The scene
From The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (1820). Ichabod Crane flees the Headless Horseman along the dusk road, with the bridge and the old Dutch church ahead: the horseman, the story says, cannot cross it. Here the horseman is still a long way off, and the road is empty.
The style
A Golden Age storybook illustration: wiry ink line, knotted, half-alive trees and soft autumn washes of orange and grey.
The inspiration
The look comes from Arthur Rackham's illustrations for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1928): the twisted trees, the long shadows and the fine pen line under the colour. The bridge and the church are my own.
How it's made
A print of a digital artwork in the style of an early twentieth-century book illustration, not an original. Each carries my printed Chapter & Scene signature.