The trial of Sarah Malcolm

In 1733, a 22 year old Irish laundress was found guilty of theft and three murders, and hung at Fleet Street for her crime. Her name was Sarah Malcolm and she makes a small appearance in the graphic novel I'm doing. Here are some images from her scenes, which are still work in progress.


Sarah put up a remarkable defence in court, and is one of the three cases examined in last week’s Voices From the Old Bailey on BBC Radio 4. She admitted to the theft of 45 guineas (equivalent to a year’s salary) after being found with the money, but denied the three murders until the end. The transcript from her trial in the Old Bailey’s online archives shows her as a fiery character - she even conducted her own defence.







Two days before she was hung, William Hogarth and his father-in-law James Thornhill visited her in her cell to make sketches for her portrait.

(work in progress)

I wanted to include this scene because it shows Hogarth in a cynical light (the pages following this scene will explain why). The dialogue for the prison scene was difficult and in the end I settled for very little speech, because anything else felt too forced.

Her painted portrait hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Hogarth made a print of this painting (see below), which looks a bit demonic by comparison. He had little sympathy for her, and was alleged to have said that

"this woman by her features is capable of anything".

"A Lady Macbeth in low-life." - John Ireland

Illustrator of the month interview

Thanks goes to Christopher Jones for this one…
http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/61938049?access_key=key-1xp2f3ipy8g9k7sdmrw1

The Box Zine is ran by a small group of artists based in Worcester. Visit http://boxzine.tumblr.com for more info.

The Beautiful and the Damned

The English Pleasure Garden was a phenomena which started in the 1600s and carried on through until Victorian times. One of the most well-known of the early Pleasure Gardens was Vauxhall Gardens.

Originally Vauxhall had something of a reputation for being a rendevous point for prostitutes and their clinets, until it was taken over by the 26 year old Jonathan Tyers in 1732. Legend has it that Tyers was in suicidal despair over the gardens before William Hogarth gave him the idea for a lavish reopening the gardens.

A place like Vauxhall was a place to see and be seen in. It also would have provided a kind of relief from the over-crowded London centre by giving its patrons a spacious, attractive area to eat, drink and socialise.



Part of the experience of spending an evening at Vauxhall would have been the trip by wherry across the Thames.

(illustration for page 3)

(unfinished panel)

This is probably one of the most sedate scenes I’ve done so far. The next part I’m working on has a court case and a hanging in it, which is proving difficult to do without it looking tasteless... Here are some sketches for it:

(Guess who?)

(On the wagon)

I'll upload some of them on completion. Someone I'm working for at the moment has expressed more interest in the sketches I do than the finished pictures, so I'll try to keep uploading some of these early drawings too.

More images from the MA project

These are a few panels from a scene in my chapter - these are done mainly with black ink (shellac) and white ink (acrylic).

Allen Upward "The Mermaid"

And now for something completely different...


'The sailor boy who leant over the side of the Junk of Many Pearls, and combed the green tresses of the sea with his ivory fingers, believing that he had heard the voice of a mermaid, cast his body down between the waves.'

by Allen Upward

Top: collograph plate
Below: collograph print, blue and black ink

A few months ago I took out a poetry collection on imagist poetry. All of them are great material for illustration, but Allen Upward's short peice of prose stuck with me. I ended up using it as inspiration in a collograph workshop we did a few weeks ago.

It's great to just take a break from the MA project and experiment with new mediums like this, even though at this point in the year I really don't have the time anymore!

Aquatint

Thanks to a workshop we had last week with Sue Corke, I learned how to make aquatint prints from etching plates. It was done in a hurry as I'd left it til the 11th hour (again!) and so the different tones are applied in hasty spluges. I really like the flat shades you can get from it and I'm hoping to do more with this technique after the MA.

Artwork for spreads

Artwork for a scene in chapter 1

Artwork for another scene, but I'm not sure that black pencil is the way forward with this one.

Charcoal drawing for a spread from the prologue - hastily done before class.

Work is finally starting to come together - chapters are being sorted out, scripts are being written for some scenes and I'm experimenting with different mediums for the two different parts of the story. More to follow later on.

New project

Some new images for a commissioned project, which involves doing illustrations for a Cornish family archive.

Goache and bleach

Goache has proved more useful in portraying movement in figures than quink, pen, charcoal or anything else I've used so far.

For now it will still be just in black and white.

These images are from a made up scene which may be used before something on the Foundling Hospital. Before such institutions were set up, illegimate infants would be left on the doorsteps of the wealthy or in church doorways in the hope that someone else may be better able to look after the unwanted child.

(The scene at the top is purely made up and painted just as an exercise in light and shade)






This is an idea for the protagonist and the kind of clothing he may have been wearing once he gained fame and fortune.

This is with black and white goache with pen for the waistcoat.
















Ideas for the clientele at Bartholomew Fair, London, c.1720.




These were fun to make and are based on the shows at Bartholomew Fair. They were produced using bleach on black paper with black pen for the details.

This is one of the ideas I have for the apprentice years. The studio would be small and cramped and filled with tools, engraved cutlery, plates and other silverwear.

The Resurrectionists II

The Resurrectionist books were made from an etching, then the prints were cut out, folded up and stuck together. The story is meant to be read left to right, starting with Victorian policemen (with lanterns and riding penny farthings) on the hunt for graverobbers. Most of the action is in the centre of the plate, with figures digging in a kirkyard and dragging bodies through the narrow closes and staircases. The final scene should have included a hanging of some convicted bodysnatchers, but I ran out of space on the plate...

This is a scan of half of the print. (A lot of the ink is still left on the plate before it gets put through the press)

Below is a picture of the whole book folded out. More books will be made for the Bristol Artists Book Event at the end of April 2011...

Back to the 1700s:

This was done with pen and bleach drawn on grey paper. The bleach gives a glowing, feathered look when it's applied but it doesn't always scan in too well. This was done quickly before the project hand-in a few weeks ago.


Character ideas for Ellis Gamble, engraver and teacher to my protagonist. I had Jones from Dad's Army in mind when I was sketching these.


Lord John Hervey: aristocrat, supporter of Walpole and a very colourful character. I'm tempted to give him a more prominent part in the story, just because of all the outrageous things he said and did.


A few more hasty drawings with pen and bleach again.