Rust drawing

"A sword, a spade, and a thought should never be allowed to rust"
~ James Stephens
Irish poet and storyteller, 1882-1950



This is my Charcoal drawing for the latest ArtOrder challenge, which was to create an illustration from the above quote. I LOVE these sorts of challenges because they demand that you think outside the box. I knew immediately that the first rule for this piece was to avoid swords and spades as imagery. I thought about it for a while and then, randomly, picked up my favorite book The Neverending Story and opened up to the chapter I was currently re-reading. (I have plans for this book, but in the words of Ende "That's another story and shall be told another time.") Anyways one of the characters has an army of metal giants that she controls with her will. Towards the end, when her evil plans have been thwarted, she looses all control of these giants because her will no longer has a purpose and they kill her. I thought, 'well this is all just too serendipitous'.

"They were puzzled, because they knew it was Xayide's will alone that had moved the hollow giants. So, they thought, it must have been her will that they should trample her to death."

The giants are the personification of Xayide's twisted thoughts and desires. But because all her plans involve manipulation and power, her thoughts are hollow and they prove to be her undoing.

"For years the hollow, black-metal giants stood motionless on the heath not far from the City of the Old Emperors. Rain and snow fell on them, they rusted and little by little sank into the ground, some vertically, some at a slant. But to this day a few of them can be seen."

Now onto the paint!