For Art's Sake, Belinda
A few days ago, I responded to this post on the Literotica Authors' Hangout forum by user NextDoorSecret:
Are there threads or stories that have been inspired by an image? Either an artist rendering or photo? As a visual artist as opposed to a wordsmith that has a lot of appeal to me. The reverse would be fun too, art created based on someone's words. Is this something that's already on here somewhere?
She generated a bit of interest, including from me:
OP, can you link to some of your work? I'm open to the idea of writing a story around a picture.
Behold, a response!
I normally do a very different type of subject, but it feels like this is the fitting place to play with some of this. I'm not sure this scanned terribly well, but here you go
I urge you to take a look
So then Belinda (like an idiot) says:
They're very passionate and sexy. The contrast on the first one is very poor on my phone, but the second one is better. Can you describe your technique? They look like photos that have been highly digitised with some kind of filter / effect. If they are pen / pencil sketches, then I apologise - I am looking at them on a 4" phone screen.
And another reply. My regular emailers will know how much I love this.
They're charcoal and watercolor with a touch of pen and ink. I normally do color work in my watercolors, but I thought these look better in black and white.
At this point, there's no shutting me up. Pretty much, if you talk to me and you're polite then you'll get a response.
In case you weren't aware, you're very talented. Please, please, please don't tuck your talent away on other people's threads where it will be lost. Be brave. Own up to your gift and show the world. There will be assholes - there always are - but there will be more who thank you for sharing. Please (really, please!) post your art to the Erotic Art Hub on the Stories side of Lit. Forums are fine, but content gets lost in a short space of time. You're obviously a regular on the forums, so when you post engaging and provocative questions like this, new people will be able to easily go back and find your art. Now let me turn your idea around. What if the story came first? Would you draw a still from a story you enjoyed? Or create a book cover image? What about a one for one deal? :-) I'll put a story to your picture, and you do a cover for my next book.
So we took it Personal Message at that point and did a trade. I wrote her a little story about her second picture - the one with the women kissing - and she painted me a picture.
Let me repeat that: SHE PAINTED ME A FUCKING PICTURE!
It's inspired by my story Note To Self. It's an imagining of the logical (but unpublished) progression of Anna and Susan's meeting for drinks. Here it is.
I've received some lovely feedback on my writing before, but nobody's ever painted me a picture. I don't know how to describe it, except that I'm truly flatered.
And if you're wondering where my little story is, NextDoorSecret has posted it on Literotica. It's hard to get feedback on erotic art, please, please leave her a comment if you like her art, or if you enjoyed the fusion of art and writing.
