Tag Archives: Canvas Blues

Canvas Blues – XXIII: Present

01 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Contemporary, Fantasy, M/M, Serial

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

XXIII: Present

Mr. Livesey knocked on Brendon’s apartment door at 8:59. The minute turned over as Brendon hurried to fold the blanket he’d used all night and straighten at least the worst of the mess in a mad dash fraught with pointlessness. Dressed in only a pair of sleep pants with graphite smudges across his fingers from last night’s desperate sketch, Brendon pulled the door open, a rush of early, humid summer wafting in from around Orion Livesey’s suited figure.

“Come in, come in. Good morning. I haven’t had coffee yet—haven’t even turned it on. Are you—I mean, do you live around here? Or you’re staying at the Marriott?”

With a peaceful, and far too awake, countenance, Mr. Livesey answered smoothly as he stepped inside, easily removed the door from Brendon’s hand, and shut it behind them. “Good morning, Brendon. Coffee would be perfect. And no, I live about three hours north so I’m staying locally.”

“Right. Of course.”

Brendon spastically clutched at his pants, bunching the fabric at his thighs as he suddenly remembered the sketch. The sketch that was thankfully facing the couch and not the door. He quickly backed up and made to look as if he felt the sudden urge to straighten the piles of books on the coffee table, scooping up the sketchbook and shutting it in one move before he laid a couple other books on top of it, needing to weigh down Orion Livesey’s drawn figure so it might not come alive. Continue reading →

Canvas Blues – XXII: Yesteryears

24 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Contemporary, Fantasy, M/M, Serial

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

XXII: Yesteryears

Robbie took to girls the way Casey took to cars.

His first girlfriend came at the end of seventh grade. His first real girlfriend at least. Before that there’d been giggles and kissed cheeks and hugs near the swings. But Tori Kel Anderson transcended elementary innocence. Robbie called her weekly and texted her daily. Would shrug off chances to go shoot paintballs or arosoft bullets in the forest in favor of a date at the park that might end in a chaste kiss from glossy lips.

Casey took Tori Kel badly.

At school he’d taunt her, though never where Robbie could hear. Sour words and bitterness cut into every interaction Casey had, his insults starting sexist, turning racist and ending only when Robbie took a fist and landed a hit directly on Casey’s jaw.

The fight afterwards might have been cathartic for some, but stood as the snapping of what had once been their friendship. They’d been like rubber bands before, pinging on one another, stretching away, bouncing back. Always with Brendon in the middle, relegated towards the sides when the goings were good.

Tori Kel, for the sin of doing nothing but having a pretty smile and a sweet disposition, became the inadvertent cause of three things. Continue reading →

Canvas Blues – XXI: Yesteryears

17 Wednesday Jun 2020

Posted by in Contemporary, Fantasy, M/M, Serial

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

XXI: Yesteryears

With Aunt Laurel’s voice always a mainstay in Brendon’s mind, he drew in an obsession. Found light and shadow. Discovered distance. Foreground. Curvature and stark angles. Perspective. Always perspective.

Cartoon characters found their way into teacher hands. Anime figures into book bags. Superheroes on chalkboards and whiteboards and in the margins of his tests. Car engines on the backs of his homework.

He sold doodles for a quarter, enough of them to buy a soda most days during lunch. Boys from different grades found him at his locker to ask for their favorite actress or anime girl drawn nude. He was called to a meeting with his guidance counselor once when one of the boys accidently lost theirs in the hallway. Brendon was careful to keep at least a bikini on the figures after that.

The art teacher in middle school—a man named Mr. Wexlar—latched onto Brendon like a barnacle on a piling. Demanding, critical, stern. His face had a paunchy look, round, ruddy cheeks controlling a deep baritone, dangerous voice. His eyebrows were speckled with white, his shoulders slightly stooped from bending over children’s projects for the last four decades instead of his own. Continue reading →

Coffee & Conversation: Do you know how to ride a bike?

17 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by in Coffee & Conversation

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , ,

While writing Canvas Blues, I had scenes with Brendon as a child riding his bike and while it wasn’t in any way a catalyst for the story, those pieces came from all the neighborhood bike riding I did as a child. That was back when knee pads and helmets were lol-what? to most people. I don’t even think I owned any protection, yet we were given free rein on our streets.

There’s actually a lot of leaning on my own life, where I grew up, that plays into Canvas Blues. And though the story is just starting on your end and bike riding isn’t exactly a plot point, it had a lot to do with linking certain places in the Past/Yesteryears timeline for Brendon.

So, yes, I know how to ride a bike. I don’t own one right now :( But it’s on the list of things I’d like to get one day. That elusive one day that may or may not become today at some point. Maybe I’ll ask Santa for one for Christmas. Or something. XD

~Emmi

Canvas Blues – I: Prologue

29 Wednesday Jan 2020

Posted by in Contemporary, Fantasy, M/M, Serial

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

CANVAS BLUES
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

I: Prologue

There once was a man who could paint.

He drew globs of acrylic and oil about canvas, across wood, within concrete cracks and fabric that sucked the paint and nudged it along specific threads of cotton and wool. He used colors of lapis, of emerald and periwinkle. Ivory rather than white; ebony rather than black. He’d call his blends by emotion, this one here the quick, sticky sadness of a dropped ice cream on a warm summer day, while this other the laughter one feels when it grows and grows, pushing at your throat, tapping at the back of your teeth, yet fizzles before it can erupt.

He held his breath as he drew fine lines and thick, or curved strokes and straight. He held his breath often enough it became second nature as a way to steady not only his hand, but his heart, his head. And only when done could he exhale, releasing any indecision, careful attention or concern.

It was as if, in that moment of exhale, when he blew hot breath across fresh paint and new choices, a piece of him enveloped his art. A cloud, of condensed care and longing, ghosting across new faces, open settings, to settle on the chemicals as liquids turned to solids.

There once was a man who could paint. And in his paintings, there grew life from his breath.

And there grew death.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Next Chapter

Coffee & Conversation: What’s Up for 2020?

27 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by in Announcement, Coffee & Conversation, Personal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , ,

That’s a good question and one I’ve been debating for the past few weeks. But I think it’s high time I give you an update. Probably far past high time.

Firstly, Lost Isle is done. I finished the book in September ’19 with a whimper of relief rather than an explosion of excitement. It’s in formatting stage with some promo pieces completed and others needing a ton of work. I love this book though and have spent far too long on it to push it out quickly. So I’m going to do things right this time around

Lost Isle: The Ocean’s Aviary I is getting an official release date of March 9th 2021.

But that has nothing to do with 2020, does it? Not really.

Novel

For 2020 I’ve prepared something else for my blog. Like a few stories I’ve done before, I’m going to begin serializing a novel. The chapters are short, and the book itself follows a character through both his past and the present. I have a place-holder cover that I will use for now to represent the book. Thus, I’m introducing:

CANVAS BLUES:
Vignettes Regarding the Artwork of Brendon Kotes

When the lawyer Orion Livesey invites himself into Brendon Kotes’ studio to return a painting, the man comes with insinuations and questions that skim into the realm of impossibility. For he claims Brendon’s painting has killed a man.

But a painting is just a painting and Brendon’s are no different despite Orion’s insistence otherwise. And though Brendon resists the idea his art could be dangerous, there are moments in his past that begin to surface, pieces of a puzzle he didn’t even realize existed coalescing despite all his attempts to keep them buried.

Questions he doesn’t want to know the answer to begin to knock about his mind, for what destruction in his past could he have been responsible for without ever even knowing.

As I’ve said, the book is told with two timelines, one within the present day, the other all those puzzle pieces of his past. I will be posting each new chapter every Wednesday (I know! It’s not Sunday. Crazy, right?), starting the 29th with the prologue.

Coffee and Conversation

As well as serializing Canvas Blues on Wednesdays, I will also be doing something quick and fun on Mondays. The idea here is to answer different questions every week in a fun paragraph/essay format. Some might be a little deeper, some will be silly or fluff.

Anyone’s welcome to pose a question if they like, but I presume most will come from me as they will operate as a tiny window into who I am or what I’m doing or what I’m working on.

I have a few more possibilities toward the end of the year, but as of right now, these are the things I feel confident in announcing given the amount of projects I’m working on, which I will be slowly becoming more transparent about :)

~Emmi