A Foreshadowing of Signs and Shadows

Here’s some fun stuff. Julie and I have each done a painting recently, both depicting scenes from my fantasy novel Signs and Shadows (which is under hopeful consideration on an editor’s desk — everybody pull for good news!). It’s a tricky thing to make pictures of your own work. Tolkien was determined not to draw his characters very clearly or close-up, because he didn’t want to interfere with the reader’s images gotten from the text. I’m willing to go there for a couple reasons: 1. Because I’m such a poor, untrained artist, my paintings don’t tell you much about what the characters look like, anyway. You’re still free to imagine quite a bit. 2. I consider any depiction — including my own — to be simply that: one artist’s rendering. I enjoy how different artists draw the same characters in very different ways.

So, anyway, here are the pictures. Snippets from Signs and Shadows are sprinkled throughout. I hope you like this glimpse into the world of the Hearkens!

Title: Our Ancestral Home, by Frederic S. Durbin — acrylic, February 8-9, 2015

Here’s the same thing in natural daylight:

This is an earlier version, before refining Meghan (the figure at left). In these digital photos, the brush strokes are much more obvious. I wish I could show you all the painting in person!

We passed through a grand gallery where the walls opened out, the ceiling flew into invisible heights, and our stairway climbed a ramp over a wide chasm that plunged far into the depths; somewhere below, I heard the river again. I thought this might be an interstice between wings of the Hall — a space between the gigantic “hat-boxes.”

Our Ancestral Home, detail: upper left quadrant.

To our left, at a distance I would not have thought possible indoors, a person traversed another ramp-stairway above the void, that stair climbing in the direction opposite to ours. I could see the figure by the glow of the lantern he or she carried, though its light was more deeply blue than Coil’s.

Here’s the same view under artificial light.

I walked close beside Constance. After the pleasant boat ride and the joy of getting past the gate, the enormity of being inside Hearken Hall was settling upon us both. The darkness didn’t help; nor did the countenance of the red-eyed creature who received us. If Paddy hadn’t followed him, I would have been convinced there was some mistake.

Here’s the upper right quadrant. That’s a stone angel projecting from the wall above and behind the figure with the lantern.

I thought for a moment I heard a flurry of whispers all around, as if the walls were speaking . . . or as if the lingering spirits of uncounted generations of Hearkens were discussing us.

Here’s the same view with artificial light. I like how the green lamp casts a shine on the landing at Coil’s feet.

“Affairs have worsened.” Coil looked as if he would have said more, but was perhaps unwilling to speak in front of the policemen.

Constance, finished with wondering in silence, said: “Aunt Morlinda told us we’d be safe here.”

“She didn’t say exactly that,” said Paddy. “She said we wouldn’t be safe elsewhere. But safety is a relative concept; I’m afraid it’s a very distant relative of ours.”

Constance Hearken, and in the background, the Lady Gwendolyn Isabella Hearken — the Lady in Red. Really, the brush strokes in the deep blue are not nearly as obvious in real life!

I grew up supposing . . . that there was no force in all the world more formidable than my sister Constance . . .

Under artificial light.

And as our grand finale, here is Julie’s painting:

Working title: A Return to Hazel Lane — watercolor, January 2015, by Julie Durbin

Leaning back on my elbows, I admired the way light speared the thick shade on the far bank, where wild blackberry bushes choked the trunks and kept our pond mostly private. . . . It was a pool of water in a pool of sunlight at midday. That intrigued me, the infusing of the two — light filling another medium, like a giant green jewel. In this glowing realm, tadpoles swam, strider-bugs walked like the Lord on the sea . . . In the gloaming, when the frogs sang and the crickets fiddled, it was the most enchanted place I knew. But it was not fairy country; it was safe and quiet, the moon never wearing a witch-ring, and no stones standing in the woods. Paddy had chosen it with care.