Alison Stephen Illustration

For two little birds who are going to City Hall!

Another illustration about a book I enjoyed, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (David Mitchell, 2010).  I drew this portrait of my favorite character, Orito Aibagawa, a midwife in Dejima in turn-of-the-19th-century Japan.  That’s all I should say, but there’s more to this story than meets the eye…

I’ve had this story and its imagery on my mind since I read Tea Obreht’s excerpt in the New Yorker a year or two ago. I just read her novel of the same name, and this is how I see it!

I’m trying some things out in Adobe Illustrator, and I have to say– I’m enjoying it!  What do you think?

I finally got around to doing something I’ve always thought about– illustrating the poem “13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens (1917).

16 x 16 inches, Ink and Acrylic on gesso board.

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

Bri Hermanson, Daniel Hertzberg and I enjoyed the beach theme at the Society of Illustrators sketch night yesterday. Four figure drawings below…

I had a blast today drawing portraits of these cute doggie participants at the “Bark for Life” fundraising walk for the American Cancer Society.  When Bri Hermanson and Stephen Gardner invited me to participate in this Society of Illustrators volunteer table, I couldn’t think of anything better than combining dogs and drawing!  Together, we drew 38 dog portraits, raising $760 for the ACS.  Here are some highlights of my new little friends…