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looking for london
May. 19th, 2016 03:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offthebeatenpathCommissions were one thing, and Em had gotten comfortable with the process from the initial conversation about what the client wanted all the way through to delivering the final product. She did her best, one piece at a time, and only taking the work when she felt she could do what she'd be promising to do.
This wasn't any different, right? But sitting in her room, staring at her signature at the bottom of a contract to design a London-themed tarot deck, or worse the deposit check they'd given her for supplies and such, she couldn't help feeling like she was in over her head. This wasn't one piece; it was seventy-eight. Seventy-nine if she included a Happy Squirrel, and eighty if you counted a design for the card backs. But it was one piece, all seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty paintings being parts of the whole.
She had some ideas, but she needed more. She needed to see London with new eyes. Not only the parts she'd seen and remembered already. She needed to come up with something that wouldn't speak only to her, but to anyone who'd use the deck. The thought of wandering all over London alone to see what she needed to see made her stomach churn even more than the scope of the paintings she'd agreed to do. She didn't think she would be the only one who'd have a problem with that, and she couldn't ask the boys to go with her all the time. And Jag would want to, if the alternative was her going by herself.
Rather than stew (no pun intended) over the problem, she went to the kitchen for some chop vegetables, boil water meditation. By the time she put the tartiflette in the oven, she thought she'd come up with a solution.
The boys and Dutch she talked to in person, but she also sent texts or emails to pretty much everyone in her contact list, asking if they would be interested in helping her with a project. What she was looking for was people willing to show her something of London. Whether that was an iconic landmark or some hidden quirk you really had to look to see. Where they went when they had an afternoon free or a tourist trap with the queues to go with it. Prime nightlife or private retreat.
She got lucky. Not only were friends willing to help, but some introduced her to their friends to expand the circle even more. The messenger back she carried almost everywhere always had a sketchbook or two in it, but in this case, the phone's camera was more helpful. With plenty of reference photos, she could hole up in her room and paint for weeks.
~*~*~*~
"Thanks for helping," she said, not quite meeting their eyes as she smiled with her gratitude. "Everybody has such different ideas about London, I never really know what to expect."
[Open to friends or friends of friends, which should be most characters, I think. If you want to thread and there isn't an obvious connection, hit me up via email or slack and we'll figure something out.
Threads can be anywhere in London your character might take Em. If you need ideas, Visit London and Londonist are good for more obvious things, and Hidden London has more weird, wacky, trivial stuff. Just specify and/or link in your TL, so I know where they are.]
This wasn't any different, right? But sitting in her room, staring at her signature at the bottom of a contract to design a London-themed tarot deck, or worse the deposit check they'd given her for supplies and such, she couldn't help feeling like she was in over her head. This wasn't one piece; it was seventy-eight. Seventy-nine if she included a Happy Squirrel, and eighty if you counted a design for the card backs. But it was one piece, all seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty paintings being parts of the whole.
She had some ideas, but she needed more. She needed to see London with new eyes. Not only the parts she'd seen and remembered already. She needed to come up with something that wouldn't speak only to her, but to anyone who'd use the deck. The thought of wandering all over London alone to see what she needed to see made her stomach churn even more than the scope of the paintings she'd agreed to do. She didn't think she would be the only one who'd have a problem with that, and she couldn't ask the boys to go with her all the time. And Jag would want to, if the alternative was her going by herself.
Rather than stew (no pun intended) over the problem, she went to the kitchen for some chop vegetables, boil water meditation. By the time she put the tartiflette in the oven, she thought she'd come up with a solution.
The boys and Dutch she talked to in person, but she also sent texts or emails to pretty much everyone in her contact list, asking if they would be interested in helping her with a project. What she was looking for was people willing to show her something of London. Whether that was an iconic landmark or some hidden quirk you really had to look to see. Where they went when they had an afternoon free or a tourist trap with the queues to go with it. Prime nightlife or private retreat.
She got lucky. Not only were friends willing to help, but some introduced her to their friends to expand the circle even more. The messenger back she carried almost everywhere always had a sketchbook or two in it, but in this case, the phone's camera was more helpful. With plenty of reference photos, she could hole up in her room and paint for weeks.
"Thanks for helping," she said, not quite meeting their eyes as she smiled with her gratitude. "Everybody has such different ideas about London, I never really know what to expect."
[Open to friends or friends of friends, which should be most characters, I think. If you want to thread and there isn't an obvious connection, hit me up via email or slack and we'll figure something out.
Threads can be anywhere in London your character might take Em. If you need ideas, Visit London and Londonist are good for more obvious things, and Hidden London has more weird, wacky, trivial stuff. Just specify and/or link in your TL, so I know where they are.]
