Art: Spare the Rod (R)

[pink_mint]

Title: Spare the Rod
Characters: Harry
Rating: R
Warning: blood, bruises, come
Created with: Painter X
Notes: This is This is fanart for calanthe_fics's Spare the Rod, part three in the Mudhoney trilogy. Additional notes and an excerpt from Spare the Rod are below.
Additional notes: First, I have to say that I had residual inspiration from calanthe_fic's trilogy that needed to come out, and this is the result! Plus, how could I not draw her Harry after doing Draco?

I wanted the two paintings to compliment each other in look and in intensity of emotion, and at first I had a tough time picking one emotion of Harry’s to show. The one of Draco was really obvious to me, but this one I had to think about. Then I remembered the Exanimus scene, which is nearly my favorite – it gives me chills.

Do correct me if I’m mistaken, Cal: in the picture of Draco, it was the moment that his fantasy and desire for Harry finally manifested. And in this picture of Harry, it’s the definitive scene for him personally. He realizes he wants to live.

Admittedly, I took some artistic liberties with this one. Cal, please forgive me if he’s a bit more bruised and bloodied than you wrote him. I also realize that these bruises are probably a lot further along than they realistically could be, given the time frame. ;)

Please let me know what you think. Once again, I'm a bundle of nerves!

A happy birthday to darling Harry Potter! So sorry I made you look terrible on your special day. ;)

Lastly, my companion piece to this, featuring Draco.

Excerpt:

“Finite Incantatem,” he annunciates, his low voice carrying clearly across the space between us.

My lungs spasm painfully and I hear myself drag in a ragged, bubbling breath that’s deep enough to curve my spine up off the table. I choke out the remaining jism from the back of my throat with unfettered relief. After that first breath in, the one that makes black blobs dance across my vision, I flop back onto the table and pant, drawing a shaking hand up to scrub at my face, wincing as the raw pain of an overstretched muscle in my shoulder protests.

Thank fuck! I’m alive! I experience a blinding moment of euphoria as my survival moves from fantasy to fact before my body starts to palsy and shake in shock. I put both hands over my face and try to breathe even though it’s hard. I’m alive.

I turn my head eventually, moving it painfully slowly to stop my focus blurring and breaking up.

He must have moved the moment I turned my head.

All I see is the flutter of a grey-trimmed black cloak disappearing round the doorframe and out of sight.

I lie there and watch the empty space for minutes, curling my toes and then flexing my limbs, testing to see what works and what hurts.

When I finally get up to dress, a changed person from the one who lay down, I consider life and death. I consider love and hate. I consider how fine the line between extremes can be.

I look down at the crumpled form of my Stupefied attacker and consider kicking him until his ribs break and his stomach is black with bruises. But I don’t do it. He’s broken enough without my interference, so I merely turn and walk away.

- from Spare the Rod by calanthe_fics

Comments

[cinnatart.livejournal.com]

Holy crap. What were you worried about with the following up and pressure being on?

I can't stop looking at his face, his lips, his hair and his ribs. It's all just...

WOW. I'm sorry this isn't more coherent. I've not had my coffee yet tonight. Just trust me when I say you're a freaking AMAZING artist.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Ohhh thank you, sweetie. Honestly, I'm not used to getting such reactions from my art.

I don't even know what to say...mmm, thank you. ♥

[slashpervert.livejournal.com]

Wow, that is intense and so well done it almost hurts to look at it. Amazing.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Brilliant, thanks so much! It makes it worth everything that it's intense to you and that you can practically feel the pain.

[falconer007.livejournal.com]

Like someone else said, it's very intense! Love the expression, love the color palette you used: it evokes 'bruises' before we even see the details. Amazing work.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

I think it had to be intense for it to come off right, and so I'm thrilled to hear you think it is. Also, I love hearing that the color palette screams "bruises"! Thank you!

[fireflavored.livejournal.com]

Just as beautiful, dark and intense as the first one. His face is almost peaceful, until you look carefully at his mouth and brows.

I've come back to look at it three times before commenting. That usually means it's going to stick with me for a long time. Fantastic work.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Wow, thank you!! About his face, I thought a few times that, "Oh, I should add more creases around his nose or make his upper lip raised a bit in pain," but then it just didn't fit Harry, especially Cal's Harry; he'd be thinking and feeling it, and holding in the outward expression.

I can't believe you came back to look at it three times, God, that's so wonderful to hear. ♥

[mystressxoxo.livejournal.com]

Wow. Brilliant... *at a loss for words* You can almost feel it, if that makes any sense. And the color is beautiful. Fantastic job! =^;^=

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

I know I've definiely felt things from other art, so for this to evoke emotion on that level is really something. Thank you so much!

[cassie-black12.livejournal.com]

Oh my god! This picture is just breathtaking.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

!!! Thank you! ♥

[brknhalo241.livejournal.com]

That's just so incredibly vivid. I can feel his pain and the emotions behind the ache. You have a gift for capturing the feelings instead of the masks and I'm so happy that you're sharing your art. Just gorgeous....

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

God, what a fantastic comment! Capturing the feelings instead of the masks? I-I don't know how to reply to that. Thank you.

[citrus-lime.livejournal.com]

w-well, this is really cool. His expression, I can read the expression clearly. I've read Mudhoney, and I can say that your art is as awesome as the fic itself. Good job! I love this!

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

I'm so pleased you can see his expression clearly. As awesome as the fic itself? No way! Thank you!

[teardropdangel.livejournal.com]

That right there, might just be one the hot images I've seen.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Ooo, really? Thanks so much! :D Wasn't expecting that, but I'm glad someone besides me finds this hot. (It's not that my own work turns me on, but yeah...Harry, beaten up? Sexy!)

[serendipity-008.livejournal.com]

WOW! What an amazing picture!

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Thank you!!

[leadenguide.livejournal.com]

Wow. Just...

The injuries look so real. You have a serious talent, ma'am.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

I wanted the injuries to look real and raw, and it's brilliant that you think they do. Thank you!

[melusinahp.livejournal.com]

God, wow. That is breathtaking, so real and raw. I'm in awe.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

That's exactly what I wanted it to evoke. :) Thank you so much!

[vanashta.livejournal.com]

OMG!!That's a great piece of art (just like your Draco!) You are extremely talented,and I really hope to see a lot more like this!!!!

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Thank you! What a sweet thing to say, I really appreciate that and hope you enjoy future art from me. :)

[norton-gale.livejournal.com]

I love this piece and the one before of Draco... it's like you stepped right into the fic and turned the light on. Although Draco and Harry's ordeals in Mudhoney can be harrowing to read, this ended up being one of my favorite H/D fics, and I think you've done the perfect illustrations.

I love how pain and ecstasy are mirrored in Harry's face. It's a posture of thoroughly passionate submission.

He realizes he wants to live.

Yes!

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

... it's like you stepped right into the fic and turned the light on.

Lord, you have just made my day. What a compliment! I can't even believe you think that, that's just the most wonderful thing.

I'm so pleased that you can see the relief and pleasure in his face along with the pain.

Thank you, dearest!

[stitchesandlace.livejournal.com]

This is amazing. Everything looks so REAL - the injuries especially, I don't think I've ever seen another fanart with bruises as realistic as yours.

Oh Harry *cuddles him*

Brilliant!

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! I really aimed for this to look as close to realistic without being total realism. I'm very glad this makes you want to cuddle him! :)

[libby-drew.livejournal.com]

You've trumped yourself! This is as amazing, if not moreso, than your Draco. Like he came alive and jumped right out of the story. Stunning!

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

God, thank you! What an awesome comment! I'm so excited he really looks alive to you, that's the best thing I could hear. ♥

[moonlitdark.livejournal.com]

Amazing work!

*admires your talent*

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much!! :D

[nursedarry.livejournal.com]

*iz ded* You've done it with this one! I'm a puddle of goo on my floor but am immediately picking myself up and dashing off for my medical bag. The amount of thought that went into the choice of colour and the detail in the expression is breathtaking.

And I'm not even going to start on the lips...

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Oh, AWESOME! I'm so glad this makes you itch for your medical bag. You know, I seriously thought of you when I was doing the injuries (and again when I wrote the bit about these being a tad unrealistic in the time frame) and was hoping that it would look good to you, especially since you're a nurse.

I'm very glad you're liking his lips!! I think they're my favorite part besides the mouse under his eye. :D

[marguerite-26.livejournal.com]

Holy fuuuuuuuuck.

That is the one part of the series I had such a hard time reading, it kills be just to think back on it. :(

And you captured it so well. Just... god my heart aches for Harry and how messed up he is.

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

I felt nearly closterphobic from that scene, with his mind awake and his ability to feel everything but unable to move - talk about intense, and then of course the very real fact that he almost didn't make it out alive.

Darling, thank you for looking at this even though the scene was particularly difficult for you and thank you for the wonderful comment. ♥

[calanthe-fics.livejournal.com]

Bloody hellfire. I'm stumped for words. I'm looking at this picture and thinking I don't know how you did it. I just don't know what to say.

THANK YOU!!

I can't believe I've been lucky enough to have inspired these two startling pieces of art from you, and in such a short time frame too. The thrill of seeing fanart of your work is something that happens rarely, but I'm still floating on a cloud of excitement from the last pic, and now I'm not sure my feet will touch the ground for weeks. I'm terribly proud to be associated with you! My ego is about the size of my house right now :D

I think what you've done is you've painted my Harry. My friend Fray says that Lillithium paints the Draco she sees in her head, and I think what you've done is the same for me; I look at this picture and it's the Harry I see in my mind.

In terms of picking out elements of the picture, I can't begin to - it's all done so brilliantly that everything impacts on everything else. I love the skin tone you've used, and the way he looks ill. I think the white highlighting along his limbs is more than light; in it I can see the sheen of sweat, and he just looks like he's had a near-death experience. He looks bewildered and in pain. Like everyone else says, the bruises are incredible. I can't remember seeing bruises in fanart before, but these ones - you can just reach out and touch them. They look so fresh and bloody, like raw steak, and that's pretty much the image I had in my mind when I was thinking about those men pulverising him. Making him like meat, sub-human. Just holes to fuck without tenderness or regard. The whole scene was meant to be dehumanising, and I think the feeling of your picture captures the after effects of that perfectly.

When I'm clicking back up to the pic to stare at it again, I keep being drawn to his eyes and lips, and his ribcage. They are so beautifully rendered that they seem real. I love the black shininess of the skin around his eyes, and how sunken and tired they look. I love the twist of his mouth and the way he seems to be grimacing inside, without acting it out.

I LOVED Draco, but I think I love this more. People just don't tend to pick the messed up things to paint - they pick the pretty, undamaged things, or they show the beauty in single dimension. But this, as in the painting Lillithium did of Draco in Spare the Rod, this focuses on the reality, of the brokenness and remaking of the person inside the skin, and I think that's why I feel very close to this art indeed. It feels like a part of me, even though it's a part of you.

It's been a very long time since I read any of the trilogy fics. I have a tendency not to read my own stuff once it's posted because I can't leave it alone, and I've promised on pain of death not to correct or rework the poorer sections of these fics for fear of taking something of the atmosphere away. I admit I cringed when I read that section above! I do avoid my work like the plague :D

When I was writing this final story, the central theme of the early part is Harry's realisation that there's no victory in death. He hasn't bothered to try living for a long time, and it's only the reality of his imminent death that jolts him to think that he can't stop now. The rest of the story, as with Glove Puppet, was trying to show how two damaged people could fix someone else without necessarily having the tools to make their own life better. Writing it from Harry's pov always meant that I understood his motivations better than Draco's, and in some ways that was my nod to canon, in which we have Draco and his intentions shrouded in a certain kind of mystery, because he's not the character we're intimate with. But it was also important all the way through to have the broken narrator be Harry and not Draco, because I wanted to deconstruct canon Harry and remake him as the person I felt he should have become after a childhood of abuse, lovelessness, and being manipulated.

Continued...

[calanthe-fics.livejournal.com]

I couldn't stomach how well adjusted and happy he was, and these fics were always going to show Harry broken down to bare bones of his personality, and remade into a particular image, albeit one that many readers would feel intensely uncomfortable with. Have you noticed how it's okay for fanfic to break Draco on a regular basis, but you cannot fuck with 'the people's' Harry? So, yeah - that's why Harry.

I will of course be reccing this. I'm thrilled to see the comment count on your Draco pic. You deserve every bit of worship coming your way. And I can guarantee it's coming in floods from me.

Love you!

Re: Continued...

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

You are welcome from the depths of my heart!

I cannot believe that I painted your Harry, the one you see in your mind. What a thrilling feeling! This is my Harry, so for it to be a perfect match with yours is just fantastic. God, I can’t even begin to describe how happy that makes me! I’ve never been able to draw the Harry I see in my mind, until now. Either I wasn’t good enough, or I just didn’t try at it enough, but this time I really got him.

All of your descriptions and thoughs about the painting have me melting over here. You’ve caught everything I wanted you to: the tiredness around his eyes, his skin looking ill, the pain showing through the way he holds his mouth, my wanting to capture the after-effects of being treated like he was, and everything else you mention. Like I was telling someone else, a couple of times I thought maybe I should make his furrowed brow a little more pronounced or have his teeth show a bit, but I didn’t because Harry wouldn’t let the pain show, he’d want to hold it in and suppress it.

I LOVED Draco, but I think I love this more. People just don't tend to pick the messed up things to paint - they pick the pretty, undamaged things, or they show the beauty in single dimension.

Yes, yes, yes. That's one of the reasons I was so nervous about posting this painting in particular because it shows something that isn't often shown.

Writing it from Harry's pov always meant that I understood his motivations better than Draco's, and in some ways that was my nod to canon, in which we have Draco and his intentions shrouded in a certain kind of mystery, because he's not the character we're intimate with.

Fuck. Did I subconciously know that or is it a coinsidence that I happened to paint a more mysterious Draco and then a very detailed, raw Harry? I could have easily done the opposite. I think that of the two paintings, you can read Draco’s emotions but you can really read Harry’s. I totally didn’t plan on that, but there it is, and it goes so well with the story and your thoughts on it that I’m shell shocked at the realization.

Your Harry is my Harry as much as mine is yours. I love your thoughts on the core of his personality - they are my thoughts mirrored. I think that’s why your stories have struck such a cord with me and why this painting strikes a cord with you, and this painting is as much a part of you as it is me, darling!

Have you noticed how it's okay for fanfic to break Draco on a regular basis, but you cannot fuck with 'the people's' Harry?

I have definitely noticed that, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I love this Harry so much, because he’s so realistic to how a person would be if all of that happened to them, and I just love the darkness there. People don’t write him this way nearly enough.

I hope these paintings have had more people discover the brilliance that is the Mudhoney trilogy! Both of them are recs as much as they are fanart, from me to the H/D fandom to go read it now, if they haven't already.

Love you right back!

[empress-jae.livejournal.com]

you are a one of a kind talent and both of these pieces are breath taking. your gift is other-worldly.

do you mind if i fangirl friend you? :)

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

What lovely words, thank you so much! :)

:D I'm so glad you did!! I've friended you right back.

[bryoneybrynn.livejournal.com]

Darling, this is INCREDIBLE. I can't believe the size of your talent. Please tell me this is what you are doing with your life!! God, his hair, his LIPS. The way the light plays across his stomach. And the bruises on his side look so angry and so real. And his eyes - you can almost imagine them all sticky and the circles under them - you've just captured him so perfectly.

I'm so glad you drew this moment. I think you're exactly right about its importance and it's such a chilling moment in the triology and a gorgeous account of broken!Harry. I've seen little to match it and it is indeed very haunting.

Dear god, his mouth. I can't stop looking at his mouth.

Please keep drawing!!! PLEASE!

Sorry, I'll calm down now. This is just so stunning. Thank you for sharing!

[piratesmile331.livejournal.com]

Aren't you supposed to be working on your dissertation?
Just trying to be a friend. I think you asked us to redirect you when you got distracted. *lol*

[themostepotente.livejournal.com]

Hi there!

Cal sent me an email this morning to come and check out your art, and WOW. WOW. WOW.

MY GOD THIS IS FANTASTIC! Both of your art pieces. JAYSUS.

I'll be reccing these today for sure, and dude, I am SO friending you.

Welcome to fandom!

--TMP

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

Hi!

How sweet of Cal! I'm very glad she did.

Wow, thank you very much!! I'm SO pleased with your reaction to them.

And thank you for the welcome! I'm actually not new to the fandom, I just haven't been active in four years (though I wasn't too active back then, really, lol). I totally friended you back!! :D

[roedhunt.livejournal.com]

Even though I know which scene this is from, I had to go back and read it because you have captured perfectly the pain I remember...Not just the pain Harry had endured, but the pain I had felt in my heart when I had read it.

But it's a good pain. *g*

And your drew the very essence of what Harry was going through at the time. No words can express how much I love this wonderful drawing save the emotion you have brought out in me. I hope you take this as a compliment for I mean it that way. Most sincerely. *hugs you*

[pink-mint.livejournal.com]

It makes me so happy that I could capture even a little bit of the pain in that scene. I had to read it twice during painting this because I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any details.

And it is a good pain. Her Harry is so erotic and sensual, how could it not be? :)

That's the biggest compliment you could pay, dearest! Thank you so much for liking this and for your words. *hugs back !! *