[Gerard was just going to steal some of Eames' art supplies, really, so actually getting his own as a gift is ... something. Even if he doesn't say thank you or anything like that.
A few days later though the sketchpad is left on Eames' bed this time, already half full in the less than a week he has it. Most of Gerry's drawings are what you'd expect from someone who loved metal in his formative years. Dark forests, eyes, bones, blackbirds. There's also a fair amount of Eames himself and Arthur in there, along with various buildings in the Down around the parlor. While he's clearly never had any formal training, there's pleanty of raw talent and love for it there.
It's a little sad, really, being such a a clear missed opportunity. If he'd had his art encouraged, Gerry could have been great.]
[ Eames will go through his sketches, recognise the talent and there's very little that could keep him from continuing this. So, there's a sketch pad on Gerard's bed again. A new one. This time with charcoal, but not just the black kind, but a whole set of tinted charcoal pencils.
The first page reads: "Title your pages." Just that, nothing else.
The half empty book returns to Gerry later, but this time it's full, with Eames having filled the remaining pages. He's organised Gerry's drawings, picked pieces of them - and copied them perfectly - and put them together in a different order, on different pages, collected art pieces of them. There are eyes and bones and dark forests, but there's also some buildings that are in dark forests or have eyes, or spill out bones. There's sketches of him and Arthur, with an eye on Eames' throat, with a blackbird on Arthur's shoulder.
And couple of the last pages on the book are full of Eames' own drawings. Not art, really, these are proportions, pictures attached to them. Buildings, broken down on the pages, measured and copied. One of the pictures has a Jon in it, Eames has drawn him on the page with little horns and a tail. ]
[It takes Gerard a little work to get used to the charcoal, the first couple pages titled sure, but with things like "Garbage" and "Fuck this". Frustrated as he may be, Gerard doesn't give up. Along with places in the Down (giving Eames a good idea of exactly where he works and the route he takes to get there) he draws some that Eames might recognize from home. Scattered drawings of locations across Europe and Asia and America. Not touristy spots, but places only a local would have reason to go. They're not perfect recreations, for some he's working off of memories more than two decades old, but there's a lot correct for that. AND it's clear when he gets the sketchbook back and starts utilizing the notes instantly.
He has a study of Eames' tattoos there, suits like in the shop Arthur works at. People he knows. A page with the stereotypical "mom" over a heart tattoo in the upper left of the page before he spends the test of the page making eight variations of it, more realistic, often bloodier. He has his own tiny Jon but with a halo and angel wings, standing in opposition to two people Eames definately doesn't recognize- an old man and a young woman about Gerry's age - who have the horns and tail. It's just a corner doodle but it does have "Rest in fucking pieces van helsings" next to it. He gets the hang of the charcoal better, too, and draws deeper shadows, more nightmarish things. People that don't look quite right in a way that feels intentional and unsettling. Deep human-shaped shadows with nothing to cast them.
He again leaves it on Eames' bed with a significant number of blank pages - a little less than half this time, he got caught up ok.]
[ And a third book follows, this one with an invitation: "Why don't you come up into the studio once in a while?" and the first page titled: "Light from above," and the second "Glow from below."
With it, there are pastels. And a small booklet that has instructions on how to use said pastels. And later when Gerry opens his devices, there's a whole timelapse video for him where Eames has dedicated quite a few hours of his time to putting together a realistic portrait of Gerard himself. Just his face this time, but with quite an expression. One that Eames sees often that tells him that Gerard is again thinking that he doesn't need something because it's going to inconvenience someone else. A little sad, a little awkward and unconsciously yearning. But the point of this is that he's using pastels, and makes sure it's clear on the video how.
Now, the old note book takes a little longer to return to Gerry. It has a few beautifully laid out scenes from Paris and Africa, from Mediterranean islands. Then a few very shaky but well framed and studious pencil and ink sketches of battlefield in middle-east. One page is titled: "Mum?" and there's a few sketches on it, imaginative sketches of women that look a little like Gerard, older, more business like, ambitious looking. Towards the last pages there are a few very sketchy looking pages, full of vampire fangs and somewhere in there "Van Helgins?" A Jon appears as well, chasing after vampires with a book clutched under his arm, wearing something very primp and proper, a disapproving frown on his face. ]
[The next time Eames comes back to the studio - Gerry's there. He's sitting in some good light, carefully practicing with the pastels like Eames had shown how. While Gerry is still learning, even if he's a fast study, there's a brief moment where it looks like he's completely copying Eames' tutorial and drawing himself. But no, it's older, and there's a confidence to her that Gerard doesn't have. Her, because this must be the mother in question. Ambition is right, but there's a certain shark-like beauty to her. The smile of the Mona Lisa if she had killed, and had no problems with that and will do it again. It's obvious that if Gerard didn't dye his hair, he'd look like a younger version of her. Where the feather-boned features make him look fragile though, it makes her look sharp, dangerous.]
[Gerard has no battlefields in his book when he gives the next one to Eames - at least, none recent. There are a few cities of the middle east though. Archeological cities of Saudi Arabia that Gerard very much should not have had access to, Old Jaffa, Jericho. He comes at these places from the view of a scholar rather than a soldier, ancient architecture lasting thousands of years of particular notice to his memory. There's a few grown-over fields with abandoned trenches from the second world war, with the title of that being "Where I fell and broke my arm in two places. A+ Parenting"
There's also - they must be vampires because that's what Gerard has labeled them, but they look very little like even Count Orlok in his more gruesome portrayals. One shows what looks like a normal human at first, something dead and flat to the eyes but otherwise normal - then what must be the same person because the clothing is the same, but the mouth is about three times as open as it should be, rimmed with teeth less like sexy dental work and more like a shark's jaw, tongue snaking out of its mouth like a hideous proboscis of an insect and taking up the whole of the mouth, leaving no room for even a throat.]
[ Another book on Gerard's bed, this one with thicker pages, good quality for watercolours. And a nice palette of colours for it and a set of natural hair brushes. On the first page a brief introduction to how to use them, from lighter to darker, create washes, here's an example of a colour palette, be careful of colour saturation... There's no other instructions this time, it's quite enough to learn a new medium that can be temperamental.
There's ill advised notion about the book that returns to Gerard a little while later with scenes from 80's and 90's London, Oxford uni and its various hallways with a note on the side of the page saying "I did not study here, I grew up here." These are no tourist perspectives with Big Ben and Union Jack but definitely images created from memory, street corners, kids playing football on the road, skinny lads smoking cigarettes outside a pub. There's also a small portrait of a man crouched over his worktable, reading and writing busily notes on a paper. He's seen from behind with wide but sagged shoulders, an ill fitting jacket with elbow patches and receding hairline. Text under it says "Father must have died like this - doing what he loves the most."
There's a few very loosely painted watercolour pieces slipped in between the pages, done on different paper. These are almost dream-like, translucent colours, the scenery imagined rather than painted from memory. A metal frame bed in a limestone cave, floating on a mirror surfaced lake. A pod of London Eye floating above the city. And then something new: a tree house that seems to be floating above jungle with winding staircases and arching doorways that looks over a foggy mountain view with a text under it saying: "For new experiences?"
The rest of the pages in the book are filled with pictures of derivations of the vampires, some of them nothing but teeth, some of them with muzzles, a study of a mouth full of sharp teeth and some questionmarks. How does that even work. A too long tongue pierced by said teeth. ]
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A few days later though the sketchpad is left on Eames' bed this time, already half full in the less than a week he has it. Most of Gerry's drawings are what you'd expect from someone who loved metal in his formative years. Dark forests, eyes, bones, blackbirds. There's also a fair amount of Eames himself and Arthur in there, along with various buildings in the Down around the parlor. While he's clearly never had any formal training, there's pleanty of raw talent and love for it there.
It's a little sad, really, being such a a clear missed opportunity. If he'd had his art encouraged, Gerry could have been great.]
no subject
The first page reads: "Title your pages." Just that, nothing else.
The half empty book returns to Gerry later, but this time it's full, with Eames having filled the remaining pages. He's organised Gerry's drawings, picked pieces of them - and copied them perfectly - and put them together in a different order, on different pages, collected art pieces of them. There are eyes and bones and dark forests, but there's also some buildings that are in dark forests or have eyes, or spill out bones. There's sketches of him and Arthur, with an eye on Eames' throat, with a blackbird on Arthur's shoulder.
And couple of the last pages on the book are full of Eames' own drawings. Not art, really, these are proportions, pictures attached to them. Buildings, broken down on the pages, measured and copied. One of the pictures has a Jon in it, Eames has drawn him on the page with little horns and a tail. ]
no subject
He has a study of Eames' tattoos there, suits like in the shop Arthur works at. People he knows. A page with the stereotypical "mom" over a heart tattoo in the upper left of the page before he spends the test of the page making eight variations of it, more realistic, often bloodier. He has his own tiny Jon but with a halo and angel wings, standing in opposition to two people Eames definately doesn't recognize- an old man and a young woman about Gerry's age - who have the horns and tail. It's just a corner doodle but it does have "Rest in fucking pieces van helsings" next to it. He gets the hang of the charcoal better, too, and draws deeper shadows, more nightmarish things. People that don't look quite right in a way that feels intentional and unsettling. Deep human-shaped shadows with nothing to cast them.
He again leaves it on Eames' bed with a significant number of blank pages - a little less than half this time, he got caught up ok.]
no subject
With it, there are pastels. And a small booklet that has instructions on how to use said pastels. And later when Gerry opens his devices, there's a whole timelapse video for him where Eames has dedicated quite a few hours of his time to putting together a realistic portrait of Gerard himself. Just his face this time, but with quite an expression. One that Eames sees often that tells him that Gerard is again thinking that he doesn't need something because it's going to inconvenience someone else. A little sad, a little awkward and unconsciously yearning. But the point of this is that he's using pastels, and makes sure it's clear on the video how.
Now, the old note book takes a little longer to return to Gerry. It has a few beautifully laid out scenes from Paris and Africa, from Mediterranean islands. Then a few very shaky but well framed and studious pencil and ink sketches of battlefield in middle-east. One page is titled: "Mum?" and there's a few sketches on it, imaginative sketches of women that look a little like Gerard, older, more business like, ambitious looking. Towards the last pages there are a few very sketchy looking pages, full of vampire fangs and somewhere in there "Van Helgins?" A Jon appears as well, chasing after vampires with a book clutched under his arm, wearing something very primp and proper, a disapproving frown on his face. ]
no subject
no subject
no subject
There's also - they must be vampires because that's what Gerard has labeled them, but they look very little like even Count Orlok in his more gruesome portrayals. One shows what looks like a normal human at first, something dead and flat to the eyes but otherwise normal - then what must be the same person because the clothing is the same, but the mouth is about three times as open as it should be, rimmed with teeth less like sexy dental work and more like a shark's jaw, tongue snaking out of its mouth like a hideous proboscis of an insect and taking up the whole of the mouth, leaving no room for even a throat.]
no subject
There's ill advised notion about the book that returns to Gerard a little while later with scenes from 80's and 90's London, Oxford uni and its various hallways with a note on the side of the page saying "I did not study here, I grew up here." These are no tourist perspectives with Big Ben and Union Jack but definitely images created from memory, street corners, kids playing football on the road, skinny lads smoking cigarettes outside a pub. There's also a small portrait of a man crouched over his worktable, reading and writing busily notes on a paper. He's seen from behind with wide but sagged shoulders, an ill fitting jacket with elbow patches and receding hairline. Text under it says "Father must have died like this - doing what he loves the most."
There's a few very loosely painted watercolour pieces slipped in between the pages, done on different paper. These are almost dream-like, translucent colours, the scenery imagined rather than painted from memory. A metal frame bed in a limestone cave, floating on a mirror surfaced lake. A pod of London Eye floating above the city. And then something new: a tree house that seems to be floating above jungle with winding staircases and arching doorways that looks over a foggy mountain view with a text under it saying: "For new experiences?"
The rest of the pages in the book are filled with pictures of derivations of the vampires, some of them nothing but teeth, some of them with muzzles, a study of a mouth full of sharp teeth and some questionmarks. How does that even work. A too long tongue pierced by said teeth. ]