Winter at Frodo's (1977)

[wallace_trust]

I remember painting this in a furiously inspired mood about one year after I had first read LOtR. My English teacher, who was a favorite of mine as she protected me from the girl gangs who liked to beat me up, was sadly not too impressed. She seemed to be less impressed when I informed her that it was not really Frodo in the picture, but rather Sam bringing Frodo firewood. Maybe she was thinking a wheelbarrow would have made his job easier...? Note tiny Bill the Pony standing behind the fence on top of the Hill!

Comments

[lbilover]

I seriously love this. You know what it reminds me of? Tolkien's own artwork for LOTR. It feels very much in his spirit. I can't believe your teacher wasn't impressed! :O

BTW, I read LOTR for the first time in the summer of 1970 when I was about to turn 13 years old. I entered 9th grade that fall and one of the things my new English teacher told us about herself was that she had two dogs, named Bilbo and Gandalf. Well, I was dying to talk about LOTR with *someone* and she was more than willing to oblige. We became great friends. :-)

Thank you for the wonderful compliment!

[wallace_trust]

There is no higher praise than that! I never thought of this little painting as being even a bit like the Professor's much more skillful work!

I have always dearly loved his barrel-riding watercolor, which was used as the cover for an edition of 'The Hobbit.'

I was also good friends with my English teacher; I didn't mean to imply that I wasn't. We used to discuss LOtR as well as 'The Last Unicorn,' which I also first read around that time.