Three sketchbooks in one post! (Time-lapse video of all three here!)
IBC (15/9/19 - 9/11/19) is mostly notes on lectures, books, etc., but does have some fun stuff. Here's when I was redesigning Bridget to make her more of a visual contrast to William - she used to look like this.
 |
| Left hand page: thinking about things I did in the North, late summer/ early autumn 2019. Highlights include imaginative engagement with a lot of stuff in Barnard Castle, and going to various places on the Great North Road (where William and other schoolmasters would have travelled along when they did their twice-a-year London trips). |
 |
| Charley showing some element of self-awareness, before I properly started interrogating/ exploring that sort of thing. He's a character I've created, and he lives in my head, so he knows that I'm interested in interrogating historical traces. (This is in the middle of some conference notes) |
IBD (9/11/19 - 20/2/20) contains what might be the earliest seeds of what became
(Un)Known Associates.
 |
| Right hand page: early ideas for Tarot cards! Lower left corner of left hand page: some image of two Williams, one screaming and the other apparently fine, which kept recurring through my work, notably in Disorder and a set of acrylic painted panels I made (specifically this one) |
 |
| Worked up the Tarot ideas, and drew from photographs I took at Bath Fashion Museum. |
Another recurring image: William upside-down. Turns up in
Disorder and in
(Un)Known Associates. (Those links show those specific images, not the whole entire publications.)
More museum costume reference from that trip to Bath in January 2020. I like trying characters out in different costumes to see what happens, see if I can use those to change how I interpret them or how I can make them move. It's fun seeing how you can use costume to say things about people, such as hints towards their economic status or how they might want to present themselves. Some of these clothes might be out of date, or too high-fashion, for my characters, but it's good to experiment!
 |
| Right hand page: outfits from two Derby plaques, c. (early?) 1820s, in the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath. I have no idea what Bridget and Ann looked like, or what they would have worn - Bridget looks stylish but practical, and Ann looks like she's off to a party - drawing costume allows you to interrogate it more closely than if you just glanced at it! Drawing makes you look and helps engage your imagination. |
 |
| Based on items in Bath Fashion Museum. These are clothes that survived, unlike loads of other traces of the past. Also, on the right hand page, Mary Ann wears a pelisse (long coat) that she ended up wearing in one panel of Disorder. |
IBE (20/2/20 - 17/3/20) begins with a lot of notes about books, etc., but also includes more costume reference.
 |
| Planning a trip to Bowes just before the first UK lockdown. Includes a relatively early instance of William being self-aware and criticising my ideas. (I discuss this sort of thing in my thesis.) |
 |
| Ideas from trips around various places. Sometimes seeing things in museums can set off good ideas, such as on the right hand page, when I saw a display about medical care at the Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes, which set me off thinking about local apothecary/ surgeon Henry Benning who probably had to be on call at all times. (I don't think he was called Dr Benning? That we know of? I don't think it was his official title, but there's no way of knowing whether people he knew insisted on calling him it.) |
 |
| Right hand page: Bridget wears a silk day dress, 1828-30, which I saw in York Castle Museum. She ended up wearing a version of it in Disorder (set around 1820-21) and other drawings. Even though the garment itself is later, I thought it seemed suitable for her as a character - I designed her to contrast with William, and I represent her as being quite exuberant compared to his reticence, so yes let's give her massive sleeves |
 |
| The dress I adapted for Bridget at York Castle Museum's Shaping the Body exhibition. I love museums, I like to go window-shopping for things for my characters |
In the
next instalment: more museums! Church windows! Lockdown! Despair! The beginnings of
Disorder!
No comments:
Post a Comment