CH 4

DRAWN MOCHI VOLUME 1 CHAPTER 4: SEARCHING FOR PAINT*3

Then again, I just kept on making paints. Once I realized that I could paste colored things as they were, I wanted to use all sorts of things as paints.

The colors of flower petals became vivid paints if I pasted them as they were.

Leaves also have different colors on the front and back. I made both colors.

I found moss and used it as paint, too. The bark of nuts was also made into paint. I made paint from every piece of bark I could find.

And then there was the dead butterfly! …I found this orange butterfly carcass, about the size of my two hands, and I got its wings and made shiny orange paint.

…I wonder if there’s a Blue Admiral or a Morpho butterfly on the ground somewhere. Then I could make blue.

That was the end of my paint-making that day. Why?

It was a strange feeling. I thought maybe my eyes were tired or my shoulders were stiff because I had been painting for so long, but it wasn’t the same thing.

I felt a sluggishness that I have never felt before, and a strange feeling of not being able to put any energy into my body. In addition, I felt dizzy as if I had anemia.

I think this is probably the same feeling I had when I fainted after making the spring.

I think I feel ill when I materialize too many pictures. Even now, when I make too many paints in a day, I feel sick. …If I push myself too much, I will pass out as I did with the spring, I guess.

…that means I have to plan to some extent. If I am painting something too big without a plan, I will probably end up fainting.

I think it would be better not to use a large easel or a huge canvas. …I’d like to do a mural someday, but I’m not sure if I’d be prepared to pass out if I did…

I camped in the open again, and the next morning, I made bacon and eggs in my frying pan.

I think about it while frying bacon and eggs in a frying pan. I have to think about it because I have to materialize the picture systematically.

What do I want to do now?

First of all, blue paint. This is a must. Without blue, I will not be satisfied with what I want to paint. I don’t want that. I hate it more than anything. That is why I want blue paint more than anything else.

…But first, I need a brush.

Right now, I use all my paints with my fingers. This is inconvenient, so I want a brush. I think I can make a brush if I paint with it even in my current state, so I think I’ll paint a brush first.

Then, paper. I also want paper. It’s okay that the materialized drawing disappears from the paper, but if I make a mistake, it will remain on the paper. If I keep doing that, the copy paper will eventually run out, so I want to secure some paper.

…If I draw a paper picture on paper, would it make paper? Oh well, I’ll just give it a try. Then, if I can do it, I need some drawing paper. Copy paper is too incompatible with watercolors. It curls, it sags, it tears easily, it doesn’t dry easily, and it’s hard to use…

…Now.

It’s a much lower priority than paints, brushes, and drawing paper…

I want a house.

If possible, I want a house.

I want to paint calmly in a house. …Also, it’s getting hard for me to stay in the field.

But, well, this is the last time. If I can’t, I can use a tent or something. I just need to make a shelter from the rain somewhere…

So, first of all, I painted some brushes. But it was more difficult than I thought …….

How to say it… It seems that the shape and material of the brush change depending on the way the tip of the brush is drawn.

This was a problem. I didn’t think I would have a hard time with the brush.

I can’t fool myself about the brushes, and I don’t think my current skills would allow me to draw each fine hair on the tip of the brush with particular attention to the quality of the material. …I couldn’t even buy a brush because they were too expensive. I can’t even observe brushes because of that.

…Well, I’ll work on this later. Even in the original world, I was doing it all the time with about three cheap brushes. It’s definitely better than fingers.

Next is paper.

I thought it would be absolutely difficult to draw paper on paper… so I drew some kind of sketchbook. A croquis book for pencil drawing and may be some drawing paper. Also drawing paper for watercolor.

I wanted to buy paper for watercolors in my original world, but I couldn’t afford it. The paper itself is thick and of high quality, and the four sides of the paper are stiffened so that it will not be distorted or warped even if it is moistened down. It is a luxury product.

I was able to make the paper without as much trouble as the brush. …It’s so convenient that I can make the inside just by drawing the cover. I feel that the hard work with the brush is unreasonable. No, in fact, the paper may have been made completely different from the real thing. …Well, I never used expensive paper in the first place, so it’s fine. I wouldn’t know the difference anyway.

But still, I got it. A sketchbook for watercolor, which I have been longing for.

When a picture materializes, I can use all the art materials I’ve given up until now. This makes me very, very happy. …I’m so excited.

I don’t have to scrimp on my lunch to get art supplies. I don’t have to worry about the price.

I’m going to get all the oil paints I need one of these days. I thought paints were too expensive and I would never be able to do it, but I may be able to try my hand at Japanese painting. I can use as much lacquer and gold and silver powder as I want, so I can do makie [T/N: Lacquer decoration with powdered metal.] . I might even be able to produce a block of fine marble and make sculptures.

There are many things I would like to make. There are many things I would like to try. And now I can do it!

…Woah, the more I think about it, the happier I become. My face is grinning uncontrollably.

But when I get happy like this, I feel like I have more energy.

This is a feeling that I had hardly ever felt before I came to this strange world. I had only felt it when I was much younger. That feeling right now is pushing me forward.

It’s not a bad feeling. The feeling of being able to go as far and as fast as I want, as far and as fast as I want. A feeling of wanting to keep going.

I’ve probably had these feelings for a long, long time. …But I guess I was just trying not to let it show.

So let it show as much as I want. It’s an unfamiliar feeling to let my feelings free… but it’s not a bad feeling.

It was lunchtime by this point, so I painted some bread and bit into it while I painted the next picture.

The first painting on fine watercolor paper was a… bag.

…I had created three sketchbooks without thinking, so I couldn’t fit them in the paper bag. I had no choice but to draw a bag. A proper one.

I wondered what kind of bag I should make, and the first thing I thought of was a big shoulder bag made of canvas.

I think it was dyed with persimmon tannin. My teacher said it was durable and would last a long time. …Yes, that’s right. This is the bag he used. The first time I saw it, I thought it would be a great idea to have a new one.

While remembering the bag I longed-for, I replicated it with watercolor on paper.

…Ah, I knew it was totally different from copy paper. The colors of the paints come out very beautifully. It doesn’t sag. It doesn’t tear. It dries quickly!

I thought to myself, “So there’s a reason… why expensive things are so expensive.”

And so, the bag was made.

The bag is exactly as I remember it.

When I tried to hang it on my shoulder… the strap was too long for me. Even to this point, it is the same.

I was laughing to myself, adjusting the length of the strap and moving it on my back. …Yeah, it’s not bad. It’s not bad at all.

I put pencils, copy paper, a blanket, and shiny flowers in it… and then three sketchbooks, brushes, a knife, and a large tube of paint.

They all fit perfectly in my large bag. This is all the valuables I have in this world.

…I’m pretty happy.

It’s getting late in the evening, so I get ready for sleep for now.

… however, I had more energy than yesterday, probably because I didn’t materialize a lot of paint today.

So, I think I’ll at least make a place to shelter from the wind and rain. It’s a good opportunity.

…so what I’m going to draw is a pillar.

It’s done. Three pillars stood at a little distance from the fountain.

I was a little tired, perhaps because the pillars were taller than I am. Yes, it seems that I get tired when I keep materializing my drawings.

But I had to go one step further. Next, I will draw a large cloth.

Since I started painting the pillars in the evening… It was already getting dark by the time I started painting the cloth. But I put a shiny flower on the ground and used it as a light and used the cover of my sketchbook as a desk.

And so, by the time it was completely dark, I had a large piece of cloth. Like thick felt. I imagined it to be wool, but it was probably synthetic fiber. I don’t know if it was my poor imagination or my drawing skills…

This was also a little tiring, but I guess it was better than the pillars.

I took the edge of the cloth and threw it up the pillar. After… a few times, the cloth caught on top of the pillar. After that, I pulled the cloth while adjusting it appropriately…

“Good night.” (Tougo)

I climbed into my finished tent and went to sleep.

The next morning, I was woken up.

Because it was noisy outside.

…I woke up thinking that it was noisy, and then I froze.

No, because… noisy means there is something outside the tent.

And if there is something out there in the woods like this…. uh, what? An animal? A beast?

…What I heard were chirping, cooing, and cawing sounds. Then a rustling sound of wings.

Scared, I rolled up the edges of the tent and peeked outside. …and there was a startling sight.

Orange from head to chest, smooth gray belly. The wings are brown and its tail is orange. In shape, it is roughly sparrow-like.

A robin, so much like the bird, yet large enough to destroy the whole image of a robin…

…the appearance of a monstrous bird that looks like it could be about 5 meters from end to end with its wings spread.

Such a monstrous bird was bathing in the fountain I had created.

It was not a bird, but a monstrous bird. Facing such a creature, I was frozen. No, I didn’t know what to do.

But it seemed that the monster bird didn’t know what to do either.

After meeting my eyes, it spread its wings… and flew away.

It was beautiful when it flew away. The color was beautiful, the shape was beautiful. The bright wings shone against the blue sky and looked magnificent.

I thought to myself, looking at it.

…I want to draw that.