For my creative project I attempted to draw William Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. I am not the best artist, but I decided to try something different and did my best to capture the scenery of the poem as I saw it in my mind. For me this poem evokes warm sunset tones and plays into the idea of nostalgia and memories. This poem is an excellent read for the vivid scenery that it imparts easily.
I tried to draw solitude inspired by both the title and first line, “I wandered lonely as a cloud / that floats on high o’er vales and hills.” I decided to take this line somewhat literally and to draw a cloud, I decided to illustrate a sole figure with a cloud for a head. I replaced the head with a cloud both to encapsulate this line and to convey the sense of isolation that comes from this poem. By replacing the head with a cloud the figure can become anyone, it is no longer tied to a singular individual. Wordsworth uses this line to illustrate the connection between man and nature, and I wanted to capture this into my art. As the speaker of the poem is “lonely” there could only be one figure seen in the poem and I chose to draw them sitting down on a dock.
While the dock is a manmade object and is not mentioned in the original poem I decided to add it to draw it to showcase the isolation of the figure, and to connect with these lines, “For oft, when on my couch I lie / In vacant or in pensive mood, / They flash upon that inward eye.” I chose to interpret this as the speaker revisiting the scene in their mind over and over again. So rather than this just being a photo I decided to draw it as a memory, and as such the speaker is able to build upon the memory to make it more “comfortable” and accessible. The dock is to showcase how the speaker is able to interact with the environment and is reveling in the memory no longer just experiencing it. This also the reason I drew both the moon and the stars to showcase that this is not reality but a memory where nature is malleable and can quickly change.