and the Highwayman came riding - riding - riding - riding - up to the old inn door

So, I do a lot of these Circle Journal thingamajigs....and I'll 'fess up now, some of them are a lot more fun than others.

And this one was definitely one of the fun ones!

I don't think I am the only one to have enjoyed it either....every now and then a CJ theme comes along that really brings out the best in everyone participating, and from the excellent quality of all the work before me in the journal, I'd say that this is what has happened with this one.  The bar has been set very high.  No pressure then :)

This journal is part of the Take Ten circle, where the theme was prompts or inspirations.  Emma/Cosmic's clever take on this was to provide us with the transcript of her favourite poem (the classic The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes), and we were each to choose a verse from the poem (not necessarily in order), and use this as the inspiration for our contribution to the journal.

It's a wonderful poem, very dark and evocative, so it was a pleasure to work with it.

I chose verse 9:

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon, wine-red was his velvet coat
When they shot him down in the highway,
Down like a dog in the highway,
And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

Most of the rest of the book so far is pretty dark, so I ignored the bit about the 'golden noon', and went for a nighttime scene....I figure this happens later in the evening once the body has been removed from the scene and the police investigation is underway (that also saved me from having to try to draw a dead highwayman!)

And yes, I know that the "POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS" tape isn't exactly contemporary with the period of the poem, but meh, that's what they call "artistic licence" :D

A quick how to:

• the background is distress inks in black, purple and blue blended on glossy card
• the moon was stamped in silver acrylic paint (make sure you wash your stamp immediately after stamping if using paint, if it dries on your stamp it's a dead duck) before applying the distress ink, it acts as a resist
• the tree line and bird are stamped in black pigment ink
• the pool of blood was made with red glossy embossing powder
• the chalk outline was drawn freehand with a white pigment pen (Ranger Inkessentials)

That's me halfway through the Take Ten circle now - it's going by so quickly!  A sure sign I'm enjoying it!