About the Author - Sketchbook

All the sketching I did over summer was mainly based on Poe's work rather than his life. I didn't think about it much at the time but it's all basically black and white and red - which suits the tone of Poe's work but I should probably think about branching out a bit & experimenting with different atmospheres, maybe some contrasts to the themes of the work etc.

Various sections of the Raven - coloured pencil. 

 The death of young beautiful women is a common theme in Poe's work, it's pretty grim. I'm not really sure what the most appropriate way to draw dead girl is, especially as there's a fine line between making macabre art and making something that reminds you of the good ol' emo days of 2006. The above picture I based on the character of Lenore. It never says how she dies in the poems "Lenore" and "The Raven" but I decided to take a moment from Poe's life and transfer it to the character. (His wife, Virginia was singing or playing some kind of instrument - it seems different in every telling - she grabbed her throat and started to cough up blood. She had tuberculosis, as his mother and stepmother had also died of)

Adding skeleton faces to female features or bodies is a way I have been enjoying drawing the theme of the death of beautiful women. There's a whole beauty / death contrast thing.

These sketches I did while listening to an audiobook of "The Masque of the Red Death" - thinking about illness and it's consumption of the body. 

 Taking a different turn these are just some character sketches of C. Auguste Dupin, a detective character which inspired Sherlock Holmes. Going full circle, I sort of used my memory of Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock to sketch the character.

 Based on the Tell Tale Heart - I like the way the ink looks on the last two sketches, while I don't think the first sketch is technically good I think it captures some of the frantic thoughts of guilt and undoing of the character in the story. I've got this awful habit of adding the quote to the image, I feel like I need to stop doing this so much, it's residual from scrawling lyrics all over things in my youth. Sometimes it could be appropriate, it's just finding where.

Some sweet sweet comic relief amongst all this darkness. 

The Fall of The House of Usher.

I just really liked the textures my brush pen was making as it ran out and wanted to do some atmospheric drawings with it. I think the close ups and square panels add some suspense to the set. 

Quoth the Raven; Nevermore