victory_road | May Catch All

Leonardo has brought a few supplies with him to this meeting in the park. A sketchbook (not his own), some pencils and pens, and a few sticks of charcoal he'd managed to get his hands on. His Smeargle sits nearby, drawing his usual circles wherever he finds the space for them.

Leonardo finds a picnic table and sets up shop, waiting for his friend to emerge from the Pokemon Center so that the lesson may begin.

Edited (tenses my archnemesis) 2021-05-09 01:22 (UTC)

As he often does when he needs to use the warp pads, Dimitri takes a few minutes when he arrives to simply sit on a bench in the Pokecenter to catch his breath. It's still a strange and bewildering experience. Is that how it is with all teleportation, or just the warp pads?

Once he's caught his breath again, he takes a step outside with an Audino happily bouncing behind him. Once he's near enough to the park to see Leonardo, his steps hurry. "Leonardo! I apologize for taking so long."

He's not really late at all, but Dimitri often feels that way.

"Oh! Hello, Dimitri!" If Dimitri is late, Leonardo's the last person who'd notice. He steps away from the table for a moment in his haste to greet his friend, customary hug and all.

"I wasn't sure if you had any drawing supplies, so I brought some for you, just in case. You may keep them, if you like."

The sketchbook, unlike his own, is bound with a stylized thunder stone graphic on the front. The pens have similar pokemon branding on them, proclaiming that they are Inkay Pens and have a small squid-shaped logo on them.

Now that he's had the pleasure of running into Leonardo a few times, Dimitri is a little more prepared for his way of greeting others. He bends down a bit, helping make the embrace a little more comfortable.

As they pull away, he bows his head gratefully. "I did not, actually... I thought about purchasing some in a store in Mahogany, but the choice was rather overwhelming." What would be best for a beginner? He hadn't the foggiest. Still, his smile is grateful. "I will have to pay you back one day for such consideration."

"We all start somewhere. Usually with supplies we borrowed from someone else with no intention of returning." He smiles, still encouraging, as they move to sit down.

He fidgets with his hands, thinking of where to begin and where to end and how to bridge over the gaps in between.

"The most important thing I will tell you is this: you must always try to draw from some kind of reference. Your drawings will look better if you have an idea of what you are attempting to draw. Everything else I may tell you is helpful advice, which you can take or discard as you like, but this is essential."

Settling down as well, Dimitri listens carefully as Leonardo begins to explain to him. It sounds so obvious when he says it like that... but Dimitri supposes it never really would have occurred to him. He supposes it's just because he's an artist, and has never bothered with such a thing.

"I see... Then, I will make sure to follow that advice. Although..." Dimitri frowns, slightly. "What if the thing you are attempting to draw is constantly on the move?"

Leonardo hums, thinking about it carefully. "There are a few ways you could go about it." He thinks of the whirls of water, never satisfied, always flowing. "One is to attempt to capture that motion in the work. It may look a little messy, but it will give your drawing life and emotion, which makes up for it more than you might think."

He taps his hands on the table, drumming softly. "Or you might break the moving object into shapes as it stills. If when you look over, you see the subject's hands, draw their hands, and if the next time you look over, you see their legs, draw their legs."

Leonardo continues. "Sometimes when you use a reference, it is best to make a series of small drawings instead of a single large one. Then you can combine what you have learned from the small studies into the larger version. So that is a thing you can do, if your subject cannot stand still."

So capturing the motion messily, capturing different parts of the subject whenever you look, and making many small studies into a larger one... Dimitri nods slowly, committing the advice to memory.

"The idea of capturing motion through mess is... an intriguing one to me," he admits. "Although I suppose that is something I should focus on in the future. For a novice like myself, I imagine first starting with less energetic subjects would be for the best. Although... How did you start?"

He was practically born with a pen in his hand, and he gestures with those hands as he speaks. "Well, I often carried a little notebook with me as I explored the fields and rivers around my home, because I was very curious about the things I saw there."

Leonardo brightens up, and he turns his gaze a bit skyward as he recalls his teacher fondly. "But when it comes to art as a profession, I learned from a very skilled man named Verrochio. I would do things like mix paints, prepare the painting surface, and, when I grew more skilled, paint minor characters while he would handle the main ones. But painting is a different skill from drawing, and requires more... space and time, while drawing can be done whenever one has a spare moment.

So, when it comes to drawing, I would say that it is very helpful to start with subjects that interest you, no matter how small they may seem, or how difficult they may be to capture in your work."

Edited (added a bit) 2021-05-14 20:58 (UTC)

It makes sense for drawing and painting to be so very different, despite how one would assume they naturally go together, and Dimitri nods. He's not sure how well he would do with painting, quite frankly... Best to stick to something a little more available to him. He would call it 'easier' but, well, that doesn't quite seem right to say.

"When it comes to things that interest me..." Hm. Dimitri has to think on that. He put so much of his efforts into becoming a better warrior, that he never really had time to think about anything else he liked. Here would be the first time...

Dimitri glances back at the Audino that's stayed standing behind him all this time - well, wiggling from side to side with uncontainable energy, and that's kind of the same thing. "I suppose Paliens would be a good place to start, wouldn't they?"

Leonardo nods, eyes bright. "Yes, they would be an excellent place to start." His sketchbook is filled with drawings of pokemon, people, places, all manner of things, but pokemon most of all. "They're all so unique, I can't see how one would run out of subjects." Sometimes he sketches ones he sees in the wild, on the road, and sometimes he sketches his own, and sometimes, if given the chance, he'll sketch other people's.

"And I'm sure that some of your companions would be glad to volunteer their services." He remembers Dimitri's unicorn, proud and showy, eager to be immortalized.

Remembering Fraldariend's eagerness draws a small smile to Dimitri's face as well. The Rapidash has since calmed down, to a degree, but Dimitri doesn't think he would ever get tired of having people's attention on him. Perhaps it would be a good idea, then, to use him for practice...

But Fraldariend is not who he's brought with him today.

"Anglia is a bit energetic, so perhaps it is worth a try," he says, and pats the Audino fondly on the head when Anglia gives a little twirl. "And if not him, then I have many of my companions with me. I'm sure one of them would be able to work with me on this sort of thing."

May Catch All

for Dimitri - Drawing Lessons in Goldenrod, 5/15ish

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