I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

Hey Diddle Diddle by Frances Gapper. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story uses a familiar nursery rhyme motif to explore the idea that lightness and darkness exist in the same space – which one is uppermost depends on perspective. In two of the three pictures I did not use the cow/moon images from the nursery rhyme, focusing instead on the line “Grass vibrant green, sky-blue sky, fluffy white clouds” fading and darkening to contrast the opening with the images brought up by the items in the bargain box and shop annex. In the third image I depicted a more literal interpretation of the nursery rhyme.

Image 43 – I used a horizontal landscape layout with the middle representing the happy scenic pasture for the idealized life. This area is enclosed by a darker sky at the top and a jagged dark field at the bottom, representing the contrasting view of life that is a step removed from the surface.

Image 44 – I used similar colors and theme as for Image 43, but this time I represented it as a progression across the page, with the happy everyday scene fading into the dark, more hidden aspect.

Image 63 – In this picture I showed the cow jumping over the moon as described in the text: “Here I am, jumping over a golden full moon in a navy sky”. This image reflects the tone of the opening section of the story, when the cute, playful aspects of the rhyme are emphasized.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

Longings by Eva Eliav.  Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story concerns memories a woman has of her father and her growing-up years, reflecting on dreams that did not come true and on the life that did occur. The motif of “home” is the thread that ties this story together. Various homes are mentioned: large elaborate houses, a camper, a condo, and the father’s final home after death.

Image 55 – In this image I depicted the daughter’s childhood desired home: the family lives in a large elaborate home but she would prefer a trailer and camping out at night with a campfire. I included the outline of the large house but within it I set the camper with a fire, under the stars.

Image 56 – I focused on the homes as they bound the father and daughter together through life. The first panel depicts the elaborate home that the daughter despises and the father needs. In the next panel I set the camper as the daughter pictured it, cozy at night. I extended the camper into the third frame, symbolizing the actual home the father lived in for the later years of his life as well as being symbolic of his final “home”.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

The Drowned by Cath Holland. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story focuses on an everyday incident, the kind of thing that happens all the time, that is of no importance, and yet affects everyone in the immediate area. – the repaving of the street – and how it is interpreted by the residents and influences the future in one small area. The story is very descriptive of the changes to the street.

Image 51 – In this image I depicted the initial actions for the repaving. The yellow represents the truck and apparel of the workmen. The middle section depicts paving stones and additionally the gray rainy day. Finally, the black section represents the new asphalt with a single leaf.

Image 52 – This picture is the asphalt after some time, as described in the story. It sinks in, leaving a slight depression that catches water and leaves and forces people to step around it into the gutter. This image is a portrait of the amended street, the one the people have come to accept and live with.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

The Baker’s Dream by George Wallace. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This is a story of faith and human frailties. It concerns a baker, a loaf of bread, the face of Jesus, a miracle healing, and the implications of the collision among all these elements. Faces were a motif throughout the story, so I included them in my images, as well as the baker and the loaf of bread.

Image 57 – I focused on the moment when the baker confronts his faith, or lack of: “Why would you do a terrible thing like this to me? he asked the loaf of bread, holding it up to the lamplight and examining it sadly”, as the text says. I included the dark night sky outside the bakery, with its infinity of the unknown as a backdrop for the subdued atmosphere of the interior of the bakery.

Image 58 – I used similar colors to Image 57 to depict night and coldness. In this picture, the baker and the loaf wait together inside while the townspeople crowd outside in the dark and snow with an air of confrontation about them.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

a list of things that are white by Matt Kendrick. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This oblique story focuses on loss and grief through the repetition of white objects and actions associated with them in a list that lays out the parameters of a distinct life, what it contains and what it does not. I took specific images mentioned in the story to create my illustrations.

Image 59 – This image was inspired by this section: “…a comet’s tail; the sour cream moon I bargain with on a clear night…). I created an enormous moon hanging in the sky with the swirls of the passing comet’s tail behind it. Both of these entities are changeable and ephemeral. The comet is on a journey and spends no time in one place. The moon waxes and wanes, grows and fades.

Image 60 – This image comes from the line “…and in the pages of a photo album yet to be filled…”. The blank white spaces represent all the photos that will not be taken of all the scenes that will not occur, that will not have the chance to be.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

The Never-ending Story by Jan Kaneen. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story takes place in a supermarket and is full of description. There is a surreal feel to the visual environment that is explained by the ending of the story and it is described from a child’s point of view, focusing on bright colors and emotions.

Image 53 – I depicted the supermarket in the beginning of the story. The child is down the aisle from her mother but can see her figure. The aisle is described as “columns of brightly-coloured tins, all electric oranges and neon greens”. The mother is just visible at the end of the aisle on her way into the next one.

Image 54 – This picture depicts the situation near the end of the story, when the environment has become hostile: The child has grown anxious and runs down the aisle: “… piled high with pet food that towers tall above me in tins covered with pictures of animals” showing their teeth. I used the same bright colors but set them in tall columns with little room between them to move, with a panel of representing teeth at the end.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

Mad Aunt Brenda by Mary Thompson. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story relates the effect an eccentric aunt has on her niece, whose small view of the world and of life is expanded by her aunt’s influence.

Image 47 – I used three elements from the story to create this image. The middle section illustrates the line “the sky seemed limitless and any damn thing seemed possible”, for how the aunt changed the way her niece viewed life. The side sections each represent the colorful and expansive outlook Aunt Brenda displayed. She is said to have appeared “clad head to toe in tartan”, and then later that she “had a penchant for India”, traveling there on occasion, for which I created a pattern reminiscent of Indian fabrics.

Image 48 – For this image I focused on the line “the sky seemed limitless”. I applied this image to the final paragraph, where the narrator is outside in winter when she hears of Aunt Brenda’s death: “ But as I looked up, beyond the trees, beyond the sky, I swore I could see her…” with the trees and the open sky symbolizing Aunt Brenda’s encouragement to open her life and giving her room to do so.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

Burn by Jason Jackson. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story uses the motif of matches and fire to explore the concept of power and taking power. The matches in the story are instruments of humiliation, of potential revenge, and of support and alliance. I used the red/orange/yellow colors to represent fire with the contrasting turquoise to represent the hottest part of the flame.

Image 45 – I enclosed a series of stick-like shapes, representing matches, inside a red/orange space that encloses them as the box does in the story. They are in motion, shaken, and the emphasis is on the humiliation aspect of the story.

Image 46 – I again represented the matches as stick-like shapes, in black, having burned and turned to ash, relating to the ashes the narrator mentions, to emphasize the taking power aspects of the story.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

Buzz Word by Tracy Fells. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story focuses on bees and follows their role in one woman’s life (she is appropriately named Melissa) through childhood, to choosing her life’s work, and how she structures her purpose in life through them. It’s a hopeful story; despite the difficulties bees are having in today’s world, the narrator believes in them and in her role in the bee world. I used colors and images from the story as the basis for my two images.

Image 29 – I used the colors of bees, tending to the warm golds and browns. I created a swarm of abstract bees in flight and the representation of a honeycomb. To me the colors are hopeful and reminiscent of summer and warmth. The bees are depicted going about their everyday life in the sunshine.

Image 30 – For this image I used the mention of lavender in the garden, bee-less in the story, but I have set a few bees in flight off to the side, representing hope. The blue sky fades into a honeycomb as it rises above the scene, representing a future in which the bees will be everywhere again, as the narrator hopes.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.

I continue with my illustrations for Flash Fiction February 2020, twenty-nine days of flash fiction stories at Fictive Dream,  an online fiction magazine featuring short stories.

For the event I created a small abstract painting for each selection – in fact, I did more than one painting per story. I am showing you all the images, day by day, throughout February. I’m also including a short write-up as to how I went about turning the authors’ words into pictorial representations.

I hope you’ll take a look at my art, then go to Fictive Dream, see which image editor Laura Black chose for the magazine, and read the story!

Thank you to Laura for her faith in my work and to the authors for such wonderful material to work with.

Today’s story is:

The Cardboard Box of Happiness by Fiona J. Mackintosh. Read it here at Fictive Dream.

Here are the artworks on their own:

and here they are with the banner.

Comments:

This story depicts how hard it can be to see beyond what is happening right now, at this minute – to take a longer view; how foreknowledge of the future could change what actions or attitudes are taken today; and how this lack of perspective influences behavior and thinking. I used the same elements in both images but arranged them somewhat differently – the beggar’s blue tarp and cardboard box, the protagonist’s damaged heart, and the fresh blue sky.

Image 37 – I created squares for the tarp, box, and broken heart. I chose the color rusty red with corroded spots for the heart, as it is described as having “acid leaking from your young, corroding heart”. I made a blue sky to fit the story’s description of the day as fresh and optimistic. It also stands for the endless bright future in store for the protagonist in contrast with the beggar’s empty future under the same open sky.

Image 38 – I included the same elements as in Image 37 but arranged them more as a landscape, as I thought of the protagonist occupying a mental landscape with its features being her future, the doubt and fear she feels and she sees the beggar as having avoided (symbolized by his tarp and cardboard), and the acid despair she feels in her heart at this moment.

Read the story at Fictive Dream.