[Looks like I'd started writing this in 2021, and only now I am getting round to posting it. Hang about, we've got the word "sublimity" in the title - in future work, I want to build some aspects of my favourite concept into Charley, but if you want more of that, go here or here.]
Yep, I’d been reading Burke and Gilpin and all that when I was building these two as characters.
We have no idea what Charles and Ann Mackay might’ve looked like. As part of my experimentation with exploring the potential power balance within William Shaw’s schoolroom, I wanted to make Charley physically impressive in contrast to the small but authoritative William. Likewise, when Charley's at home, I wanted a decent contrast between him and Ann, but for more harmonious reasons than conflicting ones.
Charles Hopkins Mackay (who I constantly refer to as Charley because I feel like it suits him, your own interpretations may vary) was born around 1791, probably somewhere in or near Teesdale, and is of mysterious parentage. Ann Wade was also born in 1791, in the less mysterious village of Headlam, to John and Elizabeth Wade. Charley and Ann got married twice - first, illicitly, on Barnard Castle bridge on 22 February 1809 - and second, legally and by banns, in Gainford Church on 15th November 1809 (and Ann was Very Very Pregnant, and the village gossips had probably been enjoying some most diverting cups of tea recently).
When I was designing them, and some of the other characters, I was reading a lot about Romanticism. It was contemporary with my case study, and has useful strategies to communicate abstract things that are sometimes difficult to say, and I love the emotional intensity of it. (I’ve got a suspicion that Charley might’ve been into it, especially if we look at his adverts.) Two concepts associated with it are Beauty and Sublimity, and these had a huge influence on how I designed Charley and Ann.
Anyway, let’s start drawing them!
So I’d already decided, in a way, that I wanted Charley to be big and impressive and a bit scary-looking. I constructed my initial concepts of these characters all at the same time - quite often, the development of one would help provoke development of another.
Early planning (2019) for body shapes for William, Charley, Bridget, and Ann. The shapes I gave to Bridget and Ann changed over time, while those I gave to their husbands remained the same |
I read some things by William Gilpin and Edmund Burke and that introduced me to the contemporary concepts of the Picturesque, and then to Beauty and the Sublime. This was going to be my basis for my characterisation of Charley and Ann as a couple.
From 2019 |
From 2019 |
From 2019 |
Basically, Beauty is everything that makes you experience feelings like love - something beautiful might have harmonious colours, or soft textures, or smooth lines - it’s generally very pleasant. If Beauty was personified, you’d want to hang out with them. They’re nice and chill and they make you feel good.
Meanwhile, the Sublime is terror-inducing, but in the best possible way. You feel awe-struck. You’re petrified, but you’re secretly enjoying the fear. This is what Romantics would go in search of, dashing about the place, scaling mountains and nearly falling off cliffs and looking at the sea in a dreadful storm - y’know, that sort of thing.
Ann has a certain amount of Botticelli's Venus in her |
Having a brain full of Romanticism myself at the time, I thought it’d be a good idea to apply these concepts to these two characters. As I mentioned, my interpretation of Charley presents him as a great big brawny chap, so he’d take on aspects of the Sublime, whereas Ann would take on aspects of the Beautiful.
These are all from 2019 or thereabouts. Their dancing is based on this, drawn by Woodward/ George Moutard and etched by Isaac Cruikshank - also available at the top of this post |
(I suppose, adding to this, is my ideas about their relationship - I like to think that they were very excited about each other, what with them running off together and having an illegal wedding. Charley himself, in his adverts, seems like a very passionate and excitable chap, at least in my interpretation. He also describes himself in his adverts for his school as a “family man” and claims that he’s very protective of any kids who end up in his care… Anyway.)
I like to imagine Charley as one of those dads who's always (or most often) ready for whatever games his and Ann's kids want to play. These drawings are from 2020 and 2021 |
[And that was as far as I got with the writing on the original version of this post. Here's my 2024 additions:]
Ann appears once in Disorder (drawn 2020-2021). In this panel, she's met an ophthalmia-infected woman in Bowes - apparently the disease was in the village, not just in the school. |
In 2021, I had a great time with Beverley Pilcher's book Barnard Castle and the Cholera Outbreak, 1849 (I bought a copy from St Mary's Church in Barnard Castle in 2019 and I don't know where you can get your own, but here's an article about it). I should probably have been working on Disorder but it's more fun drawing comics in response to terrible cholera stories. Charley caught the disease towards the end of the outbreak, and I wondered what he and Ann might have experienced.
Charley and Ann both feature in (Un)Known Associates, which I drew the final illustrations for in early 2022.
These ones are from the cast list, introducing (U)KA's users to the characters. |
But then, when I was doing my thesis, I noticed something incredibly unfortunate about some of this: an apparent reliance/ tolerance for binaries! So I'm going to rework some of this stuff in future projects on this same case study. I'm also redesigning Ann slightly: my work is about encouraging people to (re)imagine their own histories, to see themselves or aspects of themselves in their versions of the past, not to rely on conventional/ traditional/ outdated understandings of what the past was 'really' like (I'm not gonna start) - the past belongs to everyone.
Here's some newer bits from the second half of 2023.
More ideas for suggesting feelings between these two |
Latest redesign for Ann |
Charley's funeral. Giving everyone else more solid lines and shadows because they're all alive, whereas Charley is a ghost |
Let's not get started on the comics terminology situation |
Media/ colour test for Charley's death (I'm nowhere near scripting the thing yet) |