Author/style doubts

One of my main concerns with some of the stories in this anthology is that my drawing style isn't really appropriate for some of the darker themes. I tend to draw people and characters in a more cartoon-ish, upbeat kind of way, but when I read some of the short stories I get a darker vibe, which isn't how I like to draw.

But equally, I still haven't really developed my own visual signature properly yet. I've discussed this in PPP in Level 4 - I would like to develop a recognisable visual signature so people immediately recognise my work, but I like to draw in lots of different styles, so I guess I can make my drawings fit the theme of whatever I'm responding to. I want to explore this in our other summer brief - a drawing every day. From module feedback in Level 4 I'm aware that I do quite often 'copy' or emulate artists' work that I like - for example, Kate Beaton and Bryan Lee O'Malley especially. I love the way they draw charcaters, but I need to come up with my OWN way of drawing characters. I need to explore how I draw faces, and not just copy what someone else is already doing.

I do also value humour, and while some of these stories do have humour, even if it's dark, I don't always have to add humour to my drawing. I do just like drawing characters and people too, and I can interject my own humour into them if wanted and needed. Again, I find lots of different humour styles funny too!

Another thing about the themes/humour/appropriateness of drawing style within this brief is that I can make it what I want it and interpret the stories my way. For example, there have been a lot of re-tellings of Shakespeare plays that warp their initial intended meanings, so I could definitely find a way to interpret Carter's stories in my own way, and perhaps make them more light-hearted and funny to fit my preferred style of drawing. Because this is not an analytical English Literature close-reading brief, I don't have to analyse the text as much as I was used to doing at A-Level, and can focus more on the visual themes and narrative, and choose to include what I want to interpret.

Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber

As soon as I saw her name on the list, I knew I wanted to investigate her! I'd been meaning to read The Bloody Chamber for a long time from recommendations, but never got round to it. I have now read all the short stories in the anthology and loved how rich the descriptions were.

So, I've decided to do some visual responses to the stories, starting with characters. Not all of the characters are described in depth, but most of them are, and from the tones of each story it's quite easy to build up a picture in my mind.

Log of quotes about description and costume etc.:

1 The Bloody Chamber

         The Heroine

• satin nightdress
• supple as a garment of heavy water
• teasingly caressed me, egregrious, insinuating, nudging between my thighs
• young girl's pointed breasts and shoulders
• a fire opal the size of a pigeon's egg set in a complicated circle of dark antique gold
• mouse-coloured hair that still bore the kinks of the plaits from which it had so recently been freed
• bony hips
• my nervous pianist's fingers
• Poiret dress
• sinuous shift of white muslin tied with a silk string under the breasts
• my breasts showed through the flimsy stuff
• a choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat
• frail child
• flashing crimson jewels around her throat, bright as arterial blood
• twice-darned underwear, faded gingham, serge skirts, hand-me-downs
• pale face
• the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire
• the fire opal that glimmered like a gypsy's magic ball
• drew my furs about me, a wrap of white and black, broad stripes of ermine and sable, with a collar from which my head rose like the calyx of a wildflower
• sticklike limbs
• negligee of antique lace
• thin white face, with its promise of debauchery only a connoisseur could detect
• old serge skirt and flannel blouse
• listless sheaves of brown hair
• neck like the stem of a young plant

         The Husband

• rasp of beard
• though he was a big man, he moved as softly as if his shoes had soles of velvet
• strange, heavy, waxen face was not lined by experience
• experience seemed to have washed it perfectly smooth
• heavy eyelids folded over eyes that always disturbed me by their absolute absence of light
• that face... like a mask
• heavy, fleshy composure
• sometimes he seemed to me like a lily
• strange, ominous calm
• like one of those cobra-headed, funereal lilies whose white sheaths are curled out of a flesh as thick and tensely yielding to the touch as vellum
• monocle lodged in his left eye
• a huge man, an enormous man
• his eyes, dark and motionless as those eyes the ancient Egyptians painted upon their sarcophogi, fixed upon me
• white, broad face
• cigar
• lips, that always looked so strangely red and naked between the black fringes of his beard, now curved a little
• old, monocled lecher
• smoking jacket
• vicuna breast
• massive, irredeemable bulk of my husband
• gold watch from his waistcoat
• well-manicured fingers
• curling mane
• silken bristle of his beard

         The Mother

• half-joyous, half sorrowful emotions of a woman on her wedding day
• black silk, with the dull, prismatic sheen of oil on water
• eagle-featured, indomitable mother
• gladly, scandalously, defiantly beggared herself for love
• grown magnificently eccentric in hardship
• a rider, her black skirts tucked up around her waist
• crazy, magnificent horsewoman in widow's weeds
• you never saw such a wild thing as my mother
• her hair was her white mane
• her black lisle legs exposed to the thigh
• one hand on the reins of the rearing horse while the other clasped my father's service revolver
• as if she had been Medusa

The Courtship of Mr Lyon

The Tiger's Bride

Puss-in-Boots

The Erl-King

The Snow Child

The Lady of the House of Love

The Werewolf

The Company of Wolves

Wolf-Alice