Он уснул, распростершись навзничь в высокой траве. Золотые волосы разметались по изголовью.

Такая яркая зелень кругом, что серая ткань туники кажется темной. Тени от листьев лежат на груди, на обнаженных до локтя руках, на висках, на опущенных длинных ресницах. Амариэ, присевшая рядом, уже потеряла надежду защитить его от бьющего в лицо света. Но ему, погруженному в глубокий сон, все безразлично. Пусть спит. Солнце приближалось к полудню. Чуть заметно изменился теневой узор. Что-то странное увидела Амариэ: как будто это не тени, а пятна на темной одежде. Наступил полдень. ...Зловеще чернеет пятно на груди. У шеи одежда разорвана и насквозь пропитана засохшей кровью. Запястья охвачены глубокими ссадинами - следом прикосновения чего- то такого холодного, такого жестокого, что непонятно, как это может существовать. А выше ссадин, искажая рисунок теней, проступили багровые рваные раны. Прозрачно-спокойно усталое лицо. Ни боли, ни ужаса - одно отрешение. Под неподвижными ресницами застыл последний взгляд - взгляд измученного, но гордого существа, над которым страдание уже не властно. До этой минуты Амариэ не знала, что такое смерть. Анар сошла с меридиана, тени сдвинулись, и морок исчез. "Я только одного не знаю: почему Мандос отпустил тебя? Ты даже не успел отдохнуть. А здесь светит солнце, здесь надо чувствовать и дышать. Неужели здесь тебе будет лучше? Может быть, дело в том, что здесь есть звезды, а в Мандосе их нет?"

Эйлиан Инглориэль, "And comes no more"

"Return"

Finrod & Amarie

watercolor on paper, 53*38 cm

Private collection

Finrod

In Valinor, again

Atrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

mixed media, 35,5*48,5 cm

mixed media, pastel paper, A4

Finrod

Tol-in-Gaurhoth

graphite, sketchbook A5

Shire, Hobbiton

sketch, A5

Самый часто задаваемый вопрос в финале интервью это - "какой совет вы дадите начинающим художникам?" Наверное, постараться не потерять себя. С одной стороны, интернет позволяет быть в курсе всего происходящего в арт-пространстве, а с другой — так легко подпасть под чужое влияние или пойти на поводупредполагаемых потребностей и пожеланий аудитории, сбиться со своего пути и начать множить сущее. Даже если у вас уже есть аудитория, которой нравится именно то, что вы делаете сейчас, не надо бояться меняться и пробовать новое, иначе это путь в тупик. У меня есть способ проверить, насколько правильно то, что я делаю, насколько это действительно "моё" — хотя бы иногда задавать себе вопрос: а стала бы я такое рисовать, если бы это никто никогда не увидел? Конечно, картина адресуется зрителю, и фиксация идеи в формате наброска, которой мне было бы достаточно, для зрителя одевается в детали, проработку и масштаб, но тем не менее порой, считаю, об этом стоит вспоминать.

So close, so far away...

Finrod & Amarie

commission work

watercolor on cotton paper, 45*57cm

Dagor Bragollach

The outbreak

Angrod, Aegnor

mixed media, 60*44 cm

Sankt-Petersburg, hotel window, coffee and messages pastel, pastel paper Sennelier, 65*50 cm

Fingon, Maedhros, Torondor

sketchbook A5, graphite

Beautiful as the first snow, wild and free... She is very close to me and understandable as a character, I admire her courage and irrepressible desire to see more and more lands, she could not be stopped by the curse of Mandos, the ice of Helcaraxe, the will of her elder brother and her suzerain, (and I find it very strange that people think that a man could hold her by force)

Aredhel & Eol

gouache and watercolours on paper, 48x27cm

***

A long table of golden Dirnen oak was piled at one end with sheets of paper. Kelegorm could not resist pulling one out of the pile. The paper was scribbled with charcoal - at first glance, as if Finrod had amused himself by making random lines and arcs. But when Celegorm turned the sheet, in the jumble of lines, there was a face, as if by magic, turned sideways, a little tilted, with eyes squeezed shut, fractured not by pain but by some terrible, forbidden effort, conveyed by the tension of every muscle.

It was Aegnor's face.

Where, when could Finrod have seen him like this? Or had he not seen it, but only imagined it, thinking of the last hours of the brother he could not even bury? The bodies of Aegnor and Angrod were never found-the outpost they had defended was completely destroyed, the steppe around was burned to the roots of the grass, and it was hard to count how many bones remained in that melted earth from the heat...

Kelegorm dropped a leaf on the table and picked up another at random. He looked at it with some shudder, but it was an ordinary drawing, though very elaborate. Two strokes across the sheet indicated an expanse of plain, joining the sky in the distance, and an elf on a horse was riding across the plain, drawn with vivid strokes. His cloak and hair fluttered in the wind, and in his posture, in the way he ducked his horse's mane, one could sense movement, speed, and impetus. The rider's figure was so eye-catching that Kelegorm did not immediately notice another silhouette at the edge of the sheet. Almost invisible in the thin lines, a woman stood half-turned to the viewer - only her profile with bitterly curt lips and her taut braid thrown forward over her shoulder could fit on the sheet. The woman was looking after the rider, but the latter was galloping away, into the endless steppe, still lit by the sun and not by the devouring fire.

Two familiar faces gazed at Celegorm from the third leaf. Standing behind the woman, the man embraced her, enclosing her in a ring of strong arms, pressing his cheek against her temple. His blond hair blended with her dark curls, but he looked past her into the distance, and there was a pang of unease in the shifting eyebrows and the hard line of his mouth. Angrod and Edeloss. The wife had died two days later than her husband when the orcs had burned their little castle on the banks of the Riville.

The next sheet, and Aegnor again. This time just a sketch - a few lines of the face, barely marked eyebrows, eyes and lips, an arm tucked under his head, hair disheveled as always. And around the two or three sparsely drawn rye ears - so why is it imagined that Aegnor is lying on his back in the middle of a vast field and looking up into the sky, where eagles and clouds are floating...?

Celegorm sighed. It was difficult to imagine how many hours Finrod had spent at that table, recreating the faces of his lost brothers on paper. Over and over again, in different ways-Aegnor and Angrod, Angrod and Aegnor... As if a scribe's charcoal could cross out fate...

"Beyond the Down" by Olga Brileva

...'And then suddenly I beheld as a vision Arda Remade; and there the Eldar completed but not ended could abide in the present for ever, and there walk, maybe, with the Children of Men, their deliverers, and sing to them such songs as, even in the Bliss beyond bliss, should make the green valleys ring and the everlasting mountain-tops to throb like harps'...

Finrod

sketchbook, graphite, A5

Sankt-Petersburg

Red corner, rainy evening

pastel on pastel paper Sennelier, 49*64 cm

The oath

watercolor and colored pencils on paper, 25*35 cm

Endore, The first rise of Anar

Nolofinwe, Arakano, Irissё

pastel paper, charcoal, pastel, watercolor, gouache, colored pencils 56x36 cm

With no sign of elation on their faces, as it should be - "Oh, miracle! The light!" After all the experiences in the ice, emotional susceptibility must become close to zero, for the sake of preserving sanity, it seems to me. Irisse is still looking somewhere, but there is too much guilt on Nolo for, …and too much desire to meet her brother.