While I am working on my novella, Only Regrets, I’m spending hours at my work table, too, and, these days, I am drawing on the monsters that play behind my eyelids. These odd creatures often express my frustration or dismay about contemporary issues, but sometimes they just ARE. So, here are a few of them, with explanations.

 A book of fairy tale illustrations I have, a collection of magical watercolor and ink drawings by Arthur Rackham, inspired this and other drawings.  The yellow-ish faun on the upper left hand side is holding a cut watermelon. The original offers up a donkey’s head, destined for Bottom, a character in Wm. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Why a watermelon? Well, it’s summer and I didn’t feel like drawing a donkey’s head.

I call this warty, green fellow Caliban. Another reference to Shakespeare. You can see I doodled him on a page from my easy, large-print crossword puzzle book I enjoy every  morning with a cup of coffee. Sometimes I scribble a tentative caption next to the drawing revealing my state of mind at the moment.

Another crossword puzzle morning’s doodle. “Public Opinion.” Often not to be trusted.

“Moonless Night and the Woman,” another Rackham-inspired study. I can’t imagine what that fairy tale was about, but in the original drawing, he has the woman saying, “Well, aren’t I lucky?” Looks like she called on a spirit of the Night and–surprise,surprise–it came at her bidding. Remind me not to do that.

I’ve also been drawing my alter ego, Gerty, and keeping the images in a lovely journal but I’ll share those with you some other time.