These are my entries for the Folio Society/ House of Illustration competition. The book we had to illustrate was The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories written by Angela Carter. The competition was to create one illustration for three of the stories in the book; The Bloody Chamber, Puss in Boots and The Company of Wolves.
These were my two favourite lino prints that I am considering to use as the lining for the inside of my book. I loved the ghostly keys on the right hand piece but I have decided to use the other as it would complement the title, The Bloody Chamber. The colours are richer and I liked how you can see the marbled paper through the think layer of dark red ink.
These are the lino prints I produced for my cover design. I printed them on their own and also layered the two lino cuts to create these pieces. I have stuck to the colour scheme of red, blue, black and white as I felt they complemented the theme of the book.
These are my lino cuts. I have found these just as interesting to look at as the actual prints. I haven’t worked with lino since secondary school and have rally enjoyed it. I intend to work with it more in the future.
When I was looking for inspiration for The Bloody Chamber cover design I discovered these brilliant redesigned Harry Potter covers by M. S Corley .
They have been designed to resemble the penguin classics. The restricted colour use is an attribute that really attracts me to these covers. Another element is the fact that the artist only shows a section of the narrative and not the whole scene. This will develop the readers curiosity for the contents of the book. A style like this would look great as a screen print or lino cut. I intend to use these techniques for my cover for The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter.
These are my drawings for the design of my book cover entry for Angela Carter: The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories. This competition is being run by The folio Society and House of Illustrators.
I chose to use the keys for the front cover as they are an important element with in The Bloody Chamber, The first story in the book. It is a tale which has similarities to the Fairy Tale Blue Beard. The story starts with blue beard marrying for the forth time after his 1st 3 wives ‘accidental’ deaths. He leaves his new wife home alone with his keys to the castle and forbids her to enter only one room in the house. Which of course she is temped into opening where she discovers multiple horrors within. I decided to use use these keys on the cover design as they represented the mystery of the story. I designed the key hole to resemble Blue Beard so that the reader felt that they were constantly being watched as they opened the book. As the reader opens the cover it will appear as if they are unlocking the door.
I made Blue Beards mouth the key hole as a sexual reference to the story.
The screen prints shall be made up of 3 layers, red, blue and gold. These colours will also be repeated within the illustrations in side the book.
After reading The Bloody Chamber I have decided that I would decorate the front cover with an arrangement of keys. They are an important element in The Bloody Chamber story. The keys are the cause of temptation to the heroin and therefore I imagined that this would entice and intrigue readers to look inside the book.
I recently visited the V&A in London where they had an exhibition of iron work, which included keys and locks. It was amazing to see how much detail could be worked into metal. The locks were so intricate. They looked like miniature mazes or puzzles waiting to be solved.
I apologize for the quality of the images as they were taken on my phone.
This one had hands that were intertwined inside the lock. So when it was unlocked so did they. I enjoyed the element of playfulness in such an every day object.
The Folio Society are renowned for their beautiful cloth bound books and exquisite cover designs. Therefore for my final piece, I have decided to design a screen print or lino print to be embellished on fabric, which shall become part of my illustrated cloth bound book.
The screen printing technique will allow for a clean, intricate lock design, where as the lino cut will appear more hand crafted and tactile.
I would like to design my own lock rather than use one of these as a reference. However these locks have been my inspiration to create a lock that will resemble blue beard, the character in which the bloody chamber is based around.
This year I have decided to introduce more colour into my work. Then the other day I came across this book in the library.
This catalogue gives insight into the artistic talents of the illustrators featured, along with the eras sexual freedom. Combined with the beautiful monotone images, block colours and compositions I felt this style would really complement The Bloody Chamber.
The whole book was an inspiration however the artist who really caught my eye in the book was Coby Whitmore.
This composition really intrigued me. The combination of her covered expression and the fact that you can only see the hands and feet of the man behind allows the audience to interoperate the scene for themselves. In a book this illustration would entice the reader to turn the page to find out what will happen. I love using this technique in my own work, showing just enough of the scene to encourage a readers curiosity.
