The Inquisitives | Mixed Media Project

The evening sun witnessed two shadowy figures, adorned in outfits not suitable for the outlines of female frames, hurried past the diner's front window, glancing across the street to avoid the curious stares of patrons inside. They cursed, moving swiftly to the corner of the lone business, then ducked behind the building. Not five seconds later, headlights from a shiny, silver vintage vehicle sped by. Guessing that the person of interest they sought behind the wheel would slow down at the approaching intersection, they waited for the driver to place the car in reverse and parallel park.

While they waited, Miriam and Muriel dug deep into their pockets. Each pulled out a different color and flavor of bubblegum and plopped it into their mouths before Muriel reached over her sister's shoulder from behind and quickly snapped a picture of the surrounding landscape, not caring for clarity. Her photographic memory helped.

Miriam and Muriel. Twins whose closeness was admired by others, considered themselves protectors of each other since young.

Their hair, parted down the center, soft and dark like black velvet, hung past their shoulders. Muriel never followed through on her threats to abandon the part in the middle and try on for good measure her flowing strands layered to the left side. Miriam instantly clipped that idea of conforming to society's view of beauty in their generation.

Now adult, both were unmarried and unattached from current relationships. They didn't have time for such distractions. Curiousness of criminality became the center of their lives. And they loved the dark alleys and backstreets that held an assortment of mysterious and creepy characters.

For the past five years, they fancied themselves professional detectives capable of solving the most complex mystery cases. The detective agency who hired them acknowledged their superior reasoning skills and graciously offered them both positions. Nothing less was acceptable.

Miriam, the oldest by two minutes as she'd always boasted, peeked from the edge of the wall and quickly scanned the rear of the vehicle. As quickly as she flashed the binocular eye, she retraced it. Excellent memory locked onto the license plates as she rejoined Muriel, then repeated the car's information.

Their surveillance began.

They watched intently two men, not one as originally expected, exited the vehicle. Walking closely together, the pair paused at the rear of the car. One stood in front of the other with his back toward each other. His hands folded together as if to protect his partner from any interruptions didn't go unnoticed by Miriam.

"They're hiding something in that vehicle," she whispered to Muriel. No sooner than she finished the sentence, the man closest to the car opened the trunk, then bent over, retrieved several packages from a case, and pushed them inside his pockets. Others he handed to his partner who did the same.

Miriam's binoculars, not switched to night vision, as the sun cast long shadows over the town's landscape. The streetlight near the vehicle illuminated the two men's outlines.

Behind her, she listened as more patrons flocked to the cafe in time for the dinner hour.

The flurry of activity from diner caught the two men's eyes as they hurried to finish retrieving the packages, then slammed the trunk shut. They scoured the area as if in search of someone.

From out of nowhere three men and a female walked briskly toward the vehicle. To Miriam and Muriel, they fit the scenario of clientele for whatever the two men were exchanging. Nothing concrete; but their experience in these type of dealings were never far from their speculation.

Instantly, as if the two men caught wind of a situation not in their favor, Miriam and Muriel spotted them turn and look in their direction. Whether it was the patrons' laughter as they entered the cafe or some other persons that caused them to perhaps rethink their mission, they ran toward the car doors and jumped inside.

Moments later, the black sports car's gears cried as its wheels fought to quickly obey the command to get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. Moments later, the vehicle's tired straightened, then zoomed down the boulevard back toward the direction they came.

Miriam lowered her binoculars. "Damn, we've got to follow, else risk losing their trail."

"We've already lost their trail. But the evening isn't a total waste. I'll bet some of the customers and even employees of the diner has seen that beauty of a vehicle around here previously," Muriel nodded as if sensing Miriam's hunger rising.

"Let's see if it'll be worth it to sample the menu another day."

With that, they entered the diner to eat and investigate.

Tomorrow would be another day. They'd learned something new. Their investigation had widened.

For my current mixed media project, my vision was to create an odd character from an unusual free-sourced image I discovered of a female with a crackled face. What an opportunity to build a likeable character with a career not in the usual realm of females. But not only one, I decided to duplicate the image so that she could have a twin. The duplication feature worked well for that purpose. The female already looked ominous. Both transmitted a comical feel, especially given the a different alien eye I attached to each one's face.

Below are my steps in which I utilized Canva to blend the different type images. I leave with you my procedures which began with a blank, white canvas. I then add layers of elements in accordance with my upgraded Annual Pro Membership that includes tools to remove backgrounds, resize, filter, duplicate, and reposition items as required.

Below are the images I included in my design. One images was a pure fractal I created in the advanced fractal rendering program, Apophysis 7X. Another image was from a stable diffusion program, StarryAI of a streetlight.

---

^{Midnight landscape ~ Female ~ Heart shaped eye necklace ~ Streetlight ~ Coala eye - Contributed to the #LIL by @alex2alex ~ Colorful eye ~ Pure Fractal titled "Eye"}