Artist

A creator of aesthetic objects, often to be used as decoration.

## **History**

The job title of Artist initially was a catch all descriptor for those who create decorative objects, and due to its general non-practical nature dedicated and skilful artists were a rarity outside of religious groups;

Blazintites decorated their churches with stain glass windows depicting religious scenes or saints, Bricca carve various plants and animals into the walls of their stone churches and the Watched paint murals of saints onto memorial walls.

The earliest official job title was issued to Deven Ever-Black, who was hired by King Herald to be the royal painter around 6AT. Their job was primarily to paint members of the royal family and court as and when requested, which lead to the eventual opening of the Sun Kingdom’s Royal Art gallery in 25AT.

After coming into contact with the Sun Kingdom, Queen Astrid of the Earth Kingdom soon adopted their own Royal painter around 23AT. However in the Moon Kingdom painting had become somewhat more accessible due to a better understanding of dyes which emerged around 13AT, although the title of painter and royal painter were adopted during 29AT and officially recognised as jobs across all three kingdoms.

Other artistic practices bled into more practical job titles, such as glassblowers creating stain glass windows and masons creating sculptures and mosaics. This allowed them to keep in business, as the general population could not afford most forms of art, nor was it culturally popular with peasants for the longest time.

## **Skills and Practices**

### **Painting**

Before learning to paint, most painters practice sketching with charcoal for a number of years due to its abundance. Charcoal will take to most rough surfaces though drawing onto slate and rocks were the earliest types of canvas, those in the Moon Kingdom eventually created a method to reproduce square slates to draw on.

Drawing slates could be reused by cleaning the surface through washing the surface with a cloth mixture of soaking in weak vinegar and dipping the cloth in coarse sand, then drying the slate before new use. However eventually the slate would weaken and break after prolonged use or being dropped.

Sketching on paper eventually became the most common method of practice, as it allowed the viewer to reflect on past drawings rather than wiping them away, making teaching more accessible.

The development of paint began with simply taking certain minerals from the earth and occasionally carving them into more graspable shapes to be draw onto a canvas, though this was often considered a waste. Over time a more effective method of creating paint arose in the form of crushing pigment materials and mixing them with egg yolks and water.

This version of paint, also known as pig yolking was used to paint on wood panels and eventually paper using multiple layers to get deeper colours, however some issues with this painting method was that the paint was prone to cracking and flaking when exposed to the sun or painted onto a stretched canvases.

The later development of more standardised methods of creating paint developed more consistent paintings; as outlined in the book ‘Colours of Life’ by Fredin Painter the creation of paint should be followed much like a cooking recipe, this included ingredient measurements, mixing times and giving the colours specific names.

Oil based paint entered circulation around the second era, this involved mixing pigments with drying oil, such as poppy seed oil. Drying oil is called such due to its ability to harden into a tough, solid film after being exposed to the air for a time. While pig yolk type paint did not mix well, oil based paint gave rise to more colour options though blending of various pigments.

### **Stained glass**

When making stained glass windows, an artist would need to initially need to draw the design, usually on a white washed board, although later paper sketches became more common.

After the design is made, the glass placed atop the design template and is cut using a hot bar of iron, or in more recent eras a hand held wheel cutter. Once cut the edges of the glass are cleaned with a grozing iron, as to prevent being cut while being worked on, and reduce the chance of cracking.

Around 27AT a stained glass artist named Kyl LavenderHoof developed a specialised paint which could be applied to stained glass to give even more detail. The stained glass paint is made of powdered glass, mixed with oxidized iron, wine and vinegar. The applied paint would need to be heated in a glass kiln.

With the glass pieces finished, next the frames for the pieces are needed. Molten lead is poured into a mould which creates strips of lead with grooves on either side, these lead strips can be then bent around the edges of the stained glass. Where the lead edges meet they are soldered together with a hot iron and a mixture of tin and lead, and finally the edges are waterproofed with a black putty, which is made from specially prepared seed oils.