…is the name of today’s story on Fictive Dream.
Throughout the month of Februrary 2021 I will be showing you illustrations I did for Flash Fiction February 2021 at Fictive Dream, an online short-story magazine. For more information about FFF21 and my artwork process, look here.
Here’s the image editor Laura Black chose for this story, Terror at the Top of the World, by Francine Witte.
And here is the artwork with the banner. Take a look at this image. And then…
Read the story at Fictive Dream.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
I’m delighted that Flash Fiction February has finally begun, and I decided to start with Terror at the Top of the World by Francine Witte. It’s a chilling story and although for a brief period of time I had a shortlist of artworks in mind, it soon became clear which one truly encompassed the tone and dominant theme of the story. Thank you, Claudia, for the perfect illustration for a story about survival.
Thank you. To me, the cold color tones that this image has always bring up feelings of isolation and actual coldness, and I think they fit this story with its chilling message really well.
Definitely. The colours capture the smoke, and the despair in the story. And the green is a marvellous touch.
I think there always needs to be a bit of bright in a darker or gloomier image, both visually and metaphorically. Just as in life, you cannot see the dark unless there is or has been light, and vice versa, and I like to make that point in an image.
The artwork is perfect. You’ve captured that claustrophobic sense of a landscape shrouded in a thick pall of smoke and I like that you chose blue-grey to create a cold, chilly tone. I also like that break of vivid green that maybe suggests a sense of hope or possibility.
I have a certain paint that is a perfect shade of gray blue and I bought extra, in case it is ever discontinued! exactly because of the chill and cold it has (as opposed to so many blues that have green or yellow in them, or red…no one seems to think of gray, but anyway). I also like that green color very much and I also think of it as a lightening of a picture, whereever it appears.
Interesting view. I’ve never quite thought of it in that way.