The convention by which the motion of drops of water is represented by elongating them into a shape they never actually have in the real world appears in the picture of Peter jumping into the watering can. Yet interestingly, while this teardrop shape is like a backward arrow, we know the movement is away from the point only because we know the convention; Peter is himself a teardrop shape in this picture, but we assume he is entering the watering can, not leaving it—that he heads in the direction his body is pointed toward.
Perry Nodelman, Words About Pictures
‘We Love London in the Rain’ by Leilei HuangPostcard by A. Golubev, 1968 rainEIN KÖRNCHEN FÜR DEN PFAU (1970) Helga AichingerSuzanna Byalkovskaya, 1950s
LINES OF RAIN
White lines
William Steig (American, 1907-2003) New Yorker coverDick SargentVogue Cover – March 1935 Premium Giclee Print by Eduardo Garcia Benito Feline rainCaught In The Rain by Albert W. HampsonMauro Scali 1956Arthur Smith 1940Dal HolcombMargaret Bloy Graham 1952
White and blue lines
Peter Spier. RainOlive Beaupre Miller’s Tales Told in Holland It’s Raining It’s Gaining‘April Showers, 1933’ by Martin Faulkner umbrella rainEugen Hartung, Swiss. 1897-1973Look Back by Tatsuki FujimotoIllustration by N.C. Wyeth for Catriona by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1924HOLČIČKA A DÉŠT’ (1974) Jan Kudláček
Now I’ll walk in all the puddles. From At the Open Door by Louise Robinson, 1913From The French Mail, 1908From a beautiful contemporary French book ‘Les vermeilles’ by Camille Jourdy
Ruler straight lines that extend across the entire canvas
The Slough of Despond, illustration for a 1928 edition of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, wood engraving by Gertrude Hermes (UK, 1901-1983)Ink sketch by Duilio Cambellotti rainCharles Keeping 1969 From the book ‘Knights, Beasts and Wonders’H. R. Van Dongen (1920 – 2010) 1954 cover illustration The Big Rain for Astounding Science Fiction magazine.The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories 1908 illustrated by Sidney Herbert SimeIda Rentoul Outhwaite 1888 – 1960 The StormDugald Stewart Walker illustrator, Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) writer, ‘Rainbow gold; poems old and new selected for boys and girls’ 1922-6Bernie Wrightson (1948 – 2017) 1977 illustration for Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
RAIN IN THE DISTANCE
Des BrophyDes BrophyDes BrophyDes BrophyJeff Rowland (1964-2018)Jeff Rowland (1964-2018)Jeff Rowland (1964-2018)Frank Coburn, 1925 rainGeorge Bellows (American, 1882 – 1925) Rain on the River, 1908Mai Miturich, 1969Achiel Van SassenbrouckAchiel Van SassenbrouckThe-Airmail.-N.-C.-Wyeth.-1938
Storm Scents: It’s True, You Can Smell Oncoming Summer Rain, from Scientific American
WHY DOES IT ALWAYS RAIN ONLY ON ME?
This solipsistic feeling is as old as time. We have illustrations to prove it.
Crocodile In The Rain, Theodor de Bry, after Jean Jacques Boissard, 1596Why does it always rain on me Harley 1766Fairyland Annual 1969 Stories By Joan Fisher, Illustrations By Hutchings, 1968Easy Answers to Hard Questions pictures by Susan Perl text by Susanne Kirtland (1968) what makes it rainPegana, by Sidney H. Sime, 1905. Frontispiece to Lord Dunsany’s Gods of Pegana
This coffee is served with a cloud of ‘cotton candy’. The coffee vapour apparently rises to dissolve the ‘cotton candy’. The cloud begins to rain with sugar over the coffee.
Two sisters travel the same streets, though their lives couldn’t be more different. Then, one of them goes missing.
In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don’t speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.
Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey’s district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit–and her sister–before it’s too late.
Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters’ childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.
FURTHER READING
Scotch mist: A sober soaking rain: a Scotch mist will wet an Englishman to the bone.