PhD sketchbooks: A4BC (early 2019 - 3/3/21)

Started as a companion volume to A4BB, I intended on using A4BC specifically for things that were more history-flavoured than illustration-flavoured, which, in hindsight, wasn't the best idea because my stuff's all integrated. (Timelapse video of A4BC here!)

Notes on Ludmilla Jordanova's History in Practice (published by Arnold, London, 2000).

Likely the impetus behind those pages at the start of A4BB about counterfactuals  - according to these notes, Jordanova said they were a "device to sharpen historical analysis" and that they were "hardly ideologically innocent" in that they typically deal with the sorts of events that are usually considered big and important - you know, the grand narrative type stuff. So I wanted to try obscure counterfactuals instead of What If This Person Had Been Prime Minister Or That Faction Won That War or any of that normal counterfactual business.

There's a lot of things that I made when I was working out what to do with Disorder, and a load of final illustrations for it. 

Media test which helped me work out Mary Ann's visual language in (what became) Disorder.

Another. This one ended up in Disorder. Here's the tidied up version of this sequence of images, and here's the finished page. Using colour to suggest changing emotional states and the passage of time.

Working out Charley's visual language in Disorder. 

Working out the boys' visual language in Disorder. I wanted to suggest things that they might've imagined during the incident I explored in the comic. This one was drawn freehand with scissors - no pencil guidelines. 

At some point during 2020, I entered my university's 3 Minute Thesis competition (I'm somewhere on this page, but I haven't watched it since I did it due to Oh Hell That's My Voice How Embarrassing). I used the drawings on these right-hand pages for the diagram on my slide, but the ones on the left-hand pages (which I glued in later) were tests for Bridget's visual language. 

Another Bridget visual language test, influenced by Jonny Hannah. I wanted to recontextualise Bridget's (potential) viewpoint to see how that might change understandings about the ophthalmia narrative(s), so I turned her into a mermaid. The comic was set in the early 1820s, the Napoleonic Wars are probably still fresh in people's minds, and there's likely to be commemorative items available. I'm going to have to brush up on that side of things.

Now some final illustrations for Disorder! But it wasn't called that, it was called Despaired Of because that's a phrase that Benning used - I will explain that properly elsewhere. (I changed the title in IBJ.)

The first page I did - which opens the comic section of the book - is William's, and explores some of his possible experiences. Lots of metaphor in here; for example, his face is highly unlikely to have actually split open to reveal another version of him screaming inside.

The frame for page 2. I made all the images separately for this page, and assembled them in Affinity Photo.

Colour test for Bridget's panels on page 2 

The first of the boys' pages. I used the head silhouettes to suggest that the scenes on these pages are all happening in the boys' imaginations. Also, presence of the researcher/ creator: I used some of my old schoolbooks, schoolwork, etc., in the collages. 

I drew Bridget's pages freehand. I'd put down the base colours first (household emulsion for the ceramic items, and acrylic paintmarkers and ordinary acrylics for the background) and then go over the top using paintmarkers.

The first of Mary Ann's pages. Also a potential cover design glued on the left-hand page, which would have focussed on each character's eyes, as the book is about their potential viewpoints.

Workings out on the side. There's no evidence that confirms the Shaws had one of those plaques in their house, but I reckon it's plausible.

These next three are final illustrations for a paper I did and the accompanying presentation, although one of them didn't end up in the presentation. (Again, another thing I haven't watched since I did it, same reason as above)

This one went in the paper.

Same as above, but redrawn for widescreen. (This one turns up in my thesis.)

I think this was about how an event happens, then there are loads of interpretations and representations of it, and some of them are particularly striking

Time for another? Sketchbook index here.