All Ireland Poetry Day + An Illustrated Poem

Oct 6, 2011 by Jennifer Farley

Today is All-Ireland Poetry Day with poetry readings and events on all over the country. Check out the events listed. I’m hoping to get into a reading this evening in Dublin.

I recently illustrated a poem for a poetry magazine but unfortunately didn’t do enough research into the magazine’s target audience. My aimed-at-kids, colourful, illustration style didn’t quite fit in with their grungey, cutting edge style. Not to worry, I still enjoyed the process and love illustrating poems. The poem I chose was “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, one of my favourite poets. I love the stillness of the poem and the picture it conveys of the quiet snowy scene with the man and his little horse.

As always I started with a few sketches of the man, the little horse and some very scribbley trees. I used to do a lot of drawings in pencil but I find I like drawing in pen now as I worry less about what it looks like and don’t mind making loads of mistakes. I scanned the sketches into Photoshop where I re-drew and coloured them with the vector tools. I like to add lots of texture to my images, so I overlaid with scanned paper, a photograph of concrete and lots of pencil scratchings. Here’s the sketch of the man:

The final image looks like this:

If you would like to buy a print they are available in many different sizes over on the Society 6 website.

Tags: Children's Illustration

3 Comments + Add Comment

aafke October 20, 2011 at 8:53 pm

am still thinking of a way how to have you illustrating my mems latest (and probably last) childrens book. the only way would be to tell/translate the story to you and find the best parts for illustrations. not joking you, was discussing this with her. she likes the idea, but is too old to take part in the actual planning. there’s a giraffe in it and she adores your giraffe.
Jennifer Farley November 7, 2011 at 10:39 am

HI Aafke

Well I am open to suggestions if you want to talk about it. Glad she likes the Giraffe – he’s one of my favourites too : )
aafke November 8, 2011 at 9:50 pm

thanks for reply, there’s a memo beside me to remember checking. was just skyping with my mem and she asked whether i heard from you. will tell her tomorrow and maybe we (you and i) can have a chat about possibilities. will let you know. ciao.