Illustrating The Iliad in Emily Wilson's translation, due out from Folio Society in 2025.
First there's the reading. I pencil-annotate my copy, circling narrative elements I believe might benefit further examination. There are a lot of circles. Twice through the poem and I begin to make serious notes, and the occasional, tentative scribble on loose paper. When I open a panoramic, hard-back, clean-sheet sketchbook , it means my sleeves are about to be rolled up and the pencils sharpened. Characters and events begin to take shape.
There's a tension between keeping everything fluid while also finding possibilities that might later be locked down. The drawings aren't finishing points, more like signposts. There are many because at the point of final decisions, I like lots of choices.
I make dozens of drawings of Athena, playing with ways to portray her. There are many models in antiquity, statues and images on earthenware from the archaic depictions in rigid, columnar pose, to later kinetic impressions, all flying hair and spear raised to eye-level, taking aim. There's an episode in The Iliad when Hera and Athena board a chariot to go to war among the humans, and the idea of that captivates me. I draw it over and over, adjusting my ideas in changing compositions.
There are scenes too numerous to count of the deepest cruelty. The slaughter is unceasing. A good deal of the blood-letting must go into the book. But balanced against that I have to convey the supernatural strangeness, too, and the moments of tenderness.
Every image must earn its place. As double page illustrations, each must pause the headlong forward thrust of the poem, causing the reader to either reflect - and perhaps even return to the lines harnessed by the image - or anticipate what lies ahead. With words the imagination is free to roam. An illustration can interfere with that, particularly if over-specific. My job, as I see it, is to offer visual stimulation to imaginative thinking. I want the illustrations to be a doorway, or even better, a launching pad.
Right now my Iliad sketch book is close to full and I'm about to begin a second. Images I was sure about I've now had time to reconsider. The roughs go to the supervising editor for comment. If approved, then I begin the final renders. Things can change again because I like to keep the options of revision open right through the process.
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