Illustrations I created for John Donne's poem 'The Good Morrow', as part of Folio Society's Love Poems competition.

When reading and reciting the Good Morrow poem to myself, the poet spoke of seeing his eyes within his lover’s eyes and his lover’s eyes in his eyes and this brought instant visuals to mind. I sketched quick initial visual thoughts, picturing very graphic and clean shapes.

From there I experimented with different processes, from line drawings to realistic looking eyes but ultimately gravitated back to the sleeker simple silhouette of these graphic eyes, as they were more impactful, making for a visually strong image with the sharp almond shape, two circles and two smaller sharp almond shapes inside the circles. Using acrylic gouache to create texture and layers for each piece being collaged together, once the shapes had been layered, the different colours, directions of the brushstrokes against each other and clean lines made a sharp and striking visual.