Etching 8×10 inches
Glamdring, Gandalfs great Elfen sword, and Anglachel, later known as Gurthang wielded by both Beleg and Turin Turambar, played very important rules in their respective stories, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion/ The Children of Turin, by J.R.R.Tolkien. Glaurung the greatest of the fire breathing dragons was slain by Gurthang, and Glamdring, found in the Trolls stash, in The Hobbit, was Gandalfs weapon, along with his staff throughout the decisive moments in the war of the Ring, including his epic battle with the Balrog, in the caverns of Khazad-dum.
Swords hold a fascination for me despite their horrible function of killing people. They are sexy, beautiful, phallic, and irresistible to a sculptor. I hope to capture more of them that are now in my imagination.
Pen on Rives BFK
22 x 15 inches
As far as Tolkien’s villains go I find Melkor to be more interesting than Sauron, especially the way he was in Valinor before he became Morgoth, when he deceived Feanor and many of the Valar, and this was the incarnation that I was interested in capturing in this drawing for my series based on the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, as well as The Children of Hurin. Among the models I used to help me create my idea of Melkor, many were the same as those I used for my etchings of Gandalf, but a new one that really gave me the best image of malevalance was the young, beautiful Marlon Brando. I was watching a scene from “A Streetcar Named Desire” where he devastates the hapless Blanche, and realized that with his good looks and all the seething hatred inside, this particular Brando gave much that related to Melkor.
His transformation into Morgoth also makes Melkor interesting to me, and I’ll be drawing this version of him soon.
#2 Pencil on Rives BFK
30 x 22 inches
My latest illustration based on The Silmarillion, The Lord of the Rings, and The Children of Hurin, by J.R.R.Tolkien is a pencil drawing of Yavanna, the Valar, and one of the Aratar, the wife of Alue, and known to the Elves as Kementari. So far many of the images in my series have been of dark and/or violent subjects, such as Turin slaying Glaurung, Glorfindel battling the balrog, or Luthien Tinuviel and Beren confronting Morgoth in the nethermost chamber of Thangorodrim. So this piece came about as I sorely needed to create some images of a lighter tone. Though Yavanna was responsible for creating all growing things, I wanted to present her among flowers, as this would give the brightest most positive image possible.
As I wanted to keep this image very light, both emotionally and visually, I used only a number 2 pencil. The particular brand I used has slightly harder lead than others, making it very easy to blend. It also has possibly the most romantic name of any drawing implement I’ve ever heard of, Mirado Black Warrior. (no, I’m not making it up)
Charcoal and Compressed Charcoal on Rives BFK
30 x 22 inches
My latest drawing is from Tolkien’s most recently published book, “The Children of Hurin”, and depicts Turin Turambar, with the sword Gurthang, (originally known as Anglachel), slaying the lord of the fire-breathing dragons Glaurung, in the narrow chasm of the Teiglin river. Compositionally this was a difficult picture. The dragon being rather a long bodied creature tends to make one think that a horizontal composition is best. But when I laid it out this way, Turin being, of course, much smaller than Glaurung, becomes so tiny that no real details can be shown of him. This is because a human figure is essentially a vertical form, and when the page is horizontal, with the very large form of a dragon at the top, there is left very little height for the figure. I made a good many sketches attempting to solve this problem. My breakthrough came when I realized that I could orient the page vertically if I used a worms-eye point of view. By doing this, Turin could be drawn large enough to give him facial detail (which was very important to me), and also Glaurung shown in his, correctly, much larger proportion to Turin. This is because, being higher in the composition, the dragon is now much farther from the observer’s point of view, and therefore visually smaller than he would be if he where at the same level as Turin. Also giving Glaurung an extremely arched back, as he is “feeling his death-pang”, allowed me to depict almost all of his body.
Graphite and Charcoal on Rives BFK
22 x 30 inches
Earendil in Vingliot, with the Silmaril on his brow, slaying Ancalagon, in the incredible aerial battle above the gates of Thangorodrim, from J.R.R.Tolkien’s The Silmarillion, is the subject of my latest drawing. It would have been an astonishing site to see the eagles and the other great birds in air to air combat with the dragons.
The moment just before Earendil slays Ancalagon, as dawn is breaking, seemed to me to be the the most intense moment of this sequence, and is what I have depicted. As there is no hint in Tolkien’s text as to what weapon was used to accomplish this feat, I spent a good amount of time trying to visualise exactly how he could have done it. I even wrote out a list of possibilities that included such things as:
bow and arrow;
Earendil attached to a rope leaps out from the ship with a sword in hand and stabs Ancalagon
or, sword in hand, leans out;
Earendil, on the very prow of Vingliot, with a lance or spear;
in the crows nest of the ship with a lance;
having a lightning bolt (a sort of silmaril powered photon torpedo) coming from Earendil’s hand;
as well as other, even more off the wall ideas. I finally decided on having him throw a very large spear, as this seemed the most plausible way a man could kill a giant dragon in mid-air. Earendil being half-elf and a great warrior, would be able to hurl this weapon with sufficient force; and the weapon, if it struck Ancalagon in the right spot, would be capable of killing him.
Graphite and Charcoal on Rives BFK
29 x 22 inches
Glorfindel’s heroic battle with a balrog during the escape from Gondolin, in J.R.R.Tolkien’s Silmarillion, is the subject of my latest drawing. It’s the first larger scale piece I’ve finished, and I intend to have many more coming of this size in the future.Though, as is often the case in the Silmarillion, there is not much description of this event, what there is creates one of the most exciting images in all of the Middle Earth stories.
In all the other depictions of this scene that I’ve come across, the ledge that the two advisaries are on seems much too small for them to have a “duel”, as Tolkien describes; it appears to me that the would simply fall off before any fight could insue. I believe my depiction is far more plausible. The black, monstrous demon, contrasted with the beautiful, almost quintessential, blond elf warrior, and their teetering over an abyss, is what most interested me in this piece.
Graphite Drawing
11 x 7.5 inches
One of the greatest heroes of the Silmarillion, by J.R.R.Tolkien, on a par with Earendil, Glorfindel, Ectheleon, Fingolfin, Turin, or Beren is the preson depicted in this drawing, Luthien Tinuviel. In this piece I was interested in capturing, not only her beauty, but also, her strength, confidence, and great courage. Along with this piece, and the two etchings of her already on this site, I would like to do more drawings of her, especially in her great deed against Morgoth in Thangorodrim. I find the image of a beautiful and powerful gem, in a deep, dark, dungeon, confronting it’s black malevolent heart to be very compelling. I think this is a good image to post in this, national women’s recognition month.
Iluvatar, J.R.R.Tolkien’s imagining of an all-being in his Silmarillion, like Manwe, Ulmo, Varda, Yavanna, and Orome, etcetera, is another mythological character that I felt strongly drawn to when I created my recent etching. Because of sparsity of info that Tolkien gives you about these characters, combined with their very elemental and powerful nature, one has great freedom in depicting them, along with great inspiration.
In my depiction, the notion of music flowing from the creator’s body was exciting to me. I wanted to create a very lyrical somewhat undefined space flowing around and through the figure. And also I wanted to give the sense that Iluvatar was floating in space, while forming stars all around him. I intend to make a companion etching to this one, that will also be a very loose abstract sort of piece. In it all the Ainur will rhythmically flow around Iluvatar, and with the music that he and they are creating.
My etching “Ancalagon”, for my suite devoted to the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien, was partly inspired by the fact that he was the greatest of all the winged dragons. However, since he was mentioned so little by Tolkien, only once in the Silmarillion, and just in passing in The Lord of the Rings, his wonderfully intense name — ANCALAGON THE BLACK — was even more responsible for capturing my imagination.The artistic challenge here, it seemed to me, was to create the quintessential dragon, and, also, to capture the feeling that his name induces of extreme blackness visually, and implied insidiousness and malevolence. My approach was to make Ancalagon as simple as possible, leaving out any horns or ruffles etcetera, giving him only the essential elements needed to fulfill this vision. Below are my notes to myself at the very first moment when I began to conceive of this etching, pretty much verbatim.
I hope to create another etching of Ancalagon in the scene where Morgoth unleashes the dragons from Thangorodrim, in the last battle with the Valar.
Ancalagon the Black:
wicked, monstrous, jet black, gleaming
calm, cool, cynical, cold
fairly simple, not too many horns
slithery, yet massive
potent
massive, but not macho — powerful
oppressive, deadly
eyes gleaming
I think the original version of my etching, “Luthien, Beren and Morgoth”, depicting the event in the deepest chamber of Angband, beneath Thangorodrim, for my suite of prints inspired by J.R.R.Tolkien, was fairly successful. However, I was never totally satisfied with the swirling lines meant to depict Luthien’s hypnotic song. So I decided to do a second, (and later a third), state of this piece. Creating a new “state” of an etching means reworking the same plate that produced the first image. In this case I first wanted to see how the print would look without the “song” lines, so I re-etched over them and blended them into the background. I rather like the results, and feel it still tells the story this way. I only printed 5 in this state, as I wanted to move on to the third.
In the final state I am again going to add the “song” lines, however this time I will create them purely by burnishing. Burnishing means rubbing the plate with a smooth steel tool thereby actually compressing the metal and smoothing it. This technique will allow me to give the new song lines a much softer, more subtle quality.
Above the new piece are the two states, side by side.