The Observer - Sunken Lands

I made this illustration for The Observer, the Sunday newspaper. It accompanies an article by Sally Howard about Sunken Lands, a book by Gareth E. Rees published by Elliott & Thompson.

The book travels through flooded places, from lands that slipped beneath the English Channel in the Stone Age to the flooding of New Orleans, and explores how floods have shaped human history, myth and culture. With sea levels rising again, it asks what our drowned pasts can tell us about what is coming.

Fossil tree trunks on a beach make it easy, with a little imagination, to picture the forest that once stood there. I wanted to blend present and past in a single image, letting the forest reappear where the sea is now.