PhD sketchbooks: IBB (20/8/18 - 14/9/19)

Following on from the previous sketchbook, I was trying to do some kind of reconstruction of what might've happened during a few minutes one morning at Bowes Academy. (Time-lapse video here!)

Some views around the building. Entirely speculative, from viewpoints that I couldn't access in real life, and some have my imagined version of what missing parts of the building might have looked like. 

Trying to work out what Charley wears, using extant garments and fashion plates in museum collections. 

Then Charley suddenly got cheerful? (I think he must've been hung over earlier)

Right-hand page: I decided to set the pump illustration in the winter of 1820-21. Reasons include: there's people there whose evidence about the place survives (the Jones brothers at the trial, and Horatio Lloyd who wrote about his schooldays), there's other people there who I've already designed as characters, there's weather that would have affected people's behaviour, the ophthalmia was doing the rounds, some very good coats come out in winter, also very dramatic lighting, very good fun to draw.

By this point I was starting to read some historiographical theoretical stuff. Here's a response to something in Marc Bloch's The Historian's Craft, where he said how difficult it can get to adequately explain people's experiences in words. I tried using a comic to show what William Jones might have experienced when he caught ophthalmia and was banished to the washhouse. Not sure it worked all that well: just showing his reaction and what he sees is all well and good, and it functions as an example of how strongly evocative images can be compared to words, but it's still my imaginings. If I'm trying to adequately explain somebody else's experiences (in words or images) it's not really going to work because I'm not them! (Don't get me started on whether they'd succeed at it, either, whether they'd want to tell us accurately, whether they'd want to portray different versions of events/ different truths to different people, whether they might not remember some bits, oh no we'll be here all day)

Probably the last time I did anything with the pump reconstruction. 

Also more visual notes, this time about the ophthalmia trials. This was just before I redesigned William's face! (He used to look different in my older work.)

These next few spreads are from when I tried designing William - more on that in this post.

More visual speculations based on written sources. Just noticed that I have a tendency to veer off into jokes with these:

According to Horatio Lloyd, who attended Bowes Academy in the early 1820s, William Shaw would play the flute to entertain boys who were unwell. In what other contexts might he have played it? What might other people have thought about it? (I keep forgetting about Lloyd's mention of the flute business - I haven't seen it anywhere else - scroll down this page to see it)

Messing about with one of William's adverts, from the York Herald, 28 June 1834. 

A lot of this sketchbook is notes on lectures and books. Before I started the PhD, I emailed my university's History department asking them for book recommendations - they gave me some, and kindly invited me to join their HM5001 lectures on historiography, methodology, theory, etc., and that's where I picked up my love of that kind of thing. (Now when I see any mention of historians not wanting to engage with theory, or philosophy of history, or anything like that, I'm like "WHY?! It's FUN, you are missing out")

Notes on a lecture given by my wonderful supervisor Melanie about three types of historians - reconstructionists, constructionists, and deconstructionists - this is when I started to realise I'm a deconstructionist.

The next couple of spreads are about bringing some occult influences into my work, specifically using planetary correspondences (using the seven classical planets) to play with character design/ interpretation. For instance, Saturn is sometimes associated with time and death (I'm a historian, these are relevant), and also with melancholy, responsibility, practicality, austerity - all things I associate with my interpretation of William.

Left hand page: associating Charley with Mars (energetic, strong, quarrelsome - I don't know what happened between him and William that resulted in Charley leaving in the early 1830s), and associating Bridget with the Sun (friendship, health, wealth and prosperity, harmony, optimism, dignity)

Also in this book - some drawings from photographs I took on a trip to Barnard Castle at the start of September 2019.

As with all these posts about my PhD sketchbooks, this is only a few pages from this particular book. For more sketchbooks, here's the list.