Who: Justin Taylor and Gaz Membrane When: Saturday, March 30th. Early Afternoon Where: Michaels What: Shopping for art supplies and talking art Rating: Low Status: Complete
Justin honestly didn’t mind shopping at Michaels, it was more that he’d gotten used to shopping for his supplies at the small art store near his apartment and Michaels was just so big that sometimes it got a little overwhelming. Not to mention, everything was in separate aisles and it took longer to find everything than at the art store. Walking down one aisle, Justin grabbed two sketchpads, because his were all filled up then went to find the paints. He’d bought a canvas not too long ago and then had found out that most of his paint was dried up.
Reaching the paint supplies aisle, Justin noticed a girl with purplish blue hair also looking at the paints and it wasn’t until he got closer that he realized that he’d spoken to her on Valarnet, “Gaz?” He asked, hoping that he was right.
Gaz was wearing some of her painting clothes - jeans and an old Slayer t-shirt - and she blinked when she heard her name. She blinked again when she heard it coming out of a pretty boy’s mouth. “Justin, right?” She had a bottle of red paint in her hand and had been reaching for more blue as well. “I was getting stuff to paint my walls.”
Justin nodded, smirking, “That’s right. Are you painting the whole walls or like doing a mural?” Justin hadn’t painted his apartment, because it was one of those places where everything had been painted beforehand, “I, myself, have a canvas that needs painting.” Justin ran his free hand through his hair as he turned his attention towards the various paint colors, trying to figure out what it was that he wanted to put on the canvas.
“I do a mural every few months,” she smiled. Well. It was a Gaz smile, so it came off as more of a smirk anyway, but she was trying! “Do you know what you’re going to do with it yet?” Talking about art was actually fairly easy for her; she would’ve been a lot more confused if he’d just made smalltalk or asked about the weather or something. That would’ve just gotten him a glare.
“Different walls or do you paint over it?” Justin had known a guy back in art school who got bored easily and added things to a mural he’d painted on his bedroom wall. When she asked what he was going to paint, he shrugged, “Not really sure yet. All I know is that I need paint because most of mine dried up. I hadn’t realized how long it’s actually been since I used it.”
“I just paint over it.” She’d done it twice since moving into the apartment. “I like killing my darlings. It makes me want to get better.” She saw a pretty purple and picked that up too, then a white and a grey. “Do you paint often? I figured you’d use more pencils.”
“I knew someone who did something like that.” Justin said, picking up a bottle of blue paint and scanned the label for the actual name, “I draw and sketch more often, but every now and then I see a canvas and just have to get it and do something with it.” What Justin enjoyed about sketching was that it was much easier to bring a sketchpad around with him then it was to bring paint and a canvas.
“I sketch when I’m not at home.” It was obvious she was a painter - her paint splattered clothes and the chips of it in her hair betrayed her. But she did pick up a sketchpad. Her eyes looked at Justin’s hands. She could see a callous from where he held his pencil, and that was enough for her. She smiled at him, a little more broadly this time. “At least you know what you want to do with your art. I have no idea.” Maybe video game concepts.
“Honestly, I’m just happy doing anything art related. My parents were concerned that I wouldn’t actually find anything in my field, but considering I went to the Hollywood campus of the art institute, it actually wasn’t too hard to get a job.” He couldn’t remember if he’d mentioned when they’d talked on the net what he did, “I do storyboards for that show Black Widow.” It was close enough to what he really wanted to do, so he was content with it for the time being. Not to mention, he got to meet famous people every now and then. Not that he never had while growing up in Beverly Hills.
She nodded. “Yeah, my dad didn’t really care. I was supposed to be a trophy kid like he was.” She wrinkled her nose. That hadn’t really worked out so well for her family. Not that she cared. Technically she was American royalty - the great, great, times forty or so granddaughter of a DuPont and a Rockafeller - but she didn’t show it. No outlandish parties. No cars that cost more than most countries’ GDP. She drove a motorcycle that she’d gotten for scrap and had a friend refurbish. She drove a car that she’d bought based upon fuel economy. She was working her way through university.
“But it’s good you’re doing what you love, you know? I hope I can too. I mean, I kind of am now.” Being a pro gamer was the dream of most geeks. “Monster sponsors me at cons.”
“Unless you choose to do what your parents want you to do, I don’t think they’ll ever actually understand our choices.” Justin smirked, putting two different tubes of paint into his basket, “That’s pretty cool. What kind of Cons do you go to?”
“My dad was an inventor, and a lazy asshole to boot.” She smirked right back. “Gaming ones mostly, ComicCon too. I was a booth babe for a few tours of that.” Yes. She called them tours, because they were like being in the trenches. Guys tried to invade her, and she sent them home limping.
Justin’s brows rose slightly at the mention of ComicCon, “I’d love to go to ComicCon someday. I’ve never gotten the chance to go,” That and none of Justin’s friends had ever really been interested in going and while Justin didn’t mind doing things on his own, something like ComicCon was something you did with friends. “Did your dad invent anything I’d know?”
“If you want a pass, let me know. There’s some awesome free stuff. It’s pretty fun.” She liked dressing up, she did a lot of cosplay. She’d welded her own Samus costume. “Microchips and stuff. It’s stuff people use, but not anything you’d know off of the top of your head.” Gaz shook her head. Justin couldn’t help but grin, which lit up his entire face, “Are you serious? I might have to take you up on that offer.” Going to ComicCon would be pretty freakin’ awesome as far as Justin was concerned.
“Of course. I always get a bunch of passes for free.” She liked how he smiled, and she couldn’t help but smile in return. “I’ll be sure to save one for you.”
“That would be fucking awesome. Thanks.” Justin was still smiling as he grabbed another tube of paint and added it to his basket, “So, do you have an idea of what you’re gonna paint on your mural this time?” Justin enjoyed talking art with other people; especially when they were artists themselves.
“No idea at all.” She shrugged. “Last time I was working on perspective, and tried to get different senses of scale. This time I might practice different lighting. I like this guy, and I sort of want to figure out how best to paint him. I did one before, a portrait, but I think I can do better.” Gaz almost looked sheepish.
Justin was still smiling, then again he rarely wasn’t smiling, “I’ve done that before. Well, I’ve got sketchpads filled with sketches of various guys that I’ve either dated or liked.” It had happened quite often when he was in high school, he’d be sitting in class and there would be a guy he had a crush on sitting a few rows away and he’d wind up spending the rest of the class, filling a page with random, half-finished sketches or him. Or when he was seeing someone, he’d wake up before them and have the urge to capture their peaceful image while they slept.
“Yeah, I do that a lot. I think I’ve sketched everyone I’ve ever slept with.” Usually because the people she slept with started out as people she sketched, but that wasn’t anything she did on purpose.
“Guess we’ve got that in common.” Justin hadn’t even thought twice before revealing the fact that he was gay. He rarely ever did anymore, because he could care less what other people thought about him and was usually a pretty good judge when it came to how he thought the people he told would react and Gaz had seemed like the sort who wouldn’t make a big deal out of it. “I’d love to see some of your sketches sometime. Not necessarily the ones we were just talking about, but anything.”
“That’d be good,” she nodded. “Here.” Reaching into the bag she carried around in lieu of a purse, she ripped a piece of scratch paper and jotted down her cell phone number. “Call whenever, if I’m in class my phone’s just off.” She didn’t care that he was gay; other people’s sexuality only affected her if she was trying to sleep with them, full stop. Since she was stupid over someone else, it didn’t matter.
Justin took the offered slip of paper and reached into his pocket for his phone. He opened up a new text message and input her number into it then sent a text that simply said, ‘hi’. “And now you’ve got my number.” Pressing the button to lock the screen, he slipped the phone back into his pocket, along with the slip of paper, smiling. “We’ll make plans to meet up soon and check out each others stuff. I’d be interested in seeing your new mural when it’s finished too.”
Gaz nodded, smiling at him. “Maybe you can contribute.” She usually had her artistic friends over - okay, the artistic people she knew, she didn’t have many friends - to help with her murals. It was collaborative and she learned a lot. “It’ll be good to see you, we can have coffee or something.”
“I’d love to do that,” Justin had worked on group projects in school, but he’d never actually been asked to contribute on someone else’s personal work before, “We’ll definitely make plans to get together soon.” Justin enjoyed making new friends, whether they were fellow artists or not and he was glad that he’d run into Gaz that afternoon.