A Lesson in Frustration (OTA)

[st_hotflashes]

Liz was enjoying the various people offering her lessons. The Inn gave her a unique opportunity to be exposed to a variety of subjects she wouldn't normally take back home. Back home she had her eyes on a science degree in university. Here, she decided to ask Piotr to teach her some art. Liz was under no illusion that she would be good at it, but she thought it might be something nice to practice when Kitty was busy or she had read all that she could read.

For her first lesson, she was supposed to draw the hallway in perspective. When she had originally reached for a ruler to measure and be precise, he had said it wasn't allowed. So now, she was out in the hallway with a pad of paper and some pencils and an eraser. She sat on the end of the hallway with her back to the wall, trying to sketch what she saw down the hallway. There was a look of frustration and a lot of sighing and erasing.

(ooc: Find her in any hallway that's convenient for your pup if you like.)

Comments

[st_arkintern]

Peter was just headed back to his room with a candy bar purchased from one of the Madonna Inn's candy machines when he caught sight of Liz sitting down the far end of a hallway. For one moment, Peter looked at her, taking in the facts:

• She was sitting in the hallway, with a large pad (notepad? sketchpad? Peter couldn't tell from his vantage point).
• She kept looking up.
• Judging from the sighs and the furious erasing, she was clearly frustrated.

Peter mentally deliberates the pros and cons of approaching her. He doesn't know Liz well enough to know if an interruption would be welcome, or just frustrate her all the more.

Instead, tentatively from his side of the hallway, Peter calls out:

"Hey, you uh... you uh busy with something?"

[st_hotflashes]

Liz was concentrating so hard that she hadn't noticed his approach. When he spoke, she jumped just a little and looked up, surprised. "Oh! oh, um. No. Not really." She glanced down at her sketch. It was not very good, according to Liz. It didn't look realistic at all and she thought the proportions were off.

Looking back up, she blushed a little. "Well. I mean, I am. Doing something. It's - I'm not very good at it."

[st_arkintern]

Liz doesn't seem to be opposed to conversation, so Peter makes his way down the hall towards her. He suddenly feels self-conscious about the very way he's walking, even though he's sure his gait is the least of Liz's problems at the moment.

He offers her an awkwardly encouraging smile. "I'm sure is not that bad," he insists. "Is it okay if I see what you're working on?"

[st_hotflashes]

As he approached, she moved to stand up in order to both be polite and so he wouldn't have to look down as they talked. With the question, she paused and her blush spread across her cheeks more as she contemplated whether or not she wanted to embarrass herself that much.

"Um... Okay, Yeah. Sure. It's - I just started and Piotr said I wasn't allowed to use a ruler or anything so..." She awkwardly handed over the pad. There was a sketch of the hall in pencil that had a lot of faint erased lines. The hallways lines themselves were okay, though a little wobbly. Liz was having trouble figuring out how to make the doors look in perspective as well while all being appropriately proportionate.

[st_arkintern]

Peter surveys the drawing, frowning. He's not frowning because it looks bad. He's frowning because he's thinking. That's always been a habit of his.

"Yeah," Peter agrees, still looking down at it. "It's tough. I like using a ruler or a compass for stuff like this just because I like it to be accurate."

Still holding the notebook, he looks over at Liz. "I know it might not help much, but I -- I could give you some feedback, if you think -- if you think it might help."

[st_hotflashes]

The frown worried Liz a bit. It was probably really bad compared to most others. There was a reason she didn't take visual arts in high school. Liz understood her academic strengths.

When he spoke, she was surprised it wasn't overly negative. "Oh, uh, yeah, sure. I mean. I already know not to quit my day job so..." She tried to joke awkwardly although a little part of her was worried he was going to say maybe she was better off sticking to science.

[st_arkintern]

"No, no," Peter says shaking his head. He looks over at Liz with a look of concern, trying to gauge whether or not she's being genuine, or just humorously self-disparaging the way MJ was sometimes. "It's not really bad at all. I mean, I can't really do any of this stuff. That's why the only thing I really do is make videos on my phone."

It just always helped him when he was stuck on something to have someone else give him feedback. Sometimes they were able to see things he wasn't after hours or days of working on the same thing. And while he can't certain that Liz functions the wrong way, it's worth a shot.

Peter looks back down at the picture. "Okay," he says, tracing a finger down one of the lines of the hallway. "The tops of these doors should be coming down at the same angle as the floor below it. You almost got it on this side of the hallway, but they look a little less sure on this side." He runs a finger along the other side of the hallway. "My Aunt May always told me that if you want to draw a straight line, you need to just do it quickly. If you get slow about it, it's gonna be way less straight. I don't really know how that works out, but it does."

Aunt May was really into art.

"If you do it lightly, you can always erase it if it doesn't look right. And if you want, you can always do a couple of lines, one after the other to see which one you like best and erase all the others." It also helped to have a basis of comparison.

[st_hotflashes]

The suggestions that Peter started giving made a lot of sense as she followed his fingers at he talked. He said he wasn't good at art, but he had a lot of good advice. She took in all of his suggestions as he gave them, nodding and thinking about how to apply them right away. "Wow. That's - really helpful. I never thought to do lines quickly." Liz had always sort of associated speed with accuracy.

"Are you, Are you sure you haven't taken any art before? Because it sounds like you're, like you know a lot." And the fact he hadn't said anything judgmental made her feel more confident. Even Alex would have ribbed her a bit for this type of drawing.

[st_arkintern]

"No, not really. The closest I come to doing actual art was photography and making movies on my phone. And what I do, that's not really real art. Just stuff I do for fun. But when I do the whole photography thing, I like to at least think about the way things look and how they're positioned."

He points down at the lines. "All that stuff about the lines -- I only really know that because I had to do a lot of physics grafting on the fly. I didn't always have a ruler or a compass on me when the answers suddenly hit."

That happened a lot when he was developing the webslingers, and tried to figure out the whole physics of swinging without crashing head-first into a building. That didn't really happen anymore. As much, anyway.

[st_rangepalette]

Lillith likewise had a pad of paper, but instead of pencil, she had Comte crayons, borrowed from the communal stores. Instead of hallways, Lillith drew curlicues and arabesques, flowers and flourishes, the line of a shoulder in a carmine sweater, the swish of a skirt in splashy floral, a mustard suede calf-high boot, anything in a color she enjoyed and wanted to capture.

She all but tripped over Liz, with her own gaze so precisely focused the pattern of light cast on an ornate chair. "Oh. Oh dear, darling. You are well, I hope?"

[st_hotflashes]

"Sorry! I'm, wow, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be in the way." She hurriedly climbed to her feet with a sheepish expression. "Lilith. Um, hi. Yes, I'm, I'm fine. How are you?"

[st_rangepalette]

"You were not. I did not look where I was walking. The fault is mine." It seemed to Lillith that Liz apologized far too often for what could hardly be her fault. "I am fine. I did not hurt you or make mess of your drawing?"

[st_hotflashes]

"No, no. I'm okay. And my drawing is, well I'm doing a good job of messing it up myself so I, wouldn't worry about that." A little, awkward smile pressed on her lips. "I'm.. not very good."

[st_rangepalette]

"Is first time you have made drawing?" Lillith glanced at the pad, but it seemed to have few lines and little more. She kept her own notepad out of sight so not to make her self-conscious.

[st_hotflashes]

"Is it that obvious?" She blushed a little. "I... I thought I might try something new while I'm here at the Inn."

[st_rangepalette]

"No, it is not." Lillith had not meant to embarrass the girl, truly. "It is only, you said you were 'messing it up,' so I thought it was new to you. Because drawing requires practice. That is all."

[st_hotflashes]

"I don't know if I'll ever be good, even with practice." Liz didn't have a problem with studying, after all. "But I'm, I'm going to keep trying because challenges - well, they're good for you."

[st_rikeback]

Alex opened the door into the hallway, his backpack slung over his shoulder but stopped when he saw the teenager before he got too far. She looked so much like his sister-in-law that he had to smile. There was a bittersweet tone to it.

[st_hotflashes]

She glanced up when she heard a door open and looked a little embarrassed when a man stood there smiling. She didn't like feeling like she was in the way of people. "I, um, I could go if I'm disturbing you."

[st_rikeback]

"No, you're fine." Alex assured her and took a few steps forward before squatting to her level. "I didn't mean to interrupt your concentration. You just reminded me of Dani, my wife's sister, she's about your age."

[st_hotflashes]

"Is she, is she here, at the inn? And you didn't interrupt. I'm, well, I'm not very good at this so there's nothing really to interrupt anyways." She offered a smile. "I'm Liz."

[st_rikeback]

"No, she's back home." Alex shook his head, "and I'm Alex. It's nice to meet you, Liz. What are you trying unsuccessfully to do?"

[st_hotflashes]

"It's nice to meet you." Then she blushed a little. "Um. It's... I'm learning how to draw from someone here who teaches art. I can't seem to get the proportions right." She meekly offered him a glimpse.

[st_rikeback]

He glanced over her work and down the hallway. "Perspectives are hard." Alex agreed then chuckled, "not that I would be any good at that. The only thing I've drawn are maps. But you have a good start. I can tell that it's a long corridor."

[st_hotflashes]

"Thank you. That's, um, That's really kind of you." She smiled, feeling a little bit more confident. "You draw maps?"