MOBY-DICK, Page 026

Title: ...and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my bedside.

9 inches by 11 inches
spray paint on found paper
August 31, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 025

Title: Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that Queequeg was hugging me.

7 inches by 9.5 inches
acrylic paint on found paper
August 30, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 024

Title: Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

7 inches by 9.5 inches
ink on found paper
August 29, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 023

Title: "Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam- me, I kill-e!" again growled the cannibal...

7.75 inches by 11 inches
ink, colored pencil and marker on found paper
August 27, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 022

Title: ...he fumbled in the pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with a hunch on its back, and exactly the color of a three days' old Congo baby.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint on found paper
August 27, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 021

Title: His bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint and ballpoint pen on found paper
August 26, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 020

Title: Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal head-peddler.

8.5 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint, ink and marker on found paper
August 25, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 019

Title: I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, as you see the same in South American ponchos.

8.5 inches by 10 inches
ink on found paper
August 23, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 018

Title: "Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man."

8.5 inches by 10.5 inches
acrylic paint, collage and ink on found paper
August 23, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 017

Title: "...ain't there too many heads in the world?"

8.5 inches by 10.5 inches
acrylic paint, ballpoint pen, ink and pencil on found paper
August 22, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 016

Title: For who could tell but what the next morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down!

8.5 inches by 10.5 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
August 19, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 015

Title: I don't know how it is, but people like to be private when they are sleeping.

8.5 inches by 10.5 inches
acrylic paint, colored pencil and ink on found paper
August 19, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 014

Title: He stood a full six feet in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have seldom seen such brawn in a man.

8.5 inches by 10.5 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
August 19, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 013

Title: One young fellow in a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful manner.

8.5 inches by 10.5 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
August 18, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 012

Title: Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison.

7.25 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint, collage and ink on found paper
August 17, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 011

Title: With this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
August 13, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 010

Title: But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint and collage on found paper
August 13, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 009

Title: ...where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul's tossed craft.

8.5 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint and ballpoint pen on found paper
August 13, 2009

A correction.

In this August 6th post I first announced the Moby-Dick project, but I incorrectly listed the page count for the Signet Classic paperback version of the book that I am using as my benchmark.

I originally thought that, excluding the Introduction and Melville's "Extracts," the book had 540 pages. A closer look last night revealed that the final chapter, Chapter 135: The Chase - Third Day, begins on page 540 but that the last page of the book, which is an Epilogue, is really page 552. So it turns out I have 12 more pages to draw for than I thought.

This is the version I am using, with a cover by Claus Hoie entitled "Pursuit of the Great White Whale."

MOBY-DICK, Page 008

Title: ...and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
ballpoint pen, colored pencil, ink and spray paint on found paper
August 13, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 007

Title: With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver...

7.75 inches by 11 inches
collage, colored pencil and spray paint on found paper
August 12, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 006

Title: Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself.

7.5 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint on found paper
August 11, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 005

Title: ...this, the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way...

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint and ink on found paper
August 9, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 004

Title: What of it, if some old hunks of a sea captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks?

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint, highlighter marker and ink on found paper
August 8, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 003

Title: It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
acrylic paint, ballpoint pen and colored pencil on found paper
August 7, 2009

Credit. And inspiration.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that my idea of creating a drawing for every page of Herman Melville's Moby-Dick was directly inspired by a few artists that came before me.

The first was artist Zak Smith's project illustrating every page of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow which you can see here.

The second is an ongoing attempt to illustrate every page of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian being undertaken by the artists Shawn Cheng, Zak Smith, Matt Wiegle, Sean McCarthy, John Mejias and Craig Taylor. While not yet complete, this impressive endeavor can be seen here.

While others have probably attempted similar projects, these are the two which directly inspired me to begin my own. I owe those artists and authors a debt of gratitude.

MOBY-DICK, Page 002

Title: But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive.

7.75 inches by 11 inches
colored pencil and ink on found paper
August 6, 2009

MOBY-DICK, Page 001

My friend Tobin Becker recently reminded me of my undying love for Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick, or The Whale.

Because I honestly consider Moby-Dick to be the greatest novel ever written, I am now going to create one illustration for every single one of the 552 pages in the Signet Classic paperback edition. I'l try to do one a day, but we'll see.

Here is the first illustration, from page one, entitled Call me Ishmael.

8.5 inches by 11 inches
colored pencil and ink on found paper
August 5, 2009