Illustration Friday - Atmosphere

Water media on gessoed mountboard © Caroline Soer 2010

'The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed'.

From The Moon and Little Frieda by Ted Hughes

I combined this week's Illustration Friday word 'atmosphere' with last week's 'star gazing'. I chose this line of poetry by Ted Hughes from ' The Moon and Little Frieda' in which Hughes vividly evokes the atmosphere of the English countryside.

Full Moon and Little Frieda


A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket –

And you listening.
A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath –
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.

“Moon!” you cry suddenly, “Moon! Moon!”

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.


--Ted Hughes, from Wodwo (1967)