My friend Joe’s long-poem, which I’ve been illustrating in a sort of long image running along the bottom, page by page, ends with the Harrowing of Hell. In Christian tradition, after the Crucifixion, Christ descended to hell, broke open the gates, and freed the worthy souls.
There’s a far more in depth look at the whole thing on wikipedia here —–> the Harrowing of Hell
So, this section of the poem, with space at the bottom for the illustrations, runs to 16 pages. I used a fan brush to put down the initial layers of ink, getting lighter with added water as I went along. The final illustration is Christ busting down the door to hell, so it’s the lightest. I then added in figures, sort of looking ‘towards’ (or away from) page 16.
This wraps up a long, long project. It clocks in at 331 ink and wash paintings, about 10 pounds of paper…
