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Description
📖 They walked slowly, stooping, keeping close in line, following attentively every move that Gollum made. The fens grew more wet, opening into wide stagnant meres, among which it grew more and more difficult to find the firmer places where feet could tread without sinking into gurgling mud. The travellers were light, or maybe none of them would ever have found a way through.⁠
Presently it grew altogether dark: the air itself seemed black and heavy to breathe. When lights appeared Sam rubbed his eyes: he thought his head was going queer. He first saw one with the corner of his left eye, a wisp of pale sheen that faded away; but others appeared soon after: some like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles; here and there they twisted like ghostly sheets unfurled by hidden hands.⁠
📖 The Lord of the Rings. Book IV, Chapter 2: The Passage of the Marshes⁠

For Inktober52 2022 prompt 2 "Decay". With this prompt, several loathsome places in Midle-earth came to my mind, for example the Morgul Vale, which is described in such lovely terms as "a noisome exhalation of decay" and "sickly odour of decay". Interestingly, when I did a text search through the main works of Tolkien, I found out the word decay is more often used in a natural sense like decay of abandoned places or in metaphorical sense like "the race of Númenor has decayed". But in the end, I decided to draw the place that was my first association for decay, the Dead Marshes.

By the way, that also gave me the opportunity to try out my new A3-sized black paper sketchbook. The picture was drawn with a combination of coloured pencils and pens.

I hope you like it!

Description
📖 They walked slowly, stooping, keeping close in line, following attentively every move that Gollum made. The fens grew more wet, opening into wide stagnant meres, among which it grew more and more difficult to find the firmer places where feet could tread without sinking into gurgling mud. The travellers were light, or maybe none of them would ever have found a way through.⁠
Presently it grew altogether dark: the air itself seemed black and heavy to breathe. When lights appeared Sam rubbed his eyes: he thought his head was going queer. He first saw one with the corner of his left eye, a wisp of pale sheen that faded away; but others appeared soon after: some like dimly shining smoke, some like misty flames flickering slowly above unseen candles; here and there they twisted like ghostly sheets unfurled by hidden hands.⁠
📖 The Lord of the Rings. Book IV, Chapter 2: The Passage of the Marshes⁠

For Inktober52 2022 prompt 2 "Decay". With this prompt, several loathsome places in Midle-earth came to my mind, for example the Morgul Vale, which is described in such lovely terms as "a noisome exhalation of decay" and "sickly odour of decay". Interestingly, when I did a text search through the main works of Tolkien, I found out the word decay is more often used in a natural sense like decay of abandoned places or in metaphorical sense like "the race of Númenor has decayed". But in the end, I decided to draw the place that was my first association for decay, the Dead Marshes.

By the way, that also gave me the opportunity to try out my new A3-sized black paper sketchbook. The picture was drawn with a combination of coloured pencils and pens.

I hope you like it!