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 Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:45 pm
Arihitszu walked out of town with a simple wooden lap desk and a bundle of painting supplies slung onto his back. The burden was not too heavy, but he moved slowly anyway, wanting to enjoy the weather. It was a bit early for flowers still, but a bit of wanderlust had gripped him regardless, and he realized it had been a while since he had last done any real painting.
It was hardly something he was good at, as the monk had devoted far more time to his calligraphy, but it was still a pastime he engaged in from time to time. And Arihitszu also realized that the new selection of plants and trees here in Sunderland might make for an interesting afternoon.
Finding a suitable spot on a rise near town, the monk settled down and unpacked his things, arranging them all on the little desk. Then he sat down on the grass, stretching his legs out underneath it, and set about grinding some ink into his inkwell.
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Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:52 pm
A walk was just the kind of thing that he sometimes needed in order to find his muse again between sessions. He was painting a young girl who had proved to be not only an unwilling subject, but also a temperamental one. Her behavior quite unbecoming of a lady, but it was far from his place to admonish her any more than he had.
As it was, it was not so much seeing another painter that gave him pause, or any surprise; it was the foreign nature of the man. He couldn’t for the life of him understand what he was doing with that…charcoal and that stone. He moved discretely closer, trying to maintain a polite distance without interrupting. He didn’t want to be rude after all.
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Posted: Mon Feb 20, 2012 3:00 pm
The extent of Arihitszu's painting skill was confined to flower arrangements and the rocks and trees that grew near his temple, neither of which were prone to argument. He could not imagine the hobby as anything but relaxing. Occasionally he ended up with a small audience while painting calligraphy, but since it was never commission work anyway, the monk rarely got feedback while he worked.
He stopped a few times in his ink grinding to rub his right hand a little; it was still just chilly enough to make it ache. The injured limb, carefully wrapped in bandages, was just noticeably smaller than his good hand, but when he finally reached for the brush, he did so confidently with his right hand.
And he became aware of someone watching him, just by that vague and indistinct feeling that the attention of another person gives. Arihitszu believed it to be the vibrations of life along the weave and weft of the universe - part of a general sixth sense shared by every creature ... but he figured his watcher might not necessarily be up for religious discussion of why he knew the stranger was staring at him. He turned and smiled, and then beckoned with an inward sweeping gesture of one hand for the other fellow to join him. He still held the brush in his other hand, bristles dry for the moment and poised over his inkwell.
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