Heigh-Ho the Carrion Crow

“A carrion crow sat on an oak,
Fol de riddle, lol de riddle, hi ding do,
Watching a tailor shape his cloak;
Sing heigh-ho, the carrion crow,
Fol de riddle, lol de riddle, hi ding do!”

–Mother Goose’s Heigh-Ho the Carrion Crow

This drawing was an experiment in texture. The crow was drawn from a photograph. A symbolic representation of the sun marks the sky in the background. The original is  8 1/2 x 11 inches in fine sharpy and pilot G2.

The Mother Goose poem best describes the subject of this drawing. Crows are tricksters who gravitate toward death and misfortune. They mingle liminally between the primal and the sinister aspects of nature. They are void of color and represent the mystery of disencarnation.  In Mother Goose’s Nursery rhyme the tailor is annoyed by the crow and tries to shoot it with his bow only to miss and shoot his sow instead.