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Description
The Road Goes Ever On (2023). My illustration of the walking song that is sung by Bilbo in the first chapter of the Lord of the Rings. And the same song is recalled by Frodo (with a single-word difference, "eager feet" replaced by "weary feet" which really changes the tone of the poem) while he also explains a bit more about Bilbo's underlying philosophy regarding the Road.

Frodo was silent. He too was gazing eastward along the road, as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly he spoke, aloud but as if to himself, saying slowly:
    The Road goes ever on and on
        Down from the door where it began.
    Now far ahead the Road has gone,
        And I must follow, if I can,
    Pursuing it with weary feet,
        Until it joins some larger way,
    Where many paths and errands meet.
        And whither then? I cannot say.
‘That sounds like a bit of old Bilbo’s rhyming,’ said Pippin. ‘Or is it one of your imitations? It does not sound altogether encouraging.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Frodo. It came to me then, as if I was making it up; but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?” He used to say that on the path outside the front door at Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk.’
📖 J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings. Book I. Chapter 3, Three Is Company

So, as you can see, the Road that leads from the front door at Bag End to the Lonely Mountain (or to worse places) is very much the subject of this illustration. And it was already for the first, simpler version of this picture which I made in 2016 and used for my popular bookmarks.

In the new picture I reused and most of the elements of the older one and redrew them in more detail, but I also added may more, because I drew it on a larger paper, but also because I used a wider view which allowed me to include many more places to the left and to the right.

The picture is primarily focused on Bilbo's journey and his Road, but to fill more of the empty space I used many elements either from the narrative of the Lord of the Rings or from the appendices and other sources. So even in the older version there are the Old Forest and Barrow Downs, Bree, Midgewater marshes and Weathertop, and in the new one many more places are added, such as Bywater Pool, some villages of the Shire, the house of Tom Bombadil, the ruins of Fornost and Tharbad and Ost-in-Edhil, The Walls of Moria and the Three Peaks, Gundabad and many other places.

I also used several of Tolkien's own illustrations and alluded to them in my drawing (for instance the well-known illustration of Rivendell or the view of Hobbiton with the mill and the old grange, but viewed from the opposite direction, from the Hill).

If you want to learn more about that, read a post on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/whats-in…

You can find prints of it in my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/listing/144939517…

Description
The Road Goes Ever On (2023). My illustration of the walking song that is sung by Bilbo in the first chapter of the Lord of the Rings. And the same song is recalled by Frodo (with a single-word difference, "eager feet" replaced by "weary feet" which really changes the tone of the poem) while he also explains a bit more about Bilbo's underlying philosophy regarding the Road.

Frodo was silent. He too was gazing eastward along the road, as if he had never seen it before. Suddenly he spoke, aloud but as if to himself, saying slowly:
    The Road goes ever on and on
        Down from the door where it began.
    Now far ahead the Road has gone,
        And I must follow, if I can,
    Pursuing it with weary feet,
        Until it joins some larger way,
    Where many paths and errands meet.
        And whither then? I cannot say.
‘That sounds like a bit of old Bilbo’s rhyming,’ said Pippin. ‘Or is it one of your imitations? It does not sound altogether encouraging.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Frodo. It came to me then, as if I was making it up; but I may have heard it long ago. Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to. Do you realize that this is the very path that goes through Mirkwood, and that if you let it, it might take you to the Lonely Mountain or even further and to worse places?” He used to say that on the path outside the front door at Bag End, especially after he had been out for a long walk.’
📖 J. R. R. Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings. Book I. Chapter 3, Three Is Company

So, as you can see, the Road that leads from the front door at Bag End to the Lonely Mountain (or to worse places) is very much the subject of this illustration. And it was already for the first, simpler version of this picture which I made in 2016 and used for my popular bookmarks.

In the new picture I reused and most of the elements of the older one and redrew them in more detail, but I also added may more, because I drew it on a larger paper, but also because I used a wider view which allowed me to include many more places to the left and to the right.

The picture is primarily focused on Bilbo's journey and his Road, but to fill more of the empty space I used many elements either from the narrative of the Lord of the Rings or from the appendices and other sources. So even in the older version there are the Old Forest and Barrow Downs, Bree, Midgewater marshes and Weathertop, and in the new one many more places are added, such as Bywater Pool, some villages of the Shire, the house of Tom Bombadil, the ruins of Fornost and Tharbad and Ost-in-Edhil, The Walls of Moria and the Three Peaks, Gundabad and many other places.

I also used several of Tolkien's own illustrations and alluded to them in my drawing (for instance the well-known illustration of Rivendell or the view of Hobbiton with the mill and the old grange, but viewed from the opposite direction, from the Hill).

If you want to learn more about that, read a post on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/whats-in…

You can find prints of it in my Etsy shop: www.etsy.com/listing/144939517…