Angela Carter's Folio Society - The Bloody Chamber

The Bloody Chamber is a incredibly visual story.  Angela Carter uses many historical characters, operas and artworks to refer to, to create atmosphere.  After researching the references she'd made, it gave a real theme and tone to the short story.  It was a feeling of grief, death, violent graphic brutality, sacrifice and drama.

Direct References from the story:

After analysing the story and direct text references came the initial rough design ideas then image referencing:

I prefer the idea of the car travelling to the castle so have referenced French castles, females fur coats and slick automobiles:

This then led to composition refinement:

So now I looked at a variety of compositions it was time to looks at media

Firstly I tried photocopy experiments, that then led me to photograms.  The photograms gave much more potential for creating atmosphere than photocopying:

 

So after looking at media for the car and castle I considered the actual shape of the car.
Going to a old car show in Tintern was where I took the following photographs

This particular image was very close to how the text described the car that the newly weds travelled to the castle in, esp in a silhouette form. This is the car that was my main form of inspiration:

MG Midget - British, 1960's

• A nice silhouette shape
• Sports style shape
• Close to the suspected era
• Clear clean lines
• More accurate than other cars in fitting to the criteria

These are the illustrations I created to help create a final piece for the vehicle in the final piece:

 

Now to consider the sky background:

 

Then onto the Castle:

This completely illustrative book 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan was of great atmospheric inspiration

 

I went to visit Chepstow Castle for a first hand look at what my castle could look like:

 

Atmospheric Photos:

These photographs Ive taken of Chepstow Castle are great at depicting the forms of the turrets and gates, but waiting for night time too come created some great atmospheric photos.  This was less documentary and gave the castle a real character.  This is created through the way the castle is lit up

After a lot of rescaling of the car this is the illustration I decided was best for Angela Carter's Bloody Chamber:

P.8

"And, ah! His castle.  The faery solitude of the place"

The purpose of this illustration is not just to illustrate the newlyweds journey to the castle, but also to give a suggestion to the tone of the story.

Sexuality in Angela Carter's stories are high up in the themes.  This image alludes to this.  The castle's turrets suggests a woman's legs and I'm sure you can guess what the gates and car represents.  I have also used deep reds and oranges, fiery colours which provide the feeling of lust, passion as well as bloody death.

Overall I am very pleased with the illustration.  It coincides with the themes I am creating between Angela Carter stories.  I'm doing this with my colour palette, media and principle of creating emotion and contrast with having a small item against a large one without much cluttering the background.  I will continue with the theme in the other images for Angela Carter.