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Nymphs and their Habitat
Nymphs are minor female nature deities from Ancient Greek folklore. Like Pan, they serve as personifications of nature but unlike Pan, who can turn up anywhere (e.g. in The Wind In The Willows or as a character in The Secret Garden), nymphs are typically tied to a specific place. They are usually depicted by horny…
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Snow Play In Art and Illustration
A whole town comes together in carnivalesque fashion for a snow fight in the wonderful scene below.
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Baseball Art and Storytelling
Examples from sports illustrators and book covers
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Symbolism Of The Circle
Just as the ocean has both a depth and a surface, the circle has both a centre and a circumference. In this way, there are two aspects to its symbolism.
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Cryptobotany and Creepy Trees In Stories and Art
With their roots reaching deep into the earth, trees encapsulate the tense relationship of history and modernity.
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Posties, Letterboxes and Postal Services in Illustration
There will come a time when people don’t remember the postal service as it exists now (or used to exist). Here are some images which now seem a little quaint.
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Sunsets and Sunrises in Art and Illustration
I can’t be sure which of these illustrations depict sunrise and which sunset, but it’s funny how sometimes you still get a sense of the hour of day. How do artists do that?
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Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present by Sendak and Zolotow Analysis
Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present is a 1962 picture book written by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Zolotow and Sendak were both giants of American picture book world. Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present was also a Caldecott Medal Honor Book, so it’s interesting to look through a contemporary lens and see…
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Gallatin Canyon by Thomas McGuane Short Story Analysis
“Gallatin Canyon” is a short, grim road trip story by American author Thomas McGuane. This story served as the title of McGuane’s 2006 collection. In 2021, Deborah Treisman and Téa Obreht discussed its merits on the New Yorker fiction podcast. SYNOPSIS A man and a woman drive through Gallatin Canyon, toward Idaho, where the narrator…
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Wrapping Gifts and Presents in Art and Storytelling
They were at breakfast table, and the boy looked up from his plate curiously. He was an alert-eyed youngster with flat bond hair and a quick, nervous manner. He didn’t understand what the sudden tension was about, but he did know that today was his birthday, and he wanted harmony above all. Somewhere in the…
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Clouds In Art and Storytelling
“I like the clouds… the clouds that pass… there… there… the wonderful clouds!” Charles Baudelaire, the stranger The water droplets in sea spray can have a big impact on the atmosphere by helping seed clouds – and they may form when bubbles violently collide underwater, New Scientist “As a cloud crosses the sun, silence falls…
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Books About Boys Who Dance
Some of the books below are specifically about boys and men who dance. Others are more generally about celebrating boys who break free of expected masculine roles. Unfortunately there’s still a way to go before book publishing breaks away from the strict gender binary. That’s why we’re still getting books which say, “Boys can do…
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How To Write A Hate Sink Character
There are certain character traits which audiences universally dislike. When they appear in fiction, audiences understand ‘this is the character I’m supposed to hate’. This character is called the Hate Sink. I have previously explored how writers create unlikeable but sympathetic characters. There is a list of tricks which have been utilised by storytellers to…
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Children’s Fiction Based On The Odyssey
There are three main types of modern myth, and by ‘modern’ I mean ‘3000 years old’. In one type the main character hangs around home base (e.g. an island). This type of myth is known as a Robinsonnade. Another much newer type is the so-called Female Myth, in which the main character (of any gender)…
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Symbolism of Bridges and Rainbows
Why bridges and rainbows? What have they got to do with each other? Well, the archetypal bridge is an arc shape, like the rainbow. Symbolically, bridges and rainbows can be similar.