This is the first in the IBA series, and I had it going from 29th May to 20th August 2018, which is before my PhD officially started, but I like to get ahead of things. (Time-lapse video here!)
 |
| The cover started off brown. Faded to... green? |
 |
| Also some rummaging about in censuses, things like Ancestry/ FindMyPast/ etc (thanks to Monmouthshire Libraries for access via the computers at my local branch!) |
I think the most exciting/ interesting/ useful thing in this book was the work I did towards an experiment that I never finished. I wanted to illustrate my proposal with an example of drawing used as a way of doing history. I was going to take (what I now realise is) a more traditional reconstruction drawing approach - get as many references as you can - and I thought I had to make it 100% accurate. It did not go to plan.
In the Jones vs Shaw trial (30 October 1823), William Jones mentioned that the boys would get up in the morning, flea the beds, then go downstairs into the yard to wash at the pump. I thought I'd draw that. It then spiralled out of control as I realised, through trying to draw that scene, how much I don't know - it started with costume reference, went onto the pump itself (the one currently in the courtyard dates from the 1850s!), how people might behave, what time of year is it, how do I convey that it's morning, what angle do I show it from, there's some parts of the building no longer there, should I do it as a comic/ sequential thing, where do I start - absolute minefield!
No comments:
Post a Comment