07-20-2013, 01:31 PM
Ouroboros. She liked the image, or at least the cyclic nature it represented. It came up countless times in the mythologies she'd used to love as a kid, and she'd always found its concept soothing. Thalia peered at the arm Rune held up, lips pressed faintly together in contemplation. There were few approximately flat parts to a person’s body, and that messed up composition in ways she wasn't used to dealing with. Plus, it wasn’t the biggest space if Rune wanted detail; a design too big would begin to wrap around the gentle slopes of her wrist, diluting the power of the unbroken circle. Too small, though, and the image would just blur to obscurity. Thalia wasn’t exactly sure where the distinction lay – it wasn’t something she had ever need to concern herself with in her own work, when the canvas was both flat and at a size of her discretion.
"It’s a small space. If you had it wrapped like a bracelet you might get more mileage out of a detailed background. Well, if you wanted it to look like a cuff, or the beginnings of a sleeve anyway. But it wouldn’t necessarily be obvious what it was supposed to be. Except when you’re waving." She grinned, glancing up briefly as she flipped over a new page in her sketchpad. Along the edge of the left page, trailing upwards, she wrote a series of words in a loopy script: ouroboros, wrist, bright, colour, detail. The last word she scribbled an underline. To her mind the simplicity of a circle was at odds with the boldness Rune wanted; the ouroboros was simplicity; unyielding, unending. Beginning and end, not middle; except as the infinite. Adornment would just obscure the cleanness of something ancient and primordial, if handled incorrectly.
"Are you wedded to the circle? Like, can the snake be knotted? Create some colour and complexity that way." She drew a quick example – a flowing, looping pattern not unlike Celtic knotwork. Putting a fussy background behind something like that would weaken the bold majesty of it as much as it would the traditional circle, but even alone it would be brash in its beauty. The coiling would allow for a longer body, more detail, without stretching it around the wrist and losing that perspective of continuousness. But any tattooist could fashion something similar, and would do an excellent job of it. Rune didn’t need Thalia for that.
She tapped her pencil thoughtfully, pondering the great white spaces of the pad laid out on her lap. Open pages flickered a thousand remembered readings in her mind, searching for inspiration. Usually she did this the other way around; actually searched – physically searched – for explanation to the things she drew, as if doing so forged solid links of reason and logic to the inexplicable. But it served the other way too. A few languorous spirals accented her thoughts, filling those dead spaces of empty as her mind hummed, then delivered in offering: the Norse god Jörmungandr. The World Serpent. Her head tilted, considering, and grey eyes finally lifted from her musing.
"What kind of background do you have in mind, Rune? Like an actual image?" She sat forward a little, leaning over her work keenly now that a distinct image took shape. The ouroboros itself was thin and simple, its tail and head meeting at its apex. Scant detail echoed indication of its scales amidst the blackness of its body, but its purpose was to frame the image within. To illustrate what she meant, she filled this example with poppies curving at the base of a tree which reached spindly naked limbs to the serpent's head and swallowed tail. In shades of graphite, the rough sketch was not exactly the bright and colourful image Rune had described, but it gave an idea. The inky black of the snake was intended to contrast with the vivid colour and detail of the picture within, just like Rune's Kohl-heavy eyes and fantastically bright lips. That had been unconscious on Thalia's part, though she recognised the parallel now; it prompted a pleased smile.
"Dunno how much you’d get on a wrist, though. Unless you were willing to have it somewhere else. I think you could probably do something with decent detail on your inner forearm, but obviously a tattooist is going to be able to tell you what's best. I might know someone, if you want recommendations." She effortlessly shrugged off what fell outside the realm of her expertise, and offered the sketchbook over so Rune could have a look that wasn't upside-down. If Rune liked it, she'd need time to come up with a proper design - and indication of what imagery she wanted inside the ouroboros frame - but if not there were a plethora of artists in Arbatskaya she could ask instead, and Thalia would take no offence. Business was business.
She sat back, flexing her fingers gently with her other hand, pencil discarded for now in her lap. "Work, you said? What do you do?"
"It’s a small space. If you had it wrapped like a bracelet you might get more mileage out of a detailed background. Well, if you wanted it to look like a cuff, or the beginnings of a sleeve anyway. But it wouldn’t necessarily be obvious what it was supposed to be. Except when you’re waving." She grinned, glancing up briefly as she flipped over a new page in her sketchpad. Along the edge of the left page, trailing upwards, she wrote a series of words in a loopy script: ouroboros, wrist, bright, colour, detail. The last word she scribbled an underline. To her mind the simplicity of a circle was at odds with the boldness Rune wanted; the ouroboros was simplicity; unyielding, unending. Beginning and end, not middle; except as the infinite. Adornment would just obscure the cleanness of something ancient and primordial, if handled incorrectly.
"Are you wedded to the circle? Like, can the snake be knotted? Create some colour and complexity that way." She drew a quick example – a flowing, looping pattern not unlike Celtic knotwork. Putting a fussy background behind something like that would weaken the bold majesty of it as much as it would the traditional circle, but even alone it would be brash in its beauty. The coiling would allow for a longer body, more detail, without stretching it around the wrist and losing that perspective of continuousness. But any tattooist could fashion something similar, and would do an excellent job of it. Rune didn’t need Thalia for that.
She tapped her pencil thoughtfully, pondering the great white spaces of the pad laid out on her lap. Open pages flickered a thousand remembered readings in her mind, searching for inspiration. Usually she did this the other way around; actually searched – physically searched – for explanation to the things she drew, as if doing so forged solid links of reason and logic to the inexplicable. But it served the other way too. A few languorous spirals accented her thoughts, filling those dead spaces of empty as her mind hummed, then delivered in offering: the Norse god Jörmungandr. The World Serpent. Her head tilted, considering, and grey eyes finally lifted from her musing.
"What kind of background do you have in mind, Rune? Like an actual image?" She sat forward a little, leaning over her work keenly now that a distinct image took shape. The ouroboros itself was thin and simple, its tail and head meeting at its apex. Scant detail echoed indication of its scales amidst the blackness of its body, but its purpose was to frame the image within. To illustrate what she meant, she filled this example with poppies curving at the base of a tree which reached spindly naked limbs to the serpent's head and swallowed tail. In shades of graphite, the rough sketch was not exactly the bright and colourful image Rune had described, but it gave an idea. The inky black of the snake was intended to contrast with the vivid colour and detail of the picture within, just like Rune's Kohl-heavy eyes and fantastically bright lips. That had been unconscious on Thalia's part, though she recognised the parallel now; it prompted a pleased smile.
"Dunno how much you’d get on a wrist, though. Unless you were willing to have it somewhere else. I think you could probably do something with decent detail on your inner forearm, but obviously a tattooist is going to be able to tell you what's best. I might know someone, if you want recommendations." She effortlessly shrugged off what fell outside the realm of her expertise, and offered the sketchbook over so Rune could have a look that wasn't upside-down. If Rune liked it, she'd need time to come up with a proper design - and indication of what imagery she wanted inside the ouroboros frame - but if not there were a plethora of artists in Arbatskaya she could ask instead, and Thalia would take no offence. Business was business.
She sat back, flexing her fingers gently with her other hand, pencil discarded for now in her lap. "Work, you said? What do you do?"
![[Image: thal-banner-scaled.jpg]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/thal-banner-scaled.jpg)