Illustrated Blog Posts

If you've ever wondered what it might be like to see Sam Gamgee, his wife Rose Cotton, and all thirteen of their children, I hope this new paintings makes some dreams come true. The family has gathered in the best bedroom at Bag End and perhaps it's a nightly ritual to have a hot drink together (perhaps some chamomile tea) at close of day. It can take quite a bit of ingenuity to settle children down for the night, even when you have fewer than a baker's dozen! 15-year-old Mer

Often times, a painting can be about more than one thing and I hope you will be interested in getting to see this rarely-glimpsed place in the Shire. This is the stone the hobbits erect on a hillside and build a garden around to commemorate the 19 fallen hobbits of the Battle of Bywater which occurred during 'The Scouring of the Shire' in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King. The year is 1460, and an 80-year-old Sam Gamgee is seen in the background, tending the grounds in

Did J.R.R. Tolkien leave us the kind of gift we might call an Easter egg today, hiding in plain sight in the branches of Sam Gamgee's family tree in Appendix C of The Lord of the Rings ? Tolkien never chose a name without thought, and so, I find it delightful to ask: why Goldilocks Gamgee? It's a question I've been considering for several years now, and I've come to believe that the best answer may reside in Professor Tolkien's On Fairy-stories lecture which gives a near-e

We get a chapter in The Lord of the Rings about 'The Choices of Master Samwise' and a similar title might be applied to all of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit . Bilbo's deliberations are many and momentous, and here we get a sparkling instance, frozen in time, in which he is about to reveal one of his pivotal decisions. The hobbit is thin and journey-hardened. His hair is long and hangs dripping across his brow and shoulders from his fall into the river. He is clad in mithril and