News ‘n chat

Brontë Society Creative Competition

Posted by Becky

I recently entered these two illustrations in the Brontë Society Creative Competition – had I got myself into gear earlier I may have entered more, but this was the minimum (2-4 illustrations), and you know that I like a deadline!!

I chose Jane Eyre to illustrate as it really is my favourite Brontë novel of those I have read, I think it is wildly romantic in a kind of buttoned-down, early Victorian way, Jane’s true passionate self bursting through after years of suppression at Lowood.  It has it all, including the superb Mr Rochester.  And she draws!

I’ll carry on with this as I have a few more illustrations started (but not come to fruition, well not sufficiently to submit) but here goes – my idea was not to include Jane in the images and to show them from her perspective, as she narrates the story of course – so she would only be seen in a mirror:

Chapter II: “Returning, I had to cross before the looking glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms speckling the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit...”
Chapter II:
“Returning, I had to cross before the looking glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily
explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in
reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms speckling
the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real
spirit…”
Chapter XIX: [About the 'Sibyl'] “She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze...'
Chapter XIX:
[About the ‘Sibyl’]
“She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could
see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-locks
bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her
cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze…’

The Death Cap

Posted by Becky

I recently received my limited edition copy of The Death Cap!  It is the second in the series of Professor Stubbs detective novels by R T Campbell, re-published by Lomax Press. The first story selected, Take Thee A Sharp Knife, was published in 2011, and I have been lucky enough to be asked to illustrate both dustjackets.  A very exciting project for me.

TDC front cover
TDC front cover

 

The design of TDC follows that set out with the first book, with a silhouette of the detective-in-question puffing away on his pipe at the crime scene – rather unhelpfully, but then everyone drinks and smokes constantly in the story anyway – and then appearing throughout the book at the end of each section:

Stubbs vector
Stubbs vector

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I created a ‘death cap mushroom’ silhouette vector for the chapter endings too – last time this was a commando knife.  Nasty stuff!  I think the combination of these elements give a lovely continuity to the series.  The typesetting was again done by Omnis Partners, and gives an elegance and sharpness.

Mushroom vector
Mushroom vector

Excuse the ropey photograph but here is the jacket in full, next to the book itself in its nice black binding:

Dustjacket
Dustjacket