Tuesday, April 26, 2005

Reading Journal Entry: "A Christmas Visitor"

This novella features one of the characters of the William Monk series. Henry Rathbone is a distinguished mathematician and the father of Sir Oliver Rathbone (a one-time suitor of Hester Monk.) He is summoned to the Lake District by his goddaughter Antonia Dreghorne, whose husband has recently died in what appeared to be a senseless accident. But his good name is being smeared by a man he sent to prison for 11 years, and now Judge Dreghorne's wife and brothers fear he was murdered by Ashton Gower. This was a pleasant little read, but far from gripping. A bit of trivia that tickled me were the whimsical names of the jams that Henry had for breakfast: witherslacks (damson plum), black kite (blackberry) and hinberry (raspberry)

I made the illustration for this book review by first painting the pages with purple acrylic paints. The estate that is at the heart of the story was represented by tearing around a picture of a home that I found in a British tourism magazine. To soften the torn edges and blend them into the background, I used rubberstamping pigment inks on a fingertip dauber. The title was written with gold gouache, while the author's name was gold gouache with a bit of indigo added to it.

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