Jumpstart Workshop - ekphrastic !

In our recent Jumpstart workshops, we've been doing some ekphrastic writing, which is descriptive writing about or a  response to visual art. We've been having fun looking at paintings and photos, imaging stories and practicing our visual descriptions.

Here's my response to a postcard of Claude Monet's painting "Wheat Stacks at Dawn."

Frost is the frosting on these giant cupcakes of hay waiting in the pale pearly peachlight of dawn for the Giant of Alsace to stomp down the hill for his morning meal. At least so far, he's been happy with hay. What might happen if he decides to go all keto on us and demand ostrich-eggs over easy and a side of humans to start his day?   ~ Lakin

Another example is Anne Sexton's poem "Starry Night" one of many ekphrastic responses to the painting of the same name by Vincent Van Gogh. And  I'm sure we all remember Don McLean 's  song, "Starry Starry Night" --- another example of an artist in one medium responding to an artist from another.

Hope you find a chance to write ekphrastically, too, locating an image that sparks your imagination or elicits a response. Or take a chance with random postcards or images in a magazine or museum brochure. Or even better, treat yourself to a trip to an art museum and spend some time writing there. What could be better?