Darkness Falls

Setting: Definitions List (DF)

1. Sight - The very real ability to see, perceive, and operate in the visual world is critical to the visual artist's ability to create visual art. Sight takes on an entirely new layer of meaning when the protagonist is blind, but can't give up on his desire to be a world-class visual artist.

2. Oils - oil paints. The ingredients and consistency of oil paints require a much longer drying time than most other forms of paint. At times and in certain climes oil paints can take weeks to dry, fully. The texture of oil paint is thick with a 3D quality, which can have some benefits to a blind artist. Oil painting can be quite tactile, meaning that it is a better format for a blind person to create alone, but the clean-up for a blind person would require a great deal of help from a sighted person, since spirits or turpentine could be required.

3. Acrylics - acrylic paints. The ingredients and texture of acrylic paints require a much shorter drying time. Most acrylic paints are fully dry within 20 minutes to an hour. Acrylic paints aren't very much 3D until mixed with Gesso. Even with Gesso, acrylic painting requires more assistance from a sighted person, regarding the location of the movements and feedback, regarding what has been delivered by the artist's hands. However, clean-up is much easier for the blind person to do alone, since water is the only cleaning agent needed.

4. Canvas - the wood-mounted piece of cloth that receives the various forms of paint. Being a blind man, Rally Witt gravitates toward canvases of 24x30 and larger with 2-inch thick stretcher bars to keep the canvas from falling apart, due to the amount of pressure he may lean against it while painting.

5. a mahlstick - a long stick used for steadying the painter's hand, especially when painting the interior of a canvas, in order to aid the painter by preventing paint on the hand and giving the hand a place to rest. A mahlstick would have invaluable importance to a blind painter, like Rally Witt, since he could create a grid system on the canvas for greater accuracy in painting. A trusted assistant could use blue tacky paste, normally designed for affixing lighter items, like paper to walls for decoration, but in the case of Rally, blue tacky paste could be dolloped every one, two, or three inches to frame a grid space for painting in a tactile manner.