You could see this as The Tower from the Tarot deck or as the the sorcerer's tower from "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" by HP Lovecraft. That story is set in a place not far from where I live and tells of an 1700s sorcerer who gets up to no good in Massachusetts and has to set up new digs in Rhode Island. About five times I've tried to realize in paint a line from the story: "a red mist rose from the Pawtuxet farm," where the sorcerer had built a tower to hold the half-alive people he reanimated. This time I think I finally got it nailed down. The red area at the bottom of the image shows the open door to an extensive tunnel system the sorcerer built beneath the tower which is on fire. The sorcerer supposedly did not survive this fire. Supposedly. :)

I didn't set out to illustrate this story. Instead, I used the Surrealist method of letting images arise to create this. Gradually I saw something like the tower and hills appear and was reminded of this story. I went on from there.

The original watercolor landscape painting is 16 x 20" on heavy cotton watercolor paper and should be framed behind glass.