Walt Whitman and Margaret C. Cook in The Leaves of Grass

Some of Margaret C. Cook's powerful illustration plates for Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, 1913 edition.

(A section of my teaching is devoted to mood via color and tone. Below, are a selection of some stunning illustrations that are perfect examples of not just mood but stellar design.)

"The Sleepers are very beautiful as they lie unclothed. They flow hand in hand over the whole earth from East to West."

"How calm, how solemn it grows to ascend the atmosphere of lovers."

"Give me nights perfectly quiet... and I looking up at the stars."

"The night follows along, with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring darkness."

"Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time and Space and Death."

"The spy has that measureless pride which revolts from every lesson but it's own."

"They are calm, clear, well possess'd of themselves."

Notes to Myself

Notes to Myself on Beginning a Painting, By Richard Diebenkorn

1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.

2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued — except as a stimulus for further moves. 

3. Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for.

4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable.

5. Don't discover a subject — of any kind.

6. Somehow, don't be bored but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential.

7. Mistakes can't be erased, but they move you from your present position.

8. Keep thinking about Pollyanna.

9. Tolerate chaos.

10. Be careful only in a perverse way.

— Richard Diebenkorn

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Art said...

Richard reminds me of you, Carole. You both work furiously.

A Splendid Torch

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no “brief candle” for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

— George Bernard Shaw