A Discussion of Precious [Charlotte]

She accepted the pencil. "Why not. The canvas at home will still be blank." It probably always would be.

She paused as she tried to think about how best to start. This morning she'd been thinking about her thief work and why she had chosen to call herself Hermes. She'd wanted to paint Hermes mischievously stealing Apollo's cows.

She figured Hermes would be the toughest part so she started with the cows, making sure their hooves were turned backwards just like in the story. (Hermes had magically reversed them so Apollo would be following the tracks in the wrong direction.)

To her own eyes her proportions seemed a bit off but they didn't look like stick figures and it was at least obvious they were cows. She decided to leave the proportions alone for now. To her, the most interesting and most important aspect of any artwork was the expression. These were cows but cows still had emotions and the really tricky part would be trying to capture the right expression in their eyes.

She imagined they weren't exactly happy about their hooves being reversed but cows were adaptable. And they were being herded. They were probably relatively indifferent. Business as usual. She tried to capture a sense of basic apathy with just the tiniest hint of irritation.

She did a lot of erasing, resizing, and re-shading until she was more or less satisfied with the expression.

"Apollo's cows that Hermes stole. It may or may not be more obvious once I try to draw Hermes." She pointed to the hooves. "That's why the hooves are backwards. And I know the proportions are off. I can...maybe fix that."

She scrutinized her cow eyes. "I wonder if I made the eyes look a little too irritated. It was supposed to be basic apathy with just a hint of annoyance. Maybe I should have played with the light a bit more," she thought out loud. Yeah, it wasn't great. She had to do some basic sketching with her topography so her drawing was a little better than her painting but still not fantastic.

It looks fine? He had to be joking. This was her drawing and she thought that fine might be too generous a word for it. Possibly acceptable. And she hadn't even drawn Hermes yet which was the main interest point. And the most complicated one.

She started sketching Hermes' outline behind the cows. She peeked over to see what Jack was doing. Something no doubt much more meaningful and impressive. She was never going to be able to capture the proper essence of Hermes.

She sighed as she tried to focus on Hermes. Yeah, there was a reason her canvas was blank. Whatever Hermes she manged to draw would just be a sickly imitation of the impressive deity in her head. Hermes was her thief name. She wanted to draw him well but this would just be sad.

She started erasing the outline. No, too rigid. Hermes was much lighter than that. He had been less than a day old when he went to steal these cows. He was excited and cheerful, wanting to see what he could get away with. She had to make it look like this was the sort of guy who wasn't disturbed by anything, the kind that just seemed to walk on air even when he was on the ground.

The outline was better the second time. More relaxed and carefree but something still wasn't right. But what? She stared at her outline long and hard and tried to figure out what was bugging her.

Maybe...not enough pride and confidence. He was light and carefree but very confident in his skills and capabilities. Although it seemed like he was always walking on air even while on the ground his pose was always self assured. He knew what he wanted and he would get it done. Because he was Hermes and he viewed himself as incredible. This was the deity who had made a sacrifice to the gods and accounted himself amongst them before he was truly accepted. Because he knew who he was. He knew he would be acknowledged.

 She erased her lines again and tried for a third time.

The third time she was more or less satisfied with the basic form. She just erased some lines and tampered with some details. Better. She finally started working on Hermes' clothes. She'd save his facial expression for last. That would be the most important part of the entire piece and it would probably take forever.