"The severed heads had been raised on poles above the lampstandards where they now contemplated with their caved and pagan eyes the dry hides of their kinsmen and forebears strung across the stones facade of the cathedral and clacking lightly in the wind. Later when the lamps were lit the heads in the soft glare of the up-light assumed the look of tragic masks and within a few days they would become mottled white and altogether leprous with the droppings of the birds that roosted upon them."
This is a fairly detailed description of a scene, and i have obviously omitted a lot of information in my depiction of it, but I think it still works pretty well. I have been chiefly concerned with trying to capture the atmosphere and mood of McCarthy's writing rather than trying to create detailed representations of everything being described. I think what I have created here is effective in communicating the sadness and darkness of the book, and this excerpt specifically, in the crude, almost primitive delineation of the subjects and the way oil pastel smudges together into eerie polluted colours.
In fact, I think the oil pastels work so well in responding to the writing (or at least my impression of it) in 'Blood Meridian' that I think I will continue experimenting with them, but perhaps in a more abstract or symbolic way. Given the fact that the book seems essentially concerned with man's capability for violence, and subsequent ability to become almost completely detached from it (as in the case of the protagonists), I think creating images with a more aggressive, primitive visual aesthetic might work well in communicating this.
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