There’s an old woman dwells upon Tappington Moor. 1911

Arthur Rackham made this illustration in pen, ink and watercolour, and you can almost feel the scratch of the nib on the page, can’t you? The palette is super-muted, almost sepia, lending a kind of ghostly atmosphere. I always wonder about the physical relationship between an artist and the page, here. Look at the old woman's cloak, see how the feathery edges dissolve into the ground? It feels almost like the witch is becoming one with the landscape, like her magic is drawn from the very earth itself. I’m also really drawn to the clouds, see how he’s used simple outlines, the bare minimum, to create something so evocative? There’s a freedom in that kind of mark-making. Rackham reminds me a little of Kay Nielsen, another illustrator who knew how to conjure entire worlds with just a few lines. Ultimately, art is about opening doors, not closing them.