Illustrations for Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” I’m planning to paint images for all thirteen stanzas, and then maybe print them together as a small book!
“Before us, quaking in the moonlight, was the giant spherical head of a cottonwood. It was the first tree I had seen in seven hundred miles” (Claire Vaye Watkins, “The Diggings”).
Another painting for my book illustration class, this one is a double page spread for a short story from Claire Vaye Watkins’ Battleborn. The collection is full of clean, piercing writing & harsh landscapes, and while my favourite story, “Ghosts, Cowboys,” doesn’t lend itself that well to images, the gold country story “The Diggings” is full of excellent illustration opportunities. In this scene, Joshua and his brother have been abandoned on the road to California and are slowly dying in the hundred mile desert when a burro appears to lead Joshua to a giant cottonwood tree (and water)
After deleting my twitter account I’m continuing my descent into obscurity and irrelevance by moving to a small town in upstate New York.
It’s quite exhilarating.Maybe I’ll delete this blog next!
(via pitomi-div-vidi)