his eyes and breathed in the night. The subtle scent of vanilla was missing. Their world would never be the same. And it wasn’t meant to be. They would go on, somehow. He couldn’t see the way— yet—but he knew they would find it. Together.

#richard grayson #barbra gordon #dick/babs #fanfiction #inspired by fanart #deadhermiteyes #angst #mourning

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solivar · 5 years

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WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

And this will be the last teaser for this chapter for Reasons.

The entrance to Terrifying Smoke Gabe’s sanctum (“Brooding Lair of Broodery.” “The desert is vast, Jack, and there are so many places I could hide your body.”) lay beneath a trapdoor at the very back of the Special Care Exotics greenhouse, easily the largest inside the hacienda’s walled compound, and by far the most oddly shaped: four geodesic dome segments joined together by short lengths of rounded corridor. The entrance vestibule was an actual airlock, secured by both biometric locks and a security keypad, and contained three spotlessly clean stainless steel tables and a half-dozen freestanding storage cabinets loaded with filtration masks and protective goggles, hazmat suits that wouldn’t look at all out of place in a CDC-run infectious disease laboratory, a whole rack of basic gardening tools lying cheek to jowl with test sample extraction equipment and air-tight storage containers.

Hanzo eyed the hazmat suits with a certain species of alarm welling up in the back of his mind. “We’re not going to need those, are we?”

“Nah, not right now.” Terrifying Smoke Gabe assured him, smooth and comforting. “We mostly keep them out of an abundance of caution -- one year we got a super pollination followed by a super bloom of one of the more...potent aphrodisiacs and the consequences were...Well. Okay. They weren’t exactly unexpected but they were kind of dire, especially when some of the pollen escaped containment.”

“We ran out of lubricants and anti-chafing cream and antibacterial ointment and also materials to make more.” Jack set the case he was carrying down on one of the tables and snapped it open, began screwing the components inside together. “Fortunately we managed to keep the effects isolated and cleaned up before we accidentally triggered a local baby boom.”

“And it also showed us we really, really needed to improve the the air filters and isolation protocols in some of the enclosures. Thus the suits. But unless you’ve got a noticeable plant allergy, you’re probably not even going to need a respirator.” Gabe flicked a glance past Hanzo’s shoulder. “You about ready, babe?”

The last few components slotted into place, resulting in what was unmistakably a slim, lightweight rifle, scope inclusive, each bit incised with glittering letters-that-weren’t-letters, including the magazine that Jack slapped into place, two more going into the pouches of the vest he was wearing. The last item he removed from the case was a visor, clear glass ending in connector leads that attached to the implants in his temples with a soft but audible click. “When you two are, pumpkin.”

“Do you think we’re going to need that?” Hanzo asked softly, gesturing at the gun, as Terrifying Smoke Gabe opened the inner door of the vestibule airlock.

“I know you’re familiar with Jesse’s exorcism rounds -- these are the same principle, higher muzzle velocity.” Oh so dryly. “And we might -- just might, but in this particular matter it’s significantly better to be safe than sorry. Trust me on this.”

The airlock cycled with a soft hiss of displaced air and Terrifying Smoke Gabe led the way, Hot Vampire Jack bringing up the rear, with Hanzo kept firmly between them as they made their way through greenhouse. The central corridor, to which they kept, was lined on each side in individualized habitat modules, clearly labeled with their inhabitants’ common use name and scientific designation and a list of entry rules and care requirements, all of which made him absolutely itch with the desire to stop and read and ask questions at considerable length, one that got harder and harder to resist the deeper they went, one he put aside for later only with extreme difficulty as they reached the geodesic dome at the far end of the structure. That dome was isolated from the rest of the greenhouse by a secondary airlock, biometrically sealed, and opened into a space completely dominated by, to Hanzo’s vast surprise, trees: trees whose roots were twined around a carefully landscaped environment of lichen-coated boulders and whose crowns brushed against the upper reaches of the dome, whose branches were weighted down with vines the thickness of a large man’s arm and as thin as embroidery floss, bright green against their denser, woodier cousins. Artificial waterfalls sheeted gently down the sides and in channels between several of the largest tree-and-boulder conglomerates, gathering in a collecting pool floored in smooth rounded stones to be refreshed and recycled back into the irrigation system, edged in beds of fern and moss.

The trapdoor lay in the very back of a recessed area deep enough and dark enough to be legitimately described as cavelike, right down to the occasional drip of water and the scuttling of unseen creatures that were almost probably bats. Gabe knelt and, for an instant, the edges of the trap flashed crimson at his knees, replaced by a warmer, flickering glow as he lifted the door, offering Hanzo a hand down the first few slightly damp steps. The stairway was claustrophobically narrow, barely wide enough for him to walk facing forward with one shoulder brushing a wall, Gabe and Jack having to take it sideways, the carved stone stairs themselves thankfully long and shallow and illuminated at regular intervals by tall, jarred candles set in niches.

“Most of the more heavily mined areas are up in the old state park, but this whole region is riddled with delvings -- some shallow, some deep. The oldest are more than a thousand years old,” Gabe’s voice, underground, took on a hollow echo as their descent continued. “This one’s deep and old and we’re reasonably sure it was only a mine in the loosest sense of the term.”

“What he’s saying is, it’s the archetypal example of the ancients delving too deep and breaking through to something that was mad, bad, and dangerous to find.” Jack added dryly. “Though the only such things down here right now are, well, us and have been for quite some time.”

The stairway ended, the base widening into a room just large enough to hold them all, its pale sandstone walls marked in pictograms, charcoal black and an astonishingly still vivid white and ochre of a shade disturbingly close to dried blood: humaniform figures, hunters wielding weapons, a masked figure holding a staff, a tangled mass of unnaturally slender bodies with too many limbs and too many teeth, ringed in bands of solar and lunar disks, lightning slashes, the triangular forms of mountains, all centered around the roughly triangular gap in the far wall, shockingly dark after the golden warmth of the stairs. The hair on the back of Hanzo’s neck shivered upright and a cold pulse throbbed in his chest and he knew, knew in his bones and his blood and to the depths of his soul that they were more than just decorative, even now.

“If you wish to stop,” Terrifying Smoke Gabe said, with an awful gentleness, “we need to do it here. Once we pass this point, we will be stepping between worlds, and the way back will not be as simple as walking through the door again.”

“No. I do not wish to stop. I must know -- it is the only way forward from here.” Hanzo took a steadying breath, Jack’s hand a warm comfort on his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

Gabe smiled, a slight curve of his lips, and slipped through the door, all-but vanishing into the dark beyond. Hanzo closed his eyes for a moment, breathed slow and deliberate, and stepped through, as well. The exposed skin of his face and hands and even his eyes prickled wildly as he took that step, the brand on his palm burning with the intensity of it, the thing beneath his breastbone pounding like a second heart -- and then he was through, half-stumbling on the rough, not-precisely-even floor beyond, and Jack was catching hold of his elbow to help keep him up. He leaned against that support, blinking away tears, as his breathing came back to normal and the pain in his chest faded back to normal.

The space they occupied was clearly not entirely natural -- the ceiling was too perfect a dome, the thick columns supporting it too perfectly spaced, the walls closest to the door visibly marked by the traces of tools. It was, Hanzo suspected, perfectly round, or close enough to it for the differences not to matter, an enormous circle whose far side was lost in shadow, with an inner circle sunken beneath the level of the floor, its sandstone walls perfectly smooth, unmarked, illuminated by a circle of candles surrounding a bowl, beaten silver and dark green stone. A cushion sat on each side of it, flat and rectangular, unpatterned.

“Step down,” Gabe’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, a hollow echo, Hanzo catchinging on the faintest glimpse of too many red eyes in the dark beyond the candlelight as he moved. “The circle waits for you.”

Hanzo shivered, sat on the edge of the depression, and slid down, crossed to the cushion closest to him and sank into seiza. Up close, he could see that the bowl held something -- a liquid, dark and gently fragrant. A moment later, Gabe poured over the edge, as well, his form more smoke than substance, the shadows of fur and feathers and membranous wings, a hundred pinpoints of crimson glittering in him, his hands only barely solid enough to hold the casket he carried and set down as quickly as he could. It was old, Hanzo could see that at a glance, the points and edges of its lid worn smooth, but its mother-of-pearl inlay and brass clasp and hinges were clearly, lovingly cared for by expert hands. It opened smoothly at his touch and from it he withdrew a tiny plate of white jade carved in the shape of a serpent coiling around itself, fangs sunk into its own tail, three sticks of incense, richly resinous even unlit, and a long, slender needle, its pale substance stained dark at the tip, the eye carved in the shape of a grinning death’s head. Hanzo exhaled a shuddering breath as he tasted the power rolling off that unassuming object, looked up, and froze.

Gabe’s face was also a pale death’s mask, an ivory skull-face over shifting shadows, his eyes gleaming crimson in the depths of their sockets, the whole shadowed by the cowl belling wide over his shoulders, the pall of smoke around him a cloak, a shroud. Even so, the corners of his mouth pulled back in a comforting smile and when he offered his free hand, palm up, Hanzo laid his own in it without hesitation.

“The guiding principle here is this: you are the question, and I am the answer.” Gabe’s voice still seemed to come from everywhere but his own mouth, a whispery susurrus of a thousand softer, different voices echoing after. “Your need guides my magic. What is your need, Shimada Hanzo? Why have you come into my house?”

“I seek the wisdom and counsel of my kinswoman, the warrior Shimada Tamiko, who may know the dangers of the past and the perils of the future.” He looked up and met those eerie eyes. “That is my need.”

A coil of living mist wound around his free hand, leaving behind the bone needle. “Three drops of your blood, no more, no less, is the price for what you ask.”

That same curl of mist placed the incense in its bowl, both sticks lighting and beginning to smolder without so much a flicker of fire. In his hand, the needle’s skull-carved head was cool and smooth, worn that way by the passage of countless other hands, and before he could think too deeply about what the was doing, he slid its bloodstain-darkened tip into the meat of his magic-scarred left palm, just below the thumb. Blood welled as he withdrew it, made three concentric rings in the surface of the offering-bowl’s contents as he let the drops fall. A smoky tendril whisked away the needle and a second brought the bowl to Gabe’s mouth, or where his mouth would be under normal circumstances, tilted it as he drank deeply, as their hands came together, resting back to palm on opposite sides of the candle ring.

Gabriel drew a deep, deep breath with a sound like wings rushing, wind howling through desolate places, and began to sing -- a song that held within it dozens, hundreds, thousands of voices, a song that slid into Hanzo’s mind and soul and flesh, drew his eyes closed as the breathed deep of the incense, sought the places inside him where his blood beat in time with a warrior long-lost, and he wordlessly allowed them passage. Icy pain lanced through his chest, pressed the breath from his lungs, even as Gabriel’s hands closed tight on his own, growing colder and colder until the ache of it sank into his bones. Hanzo opened his eyes as the quality of the light touching their lids changed, cooled, the candle flame between them washing from golden to blue as Gabriel’s form...changed, warped, twisted, writhed almost in pain even as his grip on Hanzo’s hands never faltered. The song changed, as well, thousands of voices becoming hundreds becoming dozens becoming one -- rough with unaccustomed use, deeper, singing in a language that Hanzo knew as well as his own breath, the halls of his family’s ancient home, the scent of the sakura blossoms in the spring and the falling maple leaves in the autumn. Gabriel’s shape collapsed in on itself, grew paler and paler, grew still. Armored -- iyozane dou, white as moonlight on snow, helm a snarling wolf’s head, stormcloud gray and silver fur gathered around the throat as a gorget, falling down the back as a cloak. Milk-pale braids tumbled from beneath that helm, some thick, some thin, at least a half-dozen, even as the face remained in shadow. The hands that gripped his own were small but strong, striped in callus, fingers tipped in claws.

“Tamiko-dono?” Hanzo asked, softly.

Her head tilted, wary, listening, and the candlelight fell across her face, her high cheekbones and sharp jaw, her golden eyes and the golden markings beneath them.

“You,” Tamiko’s voice, when she spoke, was as rough as when she sang, husky and darker than he expected. “You have come. At last you have come. Give me your name.”

“Hanzo,” He replied, softly, “I am Shimada Hanzo, Lady Tamiko. And I...I have many questions.”

Her head moved, a quick jerk, as she scented the air -- eyes narrowing as they fixed on something beyond his shoulder. “And that? He is not of the Clan.”

Hanzo dared a quick glance, found Jack standing almost deceptively relaxed, his weapon’s muzzle pointed toward the cavern’s floor, finger well away from the trigger, his visor glowing pale blue in the dark. “A friend -- he means no harm. He is here for my protection, and yours.”

“Protection?” Her gaze flicked back to him, her eyes narrowing still further. “Why would a son of the Clan require protection, from a mortal armed with mortal weapons? What --” She stopped, as her gaze roved over him, seemed to see him, truly, for the first time, and it was all he could do not to shrivel in shame where he knelt, only barely resisting the urge to bow his face to the floor despite the ring of candles. When she spoke again, her voice was a toneless rasp. “How long has it been?”

“Lady Tamiko --” Hanzo began, gently, only to be cut off by her wordless snarl.

“How long, Shimada Hanzo?”

“Many hundreds of years.” He replied, drawing a steadying breath as her eyes flashed, her lips peeled back from her teeth, sharp and long as the wolf whose pelt she wore. “At least five centuries.”

“Centuries.” Her eyes slid closed, her face a mask of despair. “And my Clan sends a half-fledged child to finish my task. Fools. Fools.”

“They did not send me.” Hanzo found the words falling off his tongue before he could stop them. “The Clan...they do not know that I am doing this. They did not know you were here, or what became of you, or why you came to this place.”

“What.” It was not quite a question, the tone so similar to his mother’s when she was not-really-asking that he had to repress a slightly hysterical giggle. “What do you mean?”

“Much has changed. The Clan has changed -- and much that we should not have forgotten has been lost.” The bitterness of that admission twisted his heart and his stomach. “Lady Tamiko -- I need your wisdom. I must know what happened, and how you came to be here, in this place. I beg this of you, for the lives of innocents that are at stake.”

Her beast-golden eyes caught his own and he found himself unable to look away, as transfixed as he had ever been by the ranger-who-was-probably-Coyote, and her chin dipped as she nodded slowly. “I came here on the hunt -- pursuing one who had betrayed the Clan and shed the blood of our own in murder, a kinslayer. His name was Shimada Kazutaka...but you, I think, may know him by another name.”

The icy thing in his chest throbbed and shuddered as she spoke its name, his stomach churned and it was all he could do to swallow it back down. “The Serpent-Wolf.”

“Yes.” A heavy weight of sorrow in that single word and he was shocked by the depths of the grief, of the guilt, in her eyes. “He was as near to me as a brother, once. We suckled at the same breast -- his mother was my mother’s sister, and they bore Kazutaka and I but a few weeks apart. Fever carried away my mother away, and her sister took me into her household to raise, that I would grow to protect the son who would one day lead the Clan, as she had been. And it was that way, all through our youth -- we learned statecraft and diplomacy, literature and music, the ways of the bow and the blade and the fist, side by side, that he might rule and I might advise him cannily, and be his sword where his silver tongue could not hold sway. He was clever that way, with his words and his intuition, his way of knowing what others thought and what they most desired, even as a young man, and I knew the ways of battle, of the hunt in dark places, my father’s blood telling in me. We...complemented one another, and the Lord and Lady I know hoped that we would choose to marry.” A ragged sigh. “Had he wished it, had he asked it of me, I would not have told him no. But he did not ask, and then we were summoned to the shrine. Our time had come, and we thought we were ready.”

She released his gaze, her own falling to the floor, the candlelight striking in the depths of her eyes. “Kazutaka and I both expected to be chosen by the dragons. Instead, the wolf mothers came to us both, chose us both, a thing they had never done before.”

Hanzo’s hand tightened convulsively around hers and her eyes flicked to his face, narrowing slightly, and it was all he could do to ask, strangled, as the blood pulsed in his head and the breath caught in his lungs, “The wolf mothers?”

“Sakuya and Tatsuya.” A trace of alarm crossed Lady Tamiko’s face. “The Okami -- the mates of Lord Minamikaze and Lord Kitakaze, the mothers of the Clan. They chose their champions, but not often, and only in times of dire need, and never from among Minamikaze’s line, never before the heir to the Clan. It was...a matter of much concern.” Her brow furrowed, a frown curling the corners of her mouth. “How much has the Clan forgotten that you, who bear their mark, does not know this?”

Hanzo could not breathe -- the part of him that remembered how was as frozen as the rest of him, as stunned, as utterly stilled by shock and empty of thought. He felt a laugh crawling up the back of his throat, sharp and spiky and more than a little hysterical, and it took all his strength to swallow it back down, to breathe, to not think. “Much. Very much. Lady...what happened?”

She gazed at him, steady and even, until he could not hold her gaze and looked away himself, blinking away tears. The grip on his hands gentled, ever so slightly. “The Clan was in an uproar. There was some talk of asking Kazutaka to step aside in favor of his brother -- particularly when Kazetatsu was chosen by the dragons less than a season later -- but he did not, and the elders subsided...but things were different afterwards. Between us, and within him, though I did not know how different until…”

A ragged breath. “Too late. Until it was too late. I allowed my love for him to blind me to what he was becoming, how the anger ate away his heart, how the jealousy poisoned and twisted his soul. And he hid it well -- he married, and fathered children, he ascended to the rulership of the Clan when his father retired, and to all eyes he governed well and wisely. He sent me away from Hanamura often, to hunt the rumors of great evils abroad in the land, to the find the purpose for which we had both been chosen -- and, I think, to hide what he was doing from my eyes, from the path that he had taken in the dark of his bitterness, of his belief that he had been denied what he truly deserved, the dragon-bond that should have been his birthright.” Her clawed thumb traced across his scarred palm. “He told me that he believed a darkness from beyond our world had come and he was...not wrong. What he did not say is that he was harboring it -- that he had knelt before it as a supplicant and begged its wisdom, learned the terrible things it taught.” She swallowed, a convulsive movement. “He used them to twist the essence of his own bondmate, the wolf companion of his soul, into a ravening monster. He used them to slay Kazetatsu, to consume his flesh and blood and soul and enslave Natsuokaze, his dragon, the only daughter of Lord Minamikaze. He used them to flee from me when I confronted him, to open a door to this place, where he could carve out a kingdom of horrors and no one would be able to stop him.”

“Why here?” Hanzo heard himself asking from a vast distance, pathetically grateful for whatever degree of shock was holding his voice steady. “Why this place?”

“He followed the path his teacher tread, as I followed his when I pursued him.” A faint, grim smile. “He could not conceal his tracks, now that I knew what he had become -- but it took me long, too long, to reach this place and by the time I did…” Her grip on his hands tightened again, claws drawing blood. “He was great in his power -- greater than I imagined possible when last I saw him, a monstrosity that had cast aside any illusion of humanity.” The horror of the memory shone in her eyes. “It took all my strength, all of my skill, to weaken him enough to strike a killing blow with the sword I had sworn would be his ending -- and, when I did, he did not die. He did not die, and he struck me down, and as I lay bleeding my life on the sands, he mocked me with the knowledge that I could never have slain him, for his life was no longer married to his flesh but bound apart where none would ever find it. But he was wrong.” The tips of her fangs flashed in the candlelight. “My wolf found the god-seed he had corrupted with his power, the thing that held his life, and bore it away -- his black heart, without which he is not nor can ever be whole. He raged, oh how he raged, but he could not prevent my Hoshi from escaping -- but he could bind me, and did, to the place where we fought, where my bones lie still beneath the sands. And he, wounded with many wounds and weak, crawled away into his witch-home, taking the sword that will be his death with him.”

“I will find you bones and return them to the Clan, and tell them the story of what became of you.” Hanzo promised softly. “I will...finish what you began. I --”

“I know that you will, wolf-child.” And for the first time she lifted her hand away from his own, to rest it against his chest. “For you carry within you his heart, and you need only the blade, blessed by Minamikaze and Kitakaze, Sakuya and Tatsuya, to break his magic and end him forever.”

“...I…” Hanzo dragged a painful breath through the ice cold rage and hate and terror throbbing in his chest, “I give you my word.”

“Thank you, blood of my blood. I will await your coming.” She gathered both his hands in hers, bowed deeply over them, and he scrambled to catch Terrifying Smoke Gabe as her presence withdrew, more swiftly and suddenly than it had come, tumbling them both sideways away from the candles, Gabe’s arms closed tight around him, both of them trembling, for different reasons.

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66

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mredwinsmith · 7 years

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How Different Materials Affect Your Drawing Process

Your drawing materials can determine the overall success of your finished artwork. And some are better than others when it comes to achieving certain effects.

If you want more successful drawings, knowing the pros and cons of the various materials available is key. Below, artist Dan Gheno shares his expert insight into the ins and outs of some of the most common drawing materials. Enjoy!

Drawing Materials, Explained

There is no substitute for skill and experience. A quill pen did not draw Michaelangelo’s Study of a Male Nude. The identical pen and ink in the hands of a rookie would not produce a similar masterpiece. But it’s also true if Michelangelo had used a ballpoint pen or a No. 2 pencil, the drawing would not possess the same depth of value or volume.

The choice of materials is a vital part of how an artist approaches his or her work, and it’s critical to pick the right drawing instruments, surfaces and other tools to fit the needs of your artistic vision.

Study of a Male Nude by Michelangelo, ca. 1503–1504, pen-and-brown-ink. Collection Casa Buonarroti, Florence, Italy.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that you shouldn’t try to make a material do something it can’t. Just as you can’t force a cat to bark or a dog to meow, it’s impossible to force your materials to do something against their essential nature.

For instance, graphite, sanguine chalk and colored pencil all yield less contrast than compressed charcoal or ink. If you’re interested in deep, divergent contrasts, you want charcoal rather than graphite. However when the goal is a more delicate form of rendering, charcoal can work; but I personally prefer graphite or colored pencil, which I find more readily suited to this goal.

Now, let’s take a closer look at the advantages and pitfalls of the drawing materials I’ve personally grown to know over my decades as an artist. We’ll examine the pros and cons of media including graphite, colored pencil, charcoal and ink, along with surfaces and other tools. We’ll discuss when to use them, when to avoid them and what you can expect (or not expect) from each medium.

A sample of my favorite drawing materials. At top, from left to right: mechanical pencil; ballpoint pen; holders for large crayons and graphite sticks; various colored pencils and pencil holders; oil-based, charcoal, carbon and chalk pencils; and pointed eraser. Middle: vine charcoal. At bottom, from left to right: compressed charcoal, sharp single-edge razor blades; and two block erasers — one for colored media, another for dark media.

Graphite

If you discount the mural I drew with Crayola crayons at age four on the side of my older sister’s 1951 Chevrolet sedan, my first experiences in drawing were rendered with a yellow No. 2 pencil, a common first experience.

Because of this early familiarity, graphite pencils remain the most comfortable and safe choice for many artists until they start taking art classes. Well-meaning teachers sometimes try to get their students to kick the graphite habit, forcing them to use charcoal instead.

However, I usually encourage novice students to first work with what’s familiar to them. When trying to grasp such challenging issues as human proportions and value shapes, it doesn’t help to struggle with the technical problems of a new medium as well.

Known mostly as a linear medium, graphite is more flexible than many artists and teachers give it credit for. You can actually get some very fluid and painterly effects with it — for instance, by applying powdered graphite to the paper with a brush or chamois. Graphite also comes in sticks of various shapes, sizes and hardness. This allows for a variety of delicately blended masses or broad, assertively expressive strokes.

Contrapposto Male Figure by Dan Gheno, 2016, graphite

The main drawback to graphite is its inability to achieve the intensity of darkness you can get from compressed charcoal or paint. You can go only so dark with graphite before the material builds into a reflective sheen that actually looks lighter instead of darker. In fact, the more you try to rub and grind graphite into one area of the paper, the more you will burnish it into a dense, shiny mass, canceling out any sense of

In fact, the more you try to rub and grind graphite into one area of the paper, the more you will burnish it into a dense, shiny mass. And this cancels out any sense of realistic value and atmosphere you have achieved elsewhere in the drawing.

Graphite doesn’t drag on the paper like metalpoint does. With graphite, artists can apply value masses in a more natural, fluid manner. But one thing missing from graphite is metalpoint’s varied depth of line, which can seem to pulsate in a three-dimensional manner.

Discover the basics of drawing with charcoal, graphite and Conté crayons with this FREE download! Just enter your email below, to start getting your learn on!

Colored Pencil

For me, colored pencil seems to combine the strengths of graphite and metalpoint. Some brands of colored pencils impart a similar delicacy and depth of line as metalpoint. And although colored pencils aren’t quite as erasable as graphite, brands such as Stabilo Original and Caran d’Ache have much of graphite’s potential for revision and sensitive ease of application.

Colored pencils are particularly suited to exacting linework. Many brands of this medium can be sharpened to pinpoint precision using a razor blade.

I use a mid-value sanguine color for most of my colored pencil drawings, particularly when drawing on white paper. It allows for a delicate touch, but upon pressing harder I can get a darker, more assertive line. I will often use a darker sepia color when working on toned paper.

Reclined, Looking Over Shoulder by Dan Gheno, 2014, colored pencil

Colored pencils share graphite’s limited range of value contrast. But I find this can work to my advantage, forcing me to take my time to analyze the model’s light and dark patterns as I render them.

I usually prefer to build up my values gradually, shading across large shadow shapes with succeeding sweeps of tone, until I reach the desired darkness. Working in successive layers can allow one to better maintain the weave of the paper and help to impart a sense of atmosphere.

This medium can require a gentle touch. Colored Pencils are often fragile and prone to snapping in mid-stroke if you press too hard, leaving an unerasable skid mark on the paper.

If you try to push your values too dark all at once, they will become dense and shiny. With certain colors the hue may even change with heavy pressure or when you let your pencil point get too short, allowing the wood casing to chafe your linework.

Chalk and Charcoal

Some artists prefer powdered charcoal for this initial stage. But I frequently begin my sketches in a faint, linear manner with vine charcoal because it’s so easily erased or adjusted. I then follow up with a more permanent compressed charcoal pencil or stick, which usually works as a sealant, holding the more ephemeral, easily smudged vine against the paper.

Twisting by Dan Gheno, 1995, sanguine chalk

Charcoal pencils come in several grades of hardness, like graphite. Softer charcoal is often good for building up masses on large, expressive drawings; whereas harder compressed charcoal or carbon pencils, such as H and HB, are more suited to line work on a smaller scale.

Hard charcoal pencils, which are easy to sharpen to long, sharp points, can be used to quickly render thick and thin lines by varying the position of your hand. And you can build toward your dark value masses with a rapid weaving of strokes.

Broad, lineless tones are possible as well. Holding the pencil to the side, you can glide the long portion of the charcoal shaft across the page, gradually building up the tone into a broad value mass, much as you would when using a colored pencil.

Female Figure in Shadow by Dan Gheno, 2003, charcoal

For the same reasons, it’s not a good idea to mix white pencil or chalk with black charcoal (or graphite), unless you do so systematically throughout the drawing. Otherwise, the mixed-up results will look cloudy or just plain chaotic, especially on toned paper.

Pro tip: When working in compressed charcoal or in graphite, keep to a limited range of pencil hardness to maintain evenness and texture harmony in your toning. Jumping between divergent grades — for instance from an HB to a much softer 6B — can result in a distracting cacophony of rough and smooth textures.

Crayon

Perhaps it was the sense of shame I felt for drawing on my sister’s car — and the adverse conditioning that came from the hours of elbow grease I spent rubbing out my scribbles. But it was a long time before I renewed my interest in grease- or oil-based drawing instruments.

When I did, using a variety of brands from Cretacolor to Faber-Castell’s Pitt, I found the medium offers a handy compromise between the darkness achievable with softer chalks and pastels, and the smoothness of colored pencil and graphite. When drawing with crayon, I generally use a sanguine color.

I’d recommend not combining different brands of crayon in one drawing. Hues differ greatly between manufacturers, even if they have the same name.

Scanning the Distance by Dan Gheno, 2016, oil-based crayon

Ink and Ballpoint

Over the years I’ve worked with a variety of inking tools, including brushes, dip pens, fountain pens, ballpoint pens and Rapidograph pens.

Normally, I dipped my “fountain” pen into a bottle of ink so I could use a dark, heavy ink that would otherwise clog up the pen. I used an italic point held sideways, which offered a delicate fine line and provided thick-thin variation. Likewise, I used a grinding stone to sharpen and reshape my pen points to get extra fine lines.

Water-based felt brushes, such as the one I used to lay in masses in this drawing, wear out quickly. Instead of throwing them away, I open their tops and fill them with watered-down ink to rejuvenate their wells. I often prefer the more watery effect of these recharged brushes to the results I get with a new one.

Woman Seated, Looking Away by Dan Gheno, ca. 1974–1975, ink

Although I still work in this technique on occasion, today when I work in ink I usually use ballpoint pens, most often for eye-hand coordination exercises. Because ink is irrevocable, it’s a great training tool. It reinforces the habit of thinking before you put down a line.

I was first attracted to ballpoint pens for their ability to replicate fine, etch-like lines. Over the years, however, manufacturing standards have diminished, and now many brands of ballpoint spurt out unexpected blobs of ink — usually at the worst possible moment.

I recommend experimenting to find the best and most consistent brands (I’m a fan of the Pilot EasyTouch .7mm fine pen and its refill catridges, which can even be used on their own). In all cases, you’ll need to get in the habit of regularly cleaning off the paper detritus that builds up around the pen point. This can produce splotching after only a few minutes of work.

If you don’t put placeholder points for all the major beginning and end points — or at least try to imagine them in your mind — it’s easy to underestimate any foreshortening and draw a line too long. And with ink, of course, there’s no erasing your mistakes.

Artist by Dan Gheno, 2016, ballpoint pen

Mixing Media

There’s no need to confine yourself to one medium. Don’t be afraid of mixing unrelated media, combining different colored pencils or exploring unorthodox approaches. For example, I sometimes like to combine graphite and colored pencil with ink, starting loosely with pencil and finishing with ink.

As you experiment with combining media you’ll learn to work within some important limitations. You may find it difficult, for instance, to apply a chalkier medium on top of a slicker medium such as graphite or colored pencil. You’ll also discover you can’t splash heavy washes on thin paper.

In fact, you may want to consider tougher surfaces such as canvas, sanded paper or pastel cloth for many mixed media approaches. These provide wonderful traction, grabbing onto both dry and wet media and allowing combinations such as charcoal and paint — as we see in Robin Smith’s Marmadu — that wouldn’t be possible on most papers.

Marmadu by Robin Smith, 2015, oil, charcoal and white chalk on canvas. Private collection

Choosing the Right Paper

Some artists delight in rummaging through stacks of unusual and expensive papers. But I’m not a paper connoisseur. I prefer the smooth bond-paper surface that I’ve drawn on since I was a child.

Bond paper is not hard to find in letter size, although it takes a little detective work to find my preferred size of 18 x 24 inches. Different manufacturers sell large-format bond papers that are acid-free and archival, but they vary greatly in tooth and paper weight. Try out different brands until you find one that feels right for you.

Among the ones I use are Borden and Riley No. 39, a 16-lb layout bond paper that comes close to the smooth, bright-white surface of photocopy paper; and 50-lb Canson Sketch paper, which has a slightly warmer and darker surface. It’s also a little rougher, which I sometimes prefer for the way it grabs my pencil, producing darker lines and value masses.

Embrace by Dan Gheno, 2015, charcoal and carbon pencil with white charcoal on toned paper

Slick bond surfaces are not always conducive to vine charcoal or pastel-based media. Believe it or not, newsprint is perfect for these. It grabs onto the materials, giving a smooth, gliding effect to one’s value massing and linework.

Unfortunately, newsprint is also highly acidic, making it yellow and decay rather rapidly. I know many artists who love this ephemeral surface but are forever in pursuit of an archival substitute.

The best replacement I’ve found is Arches Text Wove, which shares most of the same properties. I also find absorbent printmaking papers such as Rives BFK take charcoal and pastel in a similar manner. Take care to work gently on printmaking papers, which don’t have much sizing. Their fibers are delicate and start to pill when erasing or applying material with a heavy hand.

Figure Sleeping by Dan Gheno, 2016, colored pencil and white charcoal on toned paper

Many good options are available for artists who want to work on toned paper. When I’m working on a toned ground, I gravitate toward smoother surfaces, such as Strathmore’s 400 Series Toned and Artagain, as well as Canson Mi-Teintes, preferring the silky, blotter backside of this paper over its more textural front. They allow for delicate, blended rendering, as well as distinctive linework.

I’m also fond of the lightly textured surface of Strathmore’s 500 Series Charcoal Assorted Tints paper. You can create a clean, shimmering effect on this paper if you’re careful not to press too hard and fill in its textural valleys. I like to stroke my dark and white pencils gently along the top surface of the paper texture, allowing the resulting tones to vibrate against the color of the paper.

Working with Erasers

Some teachers ban erasers in an effort to get students to look closely and commit before making a mark. Yes, an eraser is no substitute for failing to look closely at the model and thinking before you put down a line. But I firmly believe erasers are an important tool when not overused.

I subscribe to the view of America’s greatest draftsman, Thomas Eakins, that drawing is a process of revision. You put down something, and then adjust this estimate toward greater accuracy as you work. Just remember to look closely at the model and draw lightly so that you can more easily erase later on.

Erasers are not all created equal. The best type of eraser can vary depending on the media and paper you’re using. Kneaded erasers are usually effective for adjusting small vine charcoal shapes. Plastic erasers, such as those made by Tombow and Staedtler, are more efficient at lightening or removing colored pencil, compressed charcoal and carbon pencil from smooth paper.

There are also long, pointed plastic erasers that look like mechanical pencils — such as those made by Tuff Stuff and Tombow — which I’ve found indispensable for cleaning up small details and sharpening the edge of a shape. Even though you can roll a kneaded eraser into a sharp point, it won’t give you as clean a shape. Rather, these soft erasers create a more blurry edge — which can be useful when you want such an effect.

Fast Sketch by Dan Gheno, 2016, sanguine chalk

Unfortunately, erasers harden and become worthless as they get older. They can even smear or rub a line deeper into the paper. Additionally, it doesn’t hurt to reserve separate erasers for black media and for colored pigments. And, you should clean erasers frequently to prevent smudge-making pigment from accumulating on them and leaving stains where you want clean paper.

Sometimes, I will blend a tonal mass with the flat side of a block eraser. And, on occasion, I will press down with a kneaded eraser to lessen the assertiveness of a line. Other times, I’ll thin out a line by chiseling at its edge with a pointed plastic eraser, making some of the marks more delicate and fainter than other lines for rhythmic purposes. I often do this to imitate the effects of form and light, particularly where the boundary line of a volume faces the light source, or to indicate a softer fleshy form compared to a more distinct line of a projecting bone.

There are also many other tools to consider. Razor blades and sandpaper are useful for sharpening pencils. Many artists like to use chamois and stumps to blend charcoal, pastel and graphite for even tones.

I prefer to use my fingers for blending small, delicate masses. And I’ll use a facial tissue (sans ointment) to get a broader, even value mass. When using your fingers, it’s important to keep them clean and dry. I usually wipe my finger on a paper towel before each use. Otherwise, the oils of your skin will interfere with the drawing.

Pro tip: I find it makes a difference what order you employ various erasers when using more than one type in a single drawing. If I try to erase a deeply inscribed line with a kneaded eraser first, the line becomes even more resistant to subsequent attempts by a plastic eraser. I avoid using the smaller pointed plastic erasers on large areas, since they can embed the pigment into the paper; I’ve found the larger plastic erasers better suited to such tasks.

Changing Things Up

Speaking from experience, I suggest experimenting with various brands of your favorite drawing medium so you’re not left in the lurch when a material changes or becomes unavailable. I also advise holding on to pencil nibs. If you’re caught off-guard by a surprise cancellation, you can put them in a pencil extender and get quite a bit more mileage out of them.

After continually using the same materials, you may find your hand wants to go at the same speed and angle regardless of the subject matter. These habits can get in the way of seeing your subject’s specific shapes and size relationships and can even interfere with the drawing process — for instance by demanding a heavy line when your goals demand delicacy, or vice versa.

Sometimes the change of material can be something as minimal as a change of color to jump start your visual perceptions. If you find = your line weight is too heavy for your goals, you might switch to a lighter color — for example, from a heavy black charcoal pencil to light sanguine pencil. You could also try the opposite tack by using an even darker material to train your hand to back off and use a lighter touch.

Three depictions of the Farnese Hercules by Hendrick Goltzius, ca. 1591–1592. From left: engraving; black chalk on blue paper; red chalk.

There’s no doubt an artist’s choice of materials will impact the superficial look of a drawing. And, the drawing materials mentioned here are just some of those I’ve found helpful to my particular vision.

In the end, it’s the artist who makes the drawing, not the materials. Consider Hendrick Goltzius’ multiple versions of the Farnese Hercules. Whatever material he was using, Goltzius’ intense interest in sculptural volume makes the artworks compelling, giving the images power and lasting artistic importance.

About the Artist

Dan Gheno is a New York artist whose work can be found in collections including the Museum of the City of New York and the New Britain Museum of American Art, in Connecticut. He teaches drawing and painting at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy School of Fine Arts. And, you can find his insightful book, Figure Drawing Master Class, at NorthLightShop.com.

*This article by Dan Gheno first appeared in Drawing magazine‘s Winter 2017 issue.

The post How Different Materials Affect Your Drawing Process appeared first on Artist's Network.

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agosnesrerose · 7 years

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How Different Materials Affect the Drawing Process

The following article by Dan Gheno, about the pros and cons of various drawing materials, appears in the winter 2017 issue of Drawing magazine. You can see the full list of articles in the issue, and you can get your copy here or download a digital version here. You can also subscribe to Drawing.

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How Different Materials Affect the Drawing Process

by Dan Gheno

There is no substitute for skill and experience. A quill pen did not draw Study of a Male Nude—Michelangelo did. The identical pen and ink in the hands of a rookie would not produce a similar masterpiece. But it’s also true that if Michelangelo had used a ballpoint pen or a No. 2 pencil, the drawing would not possess the same depth of value or volume. The choice of materials is a vital part of how an artist approaches his or her work, and it’s critical to pick the right drawing instruments, surfaces and other tools to fit the needs of your artistic vision.

Study of a Male Nude, by Michelangelo, ca. 1503–1504, pen-and-brown-ink, 16 1/8 x 11 1/4. Collection Casa Buonarroti, Florence, Italy.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that you shouldn’t try to make a material do something it can’t. Just as you can’t force a cat to bark or a dog to meow, it’s impossible to force your materials to do something against their essential nature. For instance, graphite, sanguine chalk and colored pencil all yield less contrast than compressed charcoal or ink, so if you’re interested in deep, divergent contrasts, you want charcoal rather than graphite. However, when the goal is a more delicate form of rendering, charcoal can work, but I personally prefer graphite or colored pencil, which I find more readily suited to this goal.

This article will chronicle the advantages and pitfalls of the drawing materials I’ve personally grown to know over my decades as an artist. We’ll examine the pros and cons of media including graphite, colored pencil, charcoal and ink, along with surfaces and other tools. We’ll discuss when to use them, when to avoid them and what you can expect (or not expect) from each medium.

Graphite

If you discount the mural I drew with Crayola crayons at age 4 on the side of my older sister’s 1951 Chevrolet sedan, my first experiences in drawing were rendered with a yellow No. 2 pencil, a common first experience. Because of this early familiarity, graphite pencils remain the most comfortable and safe choice for many artists until they start taking art classes. Well-meaning teachers sometimes try to get their students to kick the graphite habit, forcing them to use charcoal instead. But I usually encourage novice students to work with what’s familiar to them at first. When trying to grasp such challenging issues as human proportions and value shapes, it doesn’t help to struggle with the technical problems of a new medium as well.

Known mostly as a linear medium, graphite is more flexible than many artists and teachers give it credit for. You can actually get some very fluid and painterly effects with it, for instance by applying powdered graphite to the paper with a brush or chamois. Graphite also comes in sticks of various shapes, sizes and hardness, which allow for a variety of delicately blended masses or broad, assertively expressive strokes.

Contrapposto Male Figure, by Dan Gheno, 2016, graphite, 17 x 8. All artwork this article collection the artist unless otherwise indicated.

The main drawback to graphite is its inability to achieve the intensity of darkness that you can get from compressed charcoal or paint. You can go only so dark with graphite before the material builds into a reflective sheen that actually looks lighter instead of darker. In fact, the more you try to rub and grind graphite into one area of the paper, the more you will burnish it into a dense, shiny mass, canceling out any sense of realistic value and atmosphere you have achieved elsewhere in the drawing.

I don’t often use graphite anymore, but when I do it’s usually for precise rendering or for analyzing complex shapes or anatomical forms on the body that I find confusing. Indeed, when graphite was first developed as an artistic medium by the English in the mid-1500s, it was promoted as an easier, more practical and more fluid alternative to metalpoint for detailed, analytical drawing. Graphite doesn’t drag on the paper as metalpoint does, so with graphite artists can apply value masses in a more natural, fluid manner. But one thing missing from graphite is metalpoint’s varied depth of line, which can seem to pulsate in a three-dimensional manner.

Colored Pencil

For me, colored pencil seems to combine the strengths of graphite and metalpoint. Some brands of colored pencils impart a similar delicacy and depth of line as metalpoint, and although colored pencils aren’t quite as erasable as graphite, brands such as Stabilo Original and Caran d’Ache have much of graphite’s potential for revision and sensitive ease of application.

Colored pencils are particularly suited to exacting linework. Many brands of colored pencil can be sharpened to pinpoint precision using a razorblade. I use a mid-value sanguine color for most of my colored pencil drawings, particularly when drawing on white paper. It allows for a delicate touch, but upon pressing harder I can get a darker, more assertive line. I will often use a darker sepia color when working on toned paper.

Reclined, Looking Over Shoulder, by Dan Gheno, 2014, colored pencil, 18 x 24.

Colored pencils share graphite’s limited range of value contrast, but I find this can work to my advantage, forcing me to take my time to analyze the model’s light and dark patterns as I render them. I usually prefer to build up my values gradually, shading across large shadow shapes with succeeding sweeps of tone, until I reach the desired darkness. Working in successive layers can allow one to better maintain the weave of the paper and help to impart a sense of atmosphere.

Colored pencils can require a gentle touch. They are often fragile and prone to snapping in mid-stroke if you press too hard, leaving an unerasable skid mark on the paper. If you try to push your values too dark all at once, they will become dense and shiny. With certain colors the hue may even change with heavy pressure or when you let your pencil point get too short, allowing the wood casing to chafe your linework.

Chalk and Charcoal

Whether you’re using them in pencil, stick or powder form, pure black chalk and charcoal provide the greatest value contrasts. I often like to work with them in a loose manner, starting with a broad value mass that relates to the big, gestural shadow shape found on the model. Some artists prefer powdered charcoal for this initial stage, but I frequently begin my sketches in a faint, linear manner with vine charcoal because it’s so easily erased or adjusted. I then follow up with a more permanent compressed charcoal pencil or stick, which usually works as a sealant, holding the more ephemeral, easily smudged vine against the paper.

Twisting, by Dan Gheno, 1995, sanguine chalk, 11 x 24.

Charcoal pencils come in several grades of hardness, like graphite. Softer charcoal is often good for building up masses on large, expressive drawings, whereas harder compressed charcoal or carbon pencils, such as H and HB, are more suited to line work on a smaller scale. Hard charcoal pencils, which are easy to sharpen to long, sharp points, can be used to quickly render thick and thin lines by varying the position of your hand, and you can build toward your dark value masses with a rapid weaving of strokes. Broad, lineless tones are possible as well. Holding the pencil to the side, you can glide the long portion of the charcoal shaft across the page, gradually building up the tone into a broad value mass, much as you would when using a colored pencil.

Female Figure in Shadow, by Dan Gheno, 2003, charcoal, 24 x 18.

You might notice that vine charcoal tends to be a bit warmer than compressed charcoal. When using both, I often need to go back into my drawing at the end, sweeping over my value masses with one or the other to harmonize between cool and warm. For the same reasons, it’s not a good idea to mix white pencil or chalk with black charcoal (or graphite), unless you do so systematically throughout the drawing. Otherwise, the mixed-up results will look cloudy or just plain chaotic, especially on toned paper.

Tip: When working in compressed charcoal or in graphite, keep to a limited range of pencil hardness to maintain evenness and texture harmony in your toning. Jumping between divergent grades—for instance from an HB to a much softer 6B—can result in a distracting cacophony of rough and smooth textures.

Crayon

Perhaps it was the sense of shame I felt for drawing on my sister’s car—and the adverse conditioning that came from the hours of elbow grease I spent rubbing out my scribbles—but it was a long time before I renewed my interest in grease- or oil-based drawing instruments. When I did, using a variety of brands from Cretacolor to Faber-Castell’s Pitt, I found the medium offers a handy compromise between the darkness achievable with softer chalks and pastels and the smoothness of colored pencil and graphite. When drawing with crayon I generally use a sanguine color.

I’d recommend not combining different brands of crayon in one drawing. Hues differ greatly between manufacturers, even if they have the same name.

Scanning the Distance, by Dan Gheno, 2016, oil-based crayon, 10 x 10 1/2.

Ink and Ballpoint

Over the years I’ve worked with a variety of inking tools, including brushes, dip pens, fountain pens, ballpoint pens and Rapidograph pens.

During the 1970s, when I did drawings such as Woman Seated, Looking Away, my favorite way to work was by using a fountain pen to render the lines and a felt brush marker to wash in the big value masses. I normally dipped my “fountain” pen into a bottle of ink so that I could use a dark, heavy ink that would otherwise clog up the pen. I used an italic point held sideways, which offered a delicate fine line and provided thick-thin variation. I also used a grinding stone to sharpen and reshape my pen points to get extra fine lines. Water-based felt brushes, such as the one I used to lay in masses in this drawing, wear out quickly. Instead of throwing them away I open their tops and fill them with watered-down ink to rejuvenate their wells. I often prefer the more watery effect of these recharged brushes to the results I get with a new one.

Woman Seated, Looking Away, by Dan Gheno, ca. 1974–1975, ink, 16 x 11.

Although I still work in this technique on occasion, today when I work in ink I usually use ballpoint pens, most often for eye-hand coordination exercises. Because ink is irrevocable, it’s a great training tool, reinforcing the habit of thinking before you put down a line.

I was first attracted to ballpoint pens for their ability to replicate fine, etch-like lines. Over the years, however, manufacturing standards have diminished, and today many brands of ballpoint spurt out unexpected blobs of ink—usually at the worst possible moment. I recommend you experiment to find the best and most consistent brands. (I’m a fan of the Pilot EasyTouch .7mm fine pen and its refill catridges, which can even be used on their own.) In all cases, you’ll need to get in the habit of regularly cleaning off the paper detritus that builds up around the pen point, which can produce splotching after only a few minutes of work.

I find it helpful to locate the beginning and end points of the objects I’m drawing in ink. For instance, when drawing a hand on the hip, I might place dots at the shoulder, elbow and hip and then draw in between these points. If you don’t put placeholder points for all the major beginning and end points or at least try to imagine them in your mind, it’s easy to underestimate any foreshortening and draw a line too long. And with ink, of course, there’s no erasing your mistakes.

Artist, by Dan Gheno, 2016, ballpoint pen, 7 1/2 x 7 1/2.

Mixing Media

As you experiment with combining media you’ll learn to work within some important limitations. For instance you may find it difficult to apply a chalkier medium on top of a slicker medium such as graphite or colored pencil. You’ll also discover you can’t splash heavy washes on thin paper. In fact for many mixed media approaches you may want to consider tougher surfaces such as canvas, sanded paper or pastel cloth. These provide wonderful traction, grabbing onto both dry and wet media and allowing combinations such as charcoal and paint, as we see in Robin Smith’s Marmadu, that wouldn’t be possible on most papers.

Marmadu, by Robin Smith, 2015, oil, charcoal and white chalk on canvas, 14 x 14. Private collection

Paper

Some artists delight in rummaging through stacks of unusual and expensive papers, but I’m not a paper connoisseur, and I prefer the smooth bond-paper surface that I’ve drawn on since I was a child. Bond paper is not hard to find in letter size, although it takes a little detective work to find my preferred size of 18″ x 24″. Different manufacturers sell large-format bond papers that are acid free and archival, but they vary greatly in tooth and paper weight—try out different brands until you find one that feels right for you. Among the ones I use are Borden and Riley No. 39, a 16-lb layout bond paper that comes close to the smooth, bright-white surface of photocopy paper; and 50-lb Canson Sketch paper, which has a slightly warmer and darker surface. It’s also a little rougher, which I sometimes prefer for the way it grabs my pencil, producing darker lines and value masses.

Embrace, by Dan Gheno, 2015, charcoal and carbon pencil with white charcoal on toned paper, 22 x 16.

Slick bond surfaces are not always conducive to vine charcoal or pastel-based media. Believe it or not newsprint is perfect for these. It grabs onto the materials, giving a smooth, gliding effect to one’s value massing and linework. Unfortunately newsprint is also highly acidic, making it yellow and decay rather rapidly. I know many artists who love this ephemeral surface but are forever in pursuit of an archival substitute. The best replacement I’ve found is Arches Text Wove, which shares most of the same properties. I also find that absorbent printmaking papers such as Rives BFK take charcoal and pastel in a similar manner. Take care to work gently on printmaking papers, which don’t have much sizing. Their fibers are delicate and start to pill when erasing or applying material with a heavy hand.

Figure Sleeping, by Dan Gheno, 2016, colored pencil and white charcoal on toned paper, 18 x 24.

Many good options are available for artists who want to work on toned paper. When I’m working on a toned ground I gravitate toward smoother surfaces, such as Strathmore’s 400 Series Toned and Artagain, as well as Canson Mi-Teintes, preferring the silky, blotter backside of this paper over its more textural front. They allow for delicate, blended rendering, as well as distinctive linework. I’m also fond of the lightly textured surface of Strathmore’s 500 Series Charcoal Assorted Tints paper. You can create a clean, shimmering effect on this paper if you’re careful not to press too hard and fill in its textural valleys. I like to stroke my dark and white pencils gently along the top surface of the paper texture, allowing the resulting tones to vibrate against the color of the paper.

Erasers and  Other Tools

Some teachers ban erasers in an effort to get students to look closely and commit before making a mark. Certainly an eraser is no substitute for failing to look closely at the model and thinking before you put down a line, but I firmly believe erasers are an important tool when not overused. I subscribe to the view of America’s greatest draftsman, Thomas Eakins, that drawing is a process of revision, that you put down something and then adjust this estimate toward greater accuracy as you work. Just remember to look closely at the model and draw lightly so that you can more easily erase later on.

Erasers are not all created equal, and I’ve found that the best type of eraser can vary depending on the media and paper you’re using. Kneaded erasers are usually effective for adjusting small vine charcoal shapes. Plastic erasers such as those made by Tombow and Staedtler are more efficient at lightening or removing colored pencil, compressed charcoal and carbon pencil from smooth paper. There are also long, pointed plastic erasers that look like mechanical pencils—such as those made by Tuff Stuff and Tombow—which I’ve found indispensable for cleaning up small details and sharpening the edge of a shape. Even though you can roll a kneaded eraser into a sharp point, it won’t give you as clean a shape. Rather these soft erasers create a more blurry edge—which can be useful when you want such an effect.

Fast Sketch, by Dan Gheno, 2016, sanguine chalk, 17 x 12.

Unfortunately, erasers harden and become worthless as they get older; they can even smear or rub a line deeper into the paper. Additionally, it doesn’t hurt to reserve separate erasers for black media and for colored pigments, and you should clean erasers frequently to prevent smudge-making pigment from accumulating on them and leaving stains where you want clean paper.

When you keep your erasers new and clean, you will find that they are excellent drawing tools, not only for removing unwanted marks but for making wanted ones, as well. I often lay a broad tone of chalk or charcoal across my figure drawing and then draw light hatch lines into the mass with a pointed eraser to create a modeled effect, much as you might use a white pencil on toned paper. I will sometimes blend a tonal mass with the flat side of a block eraser. On occasion I will press down with a kneaded eraser to lessen the assertiveness of a line. Sometimes I’ll thin out a line by chiseling at its edge with a pointed plastic eraser, making some of the marks more delicate and fainter than other lines for rhythmic purposes. I often do this to imitate the effects of form and light, particularly where the boundary line of a volume faces the light source, or to indicate a softer fleshy form compared to a more distinct line of a projecting bone.

There are many other tools to consider. Razor blades and sandpaper are useful for sharpening pencils. Many artists like to use chamois and stumps to blend charcoal, pastel and graphite for even tones. I prefer to use my fingers for blending small, delicate masses, and I’ll use a facial tissue (sans ointment) to get a broader, even value mass. When using your fingers, it’s important to keep them clean and dry—I usually wipe my finger on a paper towel before each use—otherwise the oils of your skin will interfere with the drawing.

Tip: I find it makes a difference what order you employ various erasers when using more than one type in a single drawing. If I try to erase a deeply inscribed line with a kneaded eraser first, the line becomes even more resistant to subsequent attempts by a plastic eraser. I avoid using the smaller pointed plastic erasers on large areas, since they can embed the pigment into the paper; I’ve found the larger plastic erasers better suited to such tasks.

Changing Things Up

It’s natural to have a favorite material, but try not to become too dependent on any one product or brand. It never fails: After you get used to one type of pencil or paper, it gets discontinued! It’s happened to me many times, for instance with my favorite charcoal pencils and sanguine chalk. Speaking from my experience, I would advise you to experiment with various brands of your favorite drawing medium so that you’re not left in the lurch when a material changes or becomes unavailable. I also advise holding on to pencil nibs—if you’re caught off-guard by a surprise cancellation, you can put them in a pencil extender and get quite a bit more mileage out of them.

Even if they don’t stop making your favorite drawing utensil, you might find it useful to change media once in a while. It’s quite possible to fall into complacency when using the same materials for too long, and switching things up can help maintain your sense of enthusiasm. It can also help break bad habits that might be creeping into your work—many artists develop muscle memory based upon the traction and resistance that the same pencil has against the same paper. After continually using the same materials, you may find that your hand wants to go at the same speed and angle regardless of the subject matter. These habits can get in the way of seeing your subject’s specific shapes and size relationships and can even interfere with the drawing process, for instance by demanding a heavy line when your goals demand delicacy, or vice versa.

Sometimes the change of material can be something as minimal as a change of color to jumpstart your visual perceptions. If you find that your line weight is too heavy for your goals, you might switch to a lighter color, say from a heavy black charcoal pencil to light sanguine pencil. You could also try the opposite tack by using an even darker material to train your hand to back off and use a lighter touch.

Three depictions of the Farnese Hercules by Hendrick Goltzius, ca. 1591–1592. From left: engraving; black chalk on blue paper; red chalk.

There’s no doubt that one’s choice of materials will impact the superficial look of a drawing, and the drawing materials mentioned here are just some of those I’ve found helpful to my particular vision. But in the end it’s the artist who makes the drawing, not the materials. Consider Hendrick Goltzius’ multiple versions of the Farnese Hercules. Whatever material he was using, Goltzius’ intense interest in sculptural volume makes the artworks compelling, giving the images power and lasting artistic importance.

~~~

Dan Gheno is a New York artist whose work can be found in collections including the Museum of the City of New York and the New Britain Museum of American Art, in Connecticut. He teaches drawing and painting at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy School of Fine Arts. His book, Figure Drawing Master Class, is available for purchase at NorthLightShop.com.

~~~

If you’re curious to learn more about art materials, take a look at this video, featuring painter Craig Nelson explaining some of the most important differences between acrylic and oil paints. For more videos on drawing materials, painting materials and lots of other subjects, visit ArtistsNetwork.tv.

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solivar · 5 years

Text

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

In which things are about to get very real, indeed.

Hanzo eyed the hazmat suits with a certain species of alarm welling up in the back of his mind. “We’re not going to need those, are we?”

“Do you think we’re going to need that?” Hanzo asked softly, gesturing at the gun, as Terrifying Smoke Gabe opened the inner door of the vestibule airlock.

“No. I do not wish to stop. I must know -- it is the only way forward from here.” Hanzo took a steadying breath, Jack’s hand a warm comfort on his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66

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solivar · 5 years

Text

WIP: Ghost Stories On Route 66

Okay, I lied. THIS is the last teaser, for Reasons.

Hanzo eyed the hazmat suits with a certain species of alarm welling up in the back of his mind. “We’re not going to need those, are we?”

“Do you think we’re going to need that?” Hanzo asked softly, gesturing at the gun, as Terrifying Smoke Gabe opened the inner door of the vestibule airlock.

“No. I do not wish to stop. I must know -- it is the only way forward from here.” Hanzo took a steadying breath, Jack’s hand a warm comfort on his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

The space they occupied was clearly not entirely natural -- the ceiling was too perfect a dome, the thick columns supporting it too perfectly spaced, the walls closest to the door visibly marked by the traces of tools. It was, Hanzo suspected, perfectly round, or close enough to it for the differences not to matter, an enormous circle whose far side was lost in shadow, with an inner ritual space sunken beneath the level of the floor, its sandstone walls perfectly smooth, unmarked, illuminated by a ring of candles surrounding a bowl, beaten silver and dark green stone. A cushion sat on each side of it, flat and rectangular, unpatterned.

A coil of living mist wound around his free hand, leaving behind the bone needle. “Three drops of your blood, no more, no less, is the price for what you ask.”

“Tamiko-dono?” Hanzo asked, softly.

Her head tilted, wary, listening, and the candlelight fell across her face, her high cheekbones and sharp jaw, her golden eyes and the golden markings beneath them.

“You,” Tamiko’s voice, when she spoke, was as rough as when she sang, husky and darker than he expected. “You have come. At last you have come. Give me your name.”

“Hanzo,” He replied, softly, “I am Shimada Hanzo, Lady Tamiko. And I...I have many questions.”

Her head moved, a quick jerk, as she scented the air -- eyes narrowing as they fixed on something beyond his shoulder. “And that? He is not of the Clan.”

“Lady Tamiko --” Hanzo began, gently, only to be cut off by her wordless snarl.

“How long, Shimada Hanzo?”

“Centuries.” Her eyes slid closed, her face a mask of despair. “And my Clan sends a half-fledged child to finish my task. Fools. Fools.”

“What.” It was not quite a question, the tone so similar to his mother’s when she was not-really-asking that he had to repress a slightly hysterical giggle. “What do you mean?”

The icy thing in his chest throbbed and shuddered as she spoke its name, his stomach churned and it was all he could do to swallow it back down. “The Serpent-Wolf.”

A ragged breath. “Too late. Until it was too late. I allowed my love for him, my dearest friend, to blind me to what he was becoming, how the anger ate away his heart, how the jealousy poisoned and twisted his soul. And he hid it well -- he married, and fathered children, he ascended to the rulership of the Clan when his father retired, and to all eyes he governed well and wisely. He sent me away from Hanamura often, to hunt the rumors of great evils abroad in the land, to slay monsters and put the dead to rest, to the find the purpose for which we had both been chosen -- and, I think, to hide what he was doing from my eyes, from the path that he had taken in the dark of his bitterness, of his belief that he had been denied what he truly deserved, the dragon-bond that should have been his birthright.” Her clawed thumb traced across his scarred palm. “He told me that he believed an evil from beyond our world had come and he was...not wrong. What he did not say is that he was harboring it -- that he had knelt before it as a supplicant and begged its wisdom, learned the terrible things it taught.” She swallowed, a convulsive movement. “He used them to twist the essence of his own bondmate, the wolf companion of his soul, into a ravening monster. He used them to slay Kazetatsu, to consume his flesh and blood and soul and enslave Natsuokaze, his dragon, the only daughter of Lord Minamikaze. He used them to flee from me when I confronted him, to open a door to this place, where he could carve out a kingdom of horrors and no one would be able to stop him.”

“Why here?” Hanzo heard himself asking from a vast distance, pathetically grateful for whatever degree of shock was holding his voice steady. “Why this place?”

“He followed the path his teacher tread, as I followed his when I pursued him.” A faint, grim smile. “He could not conceal his tracks, now that I knew what he had become -- but it took me long, too long, to reach this place and by the time I did…” Her grip on his hands tightened again, claws drawing blood. “He was great in his power -- greater than I imagined possible when last I saw him, a monstrosity that had cast aside any illusion of humanity.” The horror of the memory shone in her eyes. “It took all my strength, all of my skill, to weaken him enough to strike a killing blow with the sword I had sworn would be his ending -- and, when I did, he did not die. He did not die, and he struck me down, and as I lay bleeding out my life on the sands, he mocked me with the knowledge that I could never have slain him, for his life was no longer married to his flesh but bound apart where none would ever find it. But he was wrong.” The tips of her fangs flashed in the candlelight. “My wolf found the god-seed he had corrupted with his power, the thing that held his life, and bore it away -- his black heart, without which he is not nor can ever be whole. He raged, oh how he raged, but he could not prevent my Hoshi from escaping -- but he could bind me, and did, to the place where we fought, where my bones lie still beneath the sands. And he, wounded with many wounds and weak, crawled away into his witch-home, taking the sword that will be his death with him.”

“I will find your bones and return them to the Clan, and tell them the story of what became of you.” Hanzo promised softly. “I will...finish what you began. I --”

“...I…” Hanzo dragged a painful breath through the ice cold rage and hate and terror throbbing in his chest, “I give you my word.”

***

Hanzo was not quite certain how they made it back to the surface -- his recollection of events flickered in his mind like a broken holovid, vividly clear one moment, stuttering and jerky the next, Gabe’s weary, hoarse voice, speaking words he did not understand in a language he did not know, Jack’s around his shoulders guiding him into the sitting room, reaching down to help Chad’s desperate scrambling efforts to climb into his lap, Jack pressing a cup of something that steamed and tasted of honey and spices into his hand and telling him softly to drink, the comforting warm softness of cushions against his cheek. When the world made sense again, he was curled against the arm of the world’s second most comfortable couch, draped in a fleecy throw blanket in covered in dogs, Chad and Fluffy and Dog, Terrifying Smoke Gabe occupying the opposite end, likewise blanketed and snoring softly. A fire burned in the hearth, but the sitting room was otherwise dark, and from nearby he heard voices, familiar ones, and stirred himself to find them, his canine companions remaining on guard over Gabe.

He found Genji, Hana, and Lucio gathered in the dining room, still shucking off their jackets and school bags, a dozen pizza boxes neatly stacked at one end of the table, talking in low voices. Hana saw him first by virtue of her place with her back to the kitchen entrance. “Hey, aniki. Are you okay?”

“I --” Genji half-turned to face him and the look on his brother’s face told him everything he needed to know about how any form of evasion would be received. “I have felt better. I trust everything went well for you today?”

“As well as could be expected.” Genji replied, a wry smile curling the corner of his mouth. “I don’t think my student visa’s in jeopardy, let’s put it that way.”

“Good.” He found a significantly more sincere smile lurking and let it come out. “There are things we must discuss.”

A burst of cool air filtered through to them as an outside door opened and then banged shut, more voices -- Roadie and Jamie by the sound -- being greeted by Jesse and Jack on the opposite side of the wall. A moment later all four bustled around the corner, Jack carrying an enormous salad of mixed greens and tiny tomatoes, Jesse a stack of plates and silverware and glasses, Jamie the dressings caddy, and Roadie a cardboard box that he set on the sideboard.

“Is Zen…?” Hanzo asked, as he helped lay out the plates and silverware.

“Here.” Zenyatta replied, from the sitting room entrance. “Gabriel is well, Jack, just very drained. I left an orb with him but he wishes to sleep a bit longer.”

“Thanks, Doc.” Jack bustled back out and returned with two pitchers of iced tea and one of lemonade. “He’s...not usually quite that enervated after doing a...thing. Hanzo was pretty beat, too.”

“So I see.” Hanzo had the rather horrible feeling that he did, in fact, see and couldn’t bring himself to meet Zenyatta’s eyes. “Do you wish for help, my friend?”

“No, that -- that won’t be necessary. I am fine.” Hanzo flashed him, and his perfectly neutral, assessing look, a quick smile. “I promise.”

“As you wish.” But Zen pulled a chair out for him and guided him into it, brooking no resistance.

Jesse settled next to him, their hands finding one another beneath the table without any will or thought on Hanzo’s part, and he allowed himself to be comforted by his ranger’s warmth and closeness as loaded plates and the salad bowl and pitchers were passed. Hanzo accepted a serving and nibbled his slice without appetite as the others dug in, a fact that did not escape the attention of anyone sharing that end of the table with him, nor did his silence in the midst of the friendly back and forth chatter.

“You sure you’re okay, darlin’?” Jesse asked, low and soft, as he leaned close under pretext of passing the salad back to Zen.

“No,” Hanzo replied, just as softly. “I am not.”

Jesse’s grip on his hand tightened fractionally and stayed there through the rest of the meal, parting only when Hana begged him to help her carry the leftovers into the kitchen, returning when the task was finished. Genji poured everyone a round of their libation of choice, settled back down, and immediately opened on the attack. “So -- you want to tell us why Terrifying Smoke Gabe is making like a sessile mass and you look like you were run down in the street by someone that kindly backed up a couple times to finish the job?”

Hanzo took a deep, steadying breath and meditative sip of his tea. “First of all, how do you even know I call him that? Secondly, we may wish to wake him up -- there might be questions only he can answer.”

“Firstly,” Genji replied, world’s biggest asshole little brother style, “you call him that when you talk to yourself, out loud, while you’re thinking and he’s probably the only person in this house who hasn’t heard it yet. Secondly, we tried and his face did this thing and you’re absolutely right about the terrifying part. So spill it, already.”

Hanzo breathed in peace, laced his fingers together with Jesse’s, and told them, sparing nothing. The silence that followed his last words was weighty, thick with unspoken questions, and of course it was Genji that broke it.

“So what you’re saying,” His tone was elaborately calm, even, contemplative, as was his expression, “is that this...thing...is our umpty-greats-grandfather?”

“Yes.” Hanzo replied, tersely.

“Wow. Okay, now I feel the need to be ritually cleansed and it didn’t even lick me.”

Zenyatta’s long-suffering sigh, and the sound of his hand briskly impacting the back of Genji’s head, broke open the floodgates.

“We’ve got a plan to get this thing out of him, right?” Hana asked urgently. “Because we’ve really, really got to get this thing out of him. I’m having amazingly strong feelings about that.”

Zen and Lucio exchanged a speaking glance, which Zen helpfully, reluctantly translated for everyone else’s benefit. “It...is not that simple, Hana. The magatama does not appear to possess physical substance any longer -- or at least no substance separate from Hanzo’s own.”

“So if it’s...not its own thing any longer how do we --” Hana’s face went through a sequence of increasingly distressed expressions as horrified realization ran her over like a shinkansen made of small innocent things dying hideously in the dark. “That -- that is not okay. That cannot mean what I think it means.”

“Wait.” The serene contemplation slid off Genji’s face as though it had never been. “Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”

“The Serpent-Wolf’s heart, his life, is part of me now.” Hanzo replied, with a calm whose origin he dared not consider too deeply, even as Jesse’s grip on his hand tightened nearly to the point of pain. “In the place of my gift. In the place of...a great many things, I suspect. And the only way to undo it, to make it mortal again, is to destroy it. Like Koschei’s needle. Or the tip of Coyote’s nose.”

“No.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Of course not.” Jack amplified both Genji and Jesse, firm and calm and even. “Well, okay -- if that’s the key, we’re going to have to destroy this thing. That’s a given. What’s not given is that you --” His stare pinned Hanzo to the back of his chair, “are going to have to die with it. That is not happening.”

“The Serpent-Wolf’s heart is distinct in essence from your own -- it may have no physical substance yet but we can change that.” Zen added, even more firmly. “We can find a means of isolating it and removing it and binding it to a new host.”

“And, in the meantime, we find the sword.” Jack flicked a glance at Roadie and Jamie.

“Well, not so sure about the sword, but we’ve got some ideas about how to find the critter’s hideout.” Jamie rose and brought the box to the table, extracting a handful of objects -- a heavily modified tablet, a collapsable theodolite, a handful of camera-mounted drones. “This critter leaves behind a very distinct signature in the local aether -- we picked up strong readings at yer condo t’other day, weaker at yer school and up in the old state park. Wish I’d thought to take scans of yer car but, well, I didn’t at the time. Our thinkin’,” and he nudged Roadie gently with the tip of one bony elbow, “is that we can use the traces left behind, and the path you followed from Shiprock to Cerrillos, to try and triangulate the location. Or at the very least narrow down the possibilities. Somewhere in there you musta come close enough to draw its attention.”

“I still have the GPS data saved on my phone,” Hanzo said softly, something fluttering around in his chest that he almost dared to call hope.

Genji rose and fetched his bag, phone inclusive, and he pulled up the relevant information, passed it along to Jamie. “Now, unfortunately I only have one set of gear finished -- I got two others in process, but I’m gonna need a couple days to get everything put together an’ properly configured. It won’t do to go in half-assed on this.”

“Agreed.” Hanzo smiled wryly. “We will, I think, not have more than one opportunity to do this -- it must know that the sword is its weakness, its death, even if it does not realize we know that yet. Once we find its lair, we must be prepared to act quickly.”

“Yes. And, in the meantime, you need to be kept safe -- so I’m going to argue against you being one of the ones who goes out doing the looking part of this plan.” Jack agreed, pinning him down again, this time with a terrifyingly fatherly smile of his own.

“But --” Hanzo began.

“Nope.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Get the idea out of your head, man, you’re not going out there.”

“It would be unwise in the extreme to allow such a thing.” Zen put the final nail in the coffin of his objections. “Please, my friend.”

“As you wish. Because you asked so nicely.” The corners of Zen’s mouth twitched at that, the closest he’d come to a smile since the day prior, and Hanzo decided to consider that a victory of a sort. “I do not want anyone else going alone.”

“Of course not. Safety in numbers is a legitimate consideration.” Jack agreed with perfect ease. “Three groups of three.”

“I,” Hanzo said softly, “will leave those decisions to you. I...am still rather fatigued.”

Jesse let his hand go with physically palpable reluctance. “You sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’m sure.” He only barely resisted the urge to bend down and kiss him in front of everyone. “Today was just...a lot.”

“I can believe that.” Those dark, dark eyes searched his own and the tension in his ranger’s shoulders relaxed the barest fraction. “Get some rest, darlin’. I’ll check on you later, if you want.”

“Please.” And now he did lean in and press a quick peck to Jesse’s cheek, Hana’s squeaks of glee and Lucio’s offer to make him another mix chasing him up the stairs.

At the top of the stairs he paused and considered and before he could think too deeply about all the reasons it was a bad idea, he turned away from his bedroom door and climbed the second, narrower steps that led to the upstairs practice rooms, navigating by the light of his phone until he came to one where he could see the moon rising fat-bellied and coldly bright over the ridge of the northeastern hills. He had, he reflected distantly, as he investigated the contents of the storage chests stacked in one corner, always found the sight of the moon rising a soothing balm to his soul and now that made at least a little more sense. From the chests he extracted a candle that exhaled the fragrance of the cool autumn wind through falling leaves and a bowl to hold it, three sticks of incense rich with spice and resinous woods, a box of matches. The floor cushions were flat and firm, upholstered in silk, perfect for sitting seiza for potentially lengthy periods of time, and he assembled his little ritual space carefully, so the rising moonlight would fall over him as he worked.

He touched flame to wick, and the warm candlelight caressed his face, lit the the incense in the candle’s flame, set it in the ceramic holder he had selected for it. Fragrant smoke coiled and danced, both filled the air with a scent sweet and clean rather than cloying, and he drew it deep into his lungs, allowed his eyes to drift closed, let his mind slowly empty of thought as he concentrated on nothing but breath and breathing, the silence of the room, the beating of the heart in his chest and pulse of the blood in his veins. Allowed his mind to drift further, into places of memory that he had not touched in years, not wishing to face the grief and desolation that lay there, and now having no choice but to do so.

Slowly, slowly, the perfume in the air changed from autumn leaves and spice to winds scoured clean by the storm, the taste of lightning hanging thick on his tongue, moonlight transmuting to radiant stormlight and as he drew his next breath --

Something long and sharp and cold pierced him to the soul. When he could see again, all was a tangle of sapphire-scaled coils and icy silver eyes, Lord Minamikaze unveiled in his glory. It took him a moment to realize that the thing that pierced him was a foreclaw black as jet and as long as his arm, placed perfectly through the center of his chest.

You ask me for wisdom and thus do I grant it to you, son of my sons. Lord Minamikaze’s voice curled through his mind, serpentine and venomous with contempt. You are not a dragon and you will never be one.

He jerked his talon free and Hanzo fell -- fell into strong arms that lowered him gently to the throne room floor, held him against the curve of a scaled cuirass, warmed by the heat of its wearer’s body. Beneath his ear, Lord Kitakaze’s voice thundered. “What have you done?!”

Silence, broken by the low whimper of agony that crawled past his own lips as the emptiness in him pulsed and ached and throbbed, a void where something had once resided, torn away in single cruelly precise blow, something that now rested in the bowl of Lord Minamikaze’s hand, something that pulsed desperately in the cage of his delicately clawed fingers, pale and silver and frantic. “I? I am giving him the gift he asked for, my brother, nothing more and nothing less.”

The majordomo approached, face bowed to the floor, bearing with him two caskets -- one worked metal, silver and brass hammered together to form the image of the moon rising full over the mountains as an archer took aim with his bow, the other wood, lacquered so darkly that light seemed to fall into its surface, clasps too heavily warded for such a small box.

“You cannot mean to do this thing,” Lord Kitakaze’s voice dropped to a whisper, something of horror in it. “Minamikaze --”

“Can I not?” He took the silver casket from his cringing servant and spilled the contents of his hand into it, like pouring moonlight or water, and slammed the lid shut, the whole room darker for its loss, despite the sunlight slanting across the walls and floor. “You would deny me justice after all this time, my brother?”

“This is not justice, Minamikaze! He is a --”

“He is a son of your blood and mine -- a son of the one who first broke faith with us, who perverted the gifts he was given in his arrogance, who murdered my daughter to steal her shape.” The air trembled, shook with the force of his rage and grief, hard and sharp as a clap of thunder. “He is the perfect vessel for my justice.”

“For your vengeance.” Lord Kitakaze snapped, unafraid.

“They are the same.” Lord Minamikaze held out his hand and the servant placed the black casket in it. “Step aside, my brother -- or would you prefer to let his soul perish in your arms?”

Hanzo felt the barest ghost of fear, then -- the idea that he might die here, his soul draining away as his ancestors argued the best use for him, should have frightened him more than it did. Beneath his ear, Lord Kitakaze growled -- and then lowered him to the floor, held his head pillowed in his lap. “Make it quick, Minamikaze -- you have wounded him deeply.”

“Of course.” The locks on the casket slid, the lid opened, and the carrion reek that spilled forth made Hanzo gag, helplessly, the sickening bilious light that poured between Minamikaze’s fingers as he approached and knelt seared his eyes and kissed his flesh with hideously knowing intent. It was all he could do not to scream as it poured into him, into the wound, into the hollow empty place within him, filling him with its own corrupt, viscerally repulsive substance.

“It is done,” Minamikaze’s impossibly beautiful mouth curled in a sweetly perfect smile. “You asked me for wisdom, and you shall have it, son of my sons. The wisdom of pain will be yours. You asked me for a companion, and you shall have that, as well. You shall seek him, in the place where he hides from my sight, and by your hand you will destroy him. If you cannot find him…” He rose, cold and regal and still smiling, “You will destroy yourself, by your own hand, and his life will wither and fade with your own. Thus will my justice be served, and the death of my child avenged, and the last of Kazutaka’s stain be cleansed from our blood. Go now, and complete your task.”

Hanzo fell and fell and fell just short of forever.

When next he opened his eyes, the world was entirely different. Overhead, a river of stars spilled across the arch of the heavens, some brighter, some fainter, what some people called the Milky Way and others called Yikáísídáhi, playing hide-and-seek with the firelit branches of the pines ringing the clearing in which he lay. A cool breeze holding the bite of winter yet to come swirled the sweet-smelling smoke of the fire that warmed half his face, one of his arms, the rest of his body covered in a heavy woolen blanket, patterned in the faces of the moon and sun, lightning and clouds marking the edge.

“Well, well, well.” A wooden spoon scraped the inside of a pot, releasing a puff of mouthwatering steam. “Long time no see, cousin.”

Slowly, Hanzo sat, shedding the blanket and schooling his face with care. Across the fire, the ranger who was not, who could never be, his ranger offered him a smile more warming than the flames and the wool, eyes shining beast golden in the dark.

“Do not,” Hanzo said softly, “come to me wearing his face, not now, not ever again.”

“Really?” The smile widened an impossible, inhuman degree, grew sharp and jagged. “Well. If you insist.”

His form changed, between one blink and the next: tall, sturdily built, with a high-cheeked, aquiline face, long black hair pulled back in a plait decorated with beaded leather ties, clad in the bloodstained remnants of a heavy red plaid jacket, tattered flesh still clinging to his collar and breast bones, ribs picked clean along with the hollowed-out wreckage of his torso, the empty mass of shredded connective tissue where his organs should have been clearly displayed above his crossed blue jean clad legs, caked with blood and less immediately identifiable substances. His eyes still burned beast golden, ancient in their malice and mockery.

“Was it you?” Hanzo asked, just as softly, refusing to look away. “Did you teach Shimada Kazutaka?”

The corpse of Marcus Whitehawk sighed and shook his head and said, “I should make you pay for this, cousin, I really should. A favor for an answer.”

“But you will not.” Hanzo replied, mouth dry, “Because there is something you want from me more than mere favors.”

His companion looked up, eyes flashing hotly, grin stretching tight over his teeth. “Well. You’re not wrong.” He laughed, soft and low. “Yes. I tasted his anger and his hate on the wind, so strong and so sweet and so, so not willing to be a good little wolf, what others expected him to be, so willing to reach out and take what he wanted, instead. Yes, I went to him. Yes, I taught him. Yes, he was a...wonderfully apt pupil. One of my best. And, like all my best efforts, he turned around to bite me in the end.”

“You did not expect him to follow you.” Hanzo replied, darkly amused, and couldn’t help the not so friendly smile that curled his own mouth. “To challenge you.”

“Admittedly, no. But I had to admire the ambition. A horror to rival the naayéé at their greatest, and their worst, and I couldn’t even trick him into breaking his own legs or pulling out his own teeth, because he knew me too well for that. It was,” His teeth flashed in the firelight, “vexatious in the extreme, and all I could do was wait.”

“For Tamiko.”

“Even so.” He produced two bowls and poured a measure from his pot in each one, steaming and fragrant, offered one to Hanzo which he, reluctantly, accepted. “For the one who could kill him -- who could not, in fact, kill him. Weakened him, yes. Forced him deep into his áńt’íí ba’hooghan to lick his wounds and sleep and heal -- until you came to finish the job.”

Hanzo bowed his head over the bowl, breathed deeply of the steam, gazed at his firelit reflection in its dark surface. “I...do not know that I can do that.”

“You can. Of course you can. You carry all the tools you need, cousin, all you really require,” Soft, soft, sweet and silky, “is to be taught how to use them.”

Hanzo jerked backwards, halfway to his feet, hot liquid washing over his hand, scorching his skin. “No. No. Not by you -- not the lessons you would teach.”

“Oh, cousin, please.” Those golden eyes glittered, hot and hungry, tongue darting across his jagged smile. “Why else would you come here, knowing already what you would learn? Nothing I’ve said to you was a surprise. And I’ll even give you one for free, right now --” Strong clawed hands settled on his hips from behind, heat and blood-smell curling against his back, hot charnel breath on his cheek and neck and ear. “Power is power, little wolf. Fear it, fear what you can do with it, what it can do with you, and you are already lost. You cannot become what you were meant to be alone, little wolf, and who else can show you what you need to know? Think on it. Think deeply. I can wait.”

Claws pierced his flesh, drew blood --

And Hanzo jerked awake. At his knees, the candle guttered in a pool of its own wax, and the last of the incense curled away to nothing.

#WIP Ghost Stories On Route 66

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mredwinsmith · 7 years

Text

How Different Materials Affect the Drawing Process

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How Different Materials Affect the Drawing Process

by Dan Gheno

Study of a Male Nude, by Michelangelo, ca. 1503–1504, pen-and-brown-ink, 16 1/8 x 11 1/4. Collection Casa Buonarroti, Florence, Italy.

Graphite

Contrapposto Male Figure, by Dan Gheno, 2016, graphite, 17 x 8. All artwork this article collection the artist unless otherwise indicated.

Colored Pencil

Reclined, Looking Over Shoulder, by Dan Gheno, 2014, colored pencil, 18 x 24.

Chalk and Charcoal

Twisting, by Dan Gheno, 1995, sanguine chalk, 11 x 24.

Female Figure in Shadow, by Dan Gheno, 2003, charcoal, 24 x 18.

Crayon

I’d recommend not combining different brands of crayon in one drawing. Hues differ greatly between manufacturers, even if they have the same name.

Scanning the Distance, by Dan Gheno, 2016, oil-based crayon, 10 x 10 1/2.

Ink and Ballpoint

Over the years I’ve worked with a variety of inking tools, including brushes, dip pens, fountain pens, ballpoint pens and Rapidograph pens.

Woman Seated, Looking Away, by Dan Gheno, ca. 1974–1975, ink, 16 x 11.

Although I still work in this technique on occasion, today when I work in ink I usually use ballpoint pens, most often for eye-hand coordination exercises. Because ink is irrevocable, it’s a great training tool, reinforcing the habit of thinking before you put down a line.

Artist, by Dan Gheno, 2016, ballpoint pen, 7 1/2 x 7 1/2.

Mixing Media

Marmadu, by Robin Smith, 2015, oil, charcoal and white chalk on canvas, 14 x 14. Private collection

Paper

Embrace, by Dan Gheno, 2015, charcoal and carbon pencil with white charcoal on toned paper, 22 x 16.

Figure Sleeping, by Dan Gheno, 2016, colored pencil and white charcoal on toned paper, 18 x 24.

Erasers and  Other Tools

Fast Sketch, by Dan Gheno, 2016, sanguine chalk, 17 x 12.

Changing Things Up

Three depictions of the Farnese Hercules by Hendrick Goltzius, ca. 1591–1592. From left: engraving; black chalk on blue paper; red chalk.

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Dan Gheno is a New York artist whose work can be found in collections including the Museum of the City of New York and the New Britain Museum of American Art, in Connecticut. He teaches drawing and painting at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy School of Fine Arts. His book, Figure Drawing Master Class, is available for purchase at NorthLightShop.com.

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