#dark surreal

I haven’t shared any sketches from my sketchbook diary here in a long time… I make them only rarely, but lately I’ve been visited by ideas for small, dark, surreal, metaphorical illustrations to accompany the gothic book Descent into Nightmare that I’m currently writing…

Nightmare of the Depths

“She felt the breath of something ancient, something nameless…

His body began to change. From his chest burst a knot of glowing vessels. His mantle unraveled into threads of gold, his skin cracked, and from the fissures grew crimson roots, pulsing like living veins. Amber eyes multiplied, blooming across his body until myriads of them turned their gaze upon her. The roots grew, weaving into a serpentine shape, writhing like a dragon waking within its own dream.

Then she heard, within her veins, the echo of countless voices:

We coil… we flow… we fade and sink deep into the dreams that draw us in…

She watched the creature unfold like a monstrous flower of darkness and light...”

An excerpt from my book “Descent into Nightmare”.

Pencil sketch, Autumn 2025.