Is the idea of a blind painter really so odd? I may not experience the world in quite the same way you do, but I can share my experience all the same. We see things differently, but our souls are the same. Allow me to give you a glimpse into mine.— Kartina, Zhelt Artist
The Zhelt now known as Kartina was fascinated with the concept of colors from a young age. Zhelt - being little more than human-sized blobs of gel - are blind, and it was mind-blowing to the child that there existed something so strange that no one seemed capable of describing it to him in words he could fully grasp. They were emotions, but also sensations, but sometimes also the idea of objects. Few people agreed, or if they did, it wasn't in any way Kartina could understand. This all came to a head when the slime first encountered a painter, and asked to know what is was the man was doing slopping liquids onto a canvas the way he was. It was here that they finally received an answer that felt right. "Colors," the man had explained, "are the essence of reality. What you experience, what you feel, can all be expressed through them, if only you take the time to learn how."
With enough pleading, the painter agreed to take Kartina on as his pupil, teaching him every art technique he could manage. Though they were an eager student and a born sculptor, two-dimensional fundamentals like sketching were practically impossible to learn. Painting, too, proved to be trickier than the poor youth would have liked, until one day they stumbled across some of their master's older works. The paints were thick, applied in messy swaths and deep cuts through the pigments. The distinctions between each stroke was so clear that Kartina could finally see the image depicted by her master's paintings as clearly as if it were right in front of them. This lesser-used technique, long since believed to have become obsolete by much of Stirge's artistic community, would be the young Zhelt's medium of choice.
Now a renowned artist in their own right, Kartina made their mark on history by creating wild paintings filled with depth and texture and a stunning grasp of color theory despite a complete inability to see it for themselves. Even so, some of their best-known works dropped any pretense of color balance entirely, choosing only to paint with pigments made from materials that spoke to them, creating wild and vivid pieces that perfectly represented their subjects in wild, almost psychedelic hues.
Physical Description
Kartina, like all Zhelt, does not technically have a 'body' in the sense most humans are used to. By default, they're essentially just a blob of transparent gel with an opaque nucleus at their center, though Kartina does prefer to shape themselves into something approximating a human form more often than not. Ironically, despite their vocation, their own color scheme is decidedly drab, with a nearly colorless outer gel and a light tan nucleus. This has only encouraged them to experiment in drastic means of 'painting' their own body with various dyes and oils, however.
Kartina has a finely tuned sense of touch - or hearing, depending on how one interprets Zhelt senses. With even the slightest sound or other vibrations in the air, they are able to form a nearly perfect model of the space around themselves and hold it in their mind. When painting, they have been known to set up a metronome in order to create an even, constant view of a room or subject.
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