Visual Vocabulary: Saturnine

I came up with this idea for the word saturnine two weeks ago, at about 4:18 AM, when the power went out in our apartment and I was woken by the sound of my phone vibrating ("I'm not charging anymore, nanny nanny boo boo"). I knew it was going to be bad because we were in the midst of an ice storm. So I laid awake wondering how long we were going to be without power and wondering what I was going to do all day since if our apartment was without power, then surely my office would be as well (and it was).

Instead of dwelling on the fact that I would probably sit in my cold apartment all day reading A Storm of Swords under several blankets and a snuggie (which is what I did for many hours, along with napping) I tried to use my time not being able to sleep to think about how to illustrate the word saturnine. I kept kept imagining this grim old lady who looked like a Puritan. And then I started to try and remember some of the phrases from the New England Primer, and if any of them would rhyme with "saturnine." A Google search told me that they didn't, but you can see I didn't let that stand in my way. 

Another interesting tidbit: when Scott and I first met, he said that I scared him because I had a pierced nose and tattoos and when I didn't smile I looked, and I quote, DOUR. So when I was finished drawing this picture, I sent him a text: 

So yeah. An easy word for me to remember. Also, she could be sisters with this lady. 

Visual Vocabulary is a project I created for myself in which I attempt to sear new words into my memory by illustrating them.