Rough Pen Drawing

 

Ethel M. Dell

It is difficult to talk about popular literature in the 1920s without talking about a particularly shy British novelist whom critics liked to hate with a passion but readers loved to read named Ethel M. Dell (1881-1939). So shy was she that she was never interviewed. But starting in 1911 she wrote over 30 popular romance novels and several short stories but remained quiet and almost pathologically shy. What the critics said didn’t seem to bother her for she considered herself a good storyteller – nothing more nothing less.

Dell whose father was a clerk grew up in a middle-class family and started writing at an early age. Her romantic stories which were said to be racy were set in India and other British colonial possessions. Her cousins would count the times she used the words: passion, tremble, pant and thrill. She worked on a book for several years but it was rejected by eight publishers. When it was finally published in 1911 it was entitled “The Way of an Eagle.” George Orwell in his novel “Keep the Aspidistra Flying” has his protagonist make several scathing attacks on Dell, reserving special venom for “The Way of an Eagle”. However, the book was incredibly popular and between 1911 and 1915 it had gone through 30 printings.

In 1922, Ethel married a soldier, Lieutenant-Colonel Gerald Tahourdin Savage, when she was 40 and the marriage was happy. Colonel Savage resigned his commission on his marriage and Dell became the support of the family. Her husband devoted himself to her and fiercely guarded her privacy. For her part, she went on writing and made a lot of money eventually producing about thirty novels and several volumes of short stories.

Oil Pastel

 

RJX

The Scream

My favorite drawing medium is Oil Pastel. For me, it's the most direct way to paint landscapes, but in my country, it has a bad name. Almost everyone seems to think it is an amateurish way of painting, they say the colors fade with time, and the most professional way of painting according to everyone seems to be Oil Painting. It is such a strong belief held by so many that I believed them for many years and threw away almost all of the drawings I did. But one day I found that one of the most iconic images in the world of art "The Scream" done by the Norwegian painter Edvard Munch was done with pastel in 1893. This painting sold for nearly 120 million dollars in 2012.

The agonized face in the painting is said to depict "The Anxiety of the Human Condition", something that seems to have been always present in Munch's life. With a childhood of illness and bereavement, Munch always dreaded getting a mental condition that many of his relatives had. No wonder he drew such haunting paintings. He later described his inspiration for the painting as follows:

"I was walking along the road with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature".

I liked this painting so much that I decided to draw it without copying it. Halfway into the painting, it went terribly wrong but I managed to salvage it to an extent. The result is given below together with the original painting.

RJX

Kumbuk Tree - Terminalia Arjuna

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NaTree Leaves - Mesua Ferrea (Iron Wood Tree)

 

Kobolila Tree - Bauhinia purpurea

 

Bauhinia purpurea is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar, and widely introduced elsewhere in tropical and subtropical areas of the world. 

Rough Pen Drawing

 

Rough Pen Drawing

 

RJX

Trees - Oil Pastel

 

RJX

John Masefield

John Edward Masefield (1878-1967), was an English author and poet laureate. His reputation was established with “Salt-Water Ballads” (1902). “The Everlasting Mercy (1911), “The Dauber” (1913), and “Reynard the Fox” (1920), are representative of his long narrative poems. Masefield also wrote novels, short stories, and critical studies. 

 

In his 16th year, he sailed as an apprentice seaman on a windjammer, rounding Cape Horn. Illness sent him home from a Chilean port. He then became an officer in the liner Adriatic. In 1895 poor health caused him to stay ashore in New York City. For several years he lived as a vagrant, shifting between odd jobs before he found work as a barkeeper’s assistant. In 1895 he read the poem by Duncan Campbell Scott called “The Piper of Arll.” Ten years later he wrote to Scott to tell what reading the poem meant to him:

 

“I had never (till that time) cared very much for poetry, but your poem impressed me deeply and set me on fire. Since then poetry has been one deep influence in my life, and to the love of poetry, I owe all my friends and the position I now hold. 

 

Returning to England, Masefield began his literary career by writing poems, short stories, articles, and book reviews for magazines. In 1930 he succeeded Robert Bridges as poet laureate. It was not until 70 that Masefield slowed his pace. “In Glad Thanksgiving” his last book was published when he was 88 years old. In 1960 his wife Constance died aged 93. In late 1966 Masefield developed gangrene in his ankle. This spread to his leg and he died of the infection in 1967. His body was cremated and his ashes were placed in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. However, the following verse by Masefield was discovered later addressed to his “Heirs, Administrators, and assigns”:

 

No religious rite be done or read

In any place for me when I am dead

But burn my body into ash, and scatter

The ash in secret into running water

Or on the windy down, and let none see

And then, thank God that there’s an end of me. 

 

He wrote the following memorable poem:

 

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking

And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking

 

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied

And all I ask is a windy day with white clouds flying

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.