A haze rested on the low shores that ran out to sea in vanishing flatness. The air was dark above Gravesend, and farther back still seemed condensed into a mournful gloom, brooding motionless...

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
August 25, 2012

 

"And this also," said Marlow suddenly, "has been one of the dark places of the earth."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
August 25, 2012

But Marlow was not typical (if his propensity to spin yarns be excepted), and to him the meaning of an episode was not inside like a kernel but outside, enveloping the tale which brought it out only as a glow brings out a haze, in the likeness of one of these misty halos that sometimes are made visible by the spectral illumination of moonshine.

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
August 26, 2012

"Land in a swamp, march through the woods, and in some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him -- all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
August 26, 2012
 

"Something like an emissary of light, something like a lower sort of apostle."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
September 11, 2012

"Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long six-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the six-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech -- and nothing happened. Nothing could happen."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
September 17, 2012

"I had my passage on a little sea-going steamer. Her captain was a Swede, and knowing me for a seaman, invited me on the bridge. He was a young man, lean, fair, and morose, with lanky hair and a shuffling gait."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
September 19, 2012

"They were dying slowly -- it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now -- nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
September 23, 2012

"When near the buildings I met a white man, in such an unexpected elegance of get-up that in the first moment I took him for a sort of vision. I saw a high starched collar, white cuffs, a light alpaca jacket, snowy trousers, a clean necktie, and varnished boots. No hat. Hair parted, brushed, oiled, under a green-lined parasol held in a big white hand. He was amazing, and had a penholder behind his ear."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
September 23, 2012

"In the steady buzz of flies the homeward-bound agent was lying finished and insensible; the other, bent over his books, was making correct entries of perfectly correct transactions..."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
September 24, 2012

"He was commonplace in complexion, in features, in manners, and in voice. He was of middle size and of ordinary build. His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe. But even at these times the rest of his person seemed to disclaim the intention. Otherwise there was only an indefinable, faint expression of his lips, something stealthy -- a smile -- not a smile -- I remember it, but I can't explain. It was unconscious, this smile was, though just after he had said something it got intensified for an instant. It came at the end of his speeches like a seal applied on the words to make the meaning of the commonest phrase appear absolutely inscrutable."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
September 30, 2012

"Then he began again, assuring me Mr. Kurtz was the best agent he had, an exceptional man, of the greatest importance to the Company..."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
September 30, 2012

"What I really wanted was rivets, by heaven! Rivets. To get on with the work -- to stop the hole. Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast -- cases -- piled up -- burst -- split! You kicked a loose rivet at every second step in that station-yard on the hillside. Rivets had rolled into the grove of death. You could fill your pockets with rivets for the trouble of stooping down -- and there wasn't one rivet to be found where it was wanted."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
October 14, 2012

"'Each station should be like a beacon on the road towards better things, a centre for trade of course, but also for humanizing, improving, instructing.'"

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
October 27, 2012

"Going up that river was like traveling back to the earliest beginnings of the world, when vegetation rioted on the earth and the big trees were kings. An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was warm, thick, heavy, sluggish. There was no joy in the brilliance of sunshine. The long stretches of the waterway ran on, deserted, into the gloom of over-shadowed distances."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
October 28, 2012
 

"But still we crawled. Sometimes I would pick out a tree a little way ahead to measure our progress towards Kurtz by, but I lost it invariably before we got abreast. To keep the eyes so long on one thing was too much for human patience."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
November 11, 2012

"Their headman, a young, broad-chested black, severely draped in dark-blue fringed cloths, with fierce nostrils and his hair all done up artfully in oily ringlets, stood near me. 'Aha!' I said, just for good fellowship's sake. 'Catch 'im,' he snapped, with a bloodshot widening of his eyes and a flash of sharp teeth -- 'catch 'im. Give 'im to us.' 'To you, eh?' I asked; 'what would you do with them?' 'Eat 'im!' he said curtly, and, leaning his elbow on the rail, looked out into the fog in a dignified and profoundly pensive attitude."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
November 13, 2012

"Still, I had also judged the jungle of both banks quite impenetrable -- and yet eyes were in it, eyes that had seen us."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
November 24, 2012

"Then without more ado I tipped him overboard. The current snatched him as though he had been a wisp of grass, and I saw the body roll over twice before I lost sight of it for ever."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
December 6, 2012

"Through my glasses I saw the slope of a hill interspersed with rare trees and perfectly free from under-growth. A long decaying building on the summit was half buried in the high grass; the large holes in the peaked roof gaped black from afar; the jungle and the woods made a background. There was no enclosure or fence of any kind; but there had been one apparently, for near the house half-a-dozen slim posts remained in a row, roughly trimmed, and with their upper ends ornamented with round carved balls. The rails, or whatever there had been between, had disappeared."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
December 8, 2012

"He looked at least seven feet long. His covering had fallen off, and his body emerged from it pitiful and appalling as from a winding-sheet. I could see the cage of his ribs all astir, the bones of his arm waving. It was as though an animated image of death carved out of old ivory had been shaking its hand with menaces at a motionless crowd of men made of dark and glittering bronze. I saw him open his mouth wide -- it gave him a weirdly voracious aspect, as though he had wanted to swallow all the air, all the earth, all the men before him. A deep voice reached me faintly. He must have been shouting."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
December 16, 2012

"As soon as I got on the bank I saw a trail -- a broad trail through the grass. I remember the exultation with which I said to myself, 'He can't walk -- he is crawling on all-fours -- I've got him.'"

11 x 6.75 inches
ink on watercolor paper
December 25, 2012
 

"There was nothing either above or below him, and I knew it. He had kicked himself loose of the earth."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
December 26, 2012

"In front of the first rank, along the river, three men, plastered with bright red earth from head to foot, strutted to and fro restlessly. When we came abreast again, they faced the river, stamped their feet, nodded their horned heads, swayed their scarlet bodies..."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
December 27, 2012

"The shade of the original Kurtz frequented the bedside of the hollow sham, whose fate it was to be buried presently in the mould of primeval earth."

11 x 6.75 inches
acrylic paint, ink and marker on watercolor paper
December 28, 2012

"I tottered about the streets -- there were various affairs to settle -- grinning bitterly at perfectly respectable persons. I admit my behaviour was inexcusable, but then my temperature was seldom normal in these days."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
January 1, 2013

"She came forward, all in black, with a pale head, floating towards me in the dusk. She was in mourning."

11 x 6.75 inches
acrylic paint and ink on watercolor paper
January 8, 2013

"'Yes, I know,' I said with something like despair in my heart, but bowing my head before the faith that was in her, before that great and saving illusion that shone with an unearthly glow in the darkness, in the triumphant darkness from which I could not have defended her -- from which I could not even defend myself."

11 x 6.75 inches
ink and marker on watercolor paper
January 12, 2013