Folio Society Book Illustration Competition
I entered into the Book Illustration Competition run by The Folio Society and House of Illustration for the first time this year.
The long list has been announced today and whilst I’m not on it this time I’ve throughly enjoyed the creation of my entries. The brief was to illustrate three love poems as part of a larger selection, The Trick by Imtiaz Dharker, who is also selecting and editing the book, Wild Night! by Emily Dickinson and The Good Morrow by John Donne.
It felt like I was back in English Literature lessons at school to begin with, analysing the poems and working on concepts. I really got into the spirit of it after digesting the prose and embraced the whole process.
See the final illustrations submitted and the poem along with some of the sketch work and thinking that went into the pieces.
The Trick by Imtiaz Dharker
In a wasted time, it’s only when I sleep
that all my senses come awake. In the wake
of you, let day not break. Let me keep
the scent, the weight, the bright of you, take
the countless hours and count them all night through
till that time comes when you come to the door
of dreams, carrying oranges that cast a glow
up into your face. Greedy for more
than the gift of seeing you, I lean in to taste
the colour, kiss it off your offered mouth.
For this, for this, I fall asleep in haste,
willing to fall for the trick that tells the truth
that even your shade makes darkest absence bright,
that shadows live wherever there is light.
Conceptually the idea of the glow of orange really fascinated me, the sketches show how the orange is filling up almost like the bed sheets, or the shadow of the person coming to the door is orange. The orange being the moon and the clock counting the hours appealed as it combined the threads of the poem nicely. In the final version the lips of the woman became the focus rather than the whole body in bed. The juice of the orange suggestive of the kiss she was longing for.
The Good Morrow by John Donne
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved; were we not weaned till then,
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got,’twas but a dream of thee.
And now good morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room, an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess our world; each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp North, without declining West?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one; or thou and I
Love so alike that none do slacken, none can die.
Many of the ideas for The Good Morrow revolved around a hanging bauble or a room suspended in universe. After reading the A-Level study notes on the poem, the direction became clearer. However I did draw up a version of the couple reaching out to each other from the inside of a locket before deciding to go with the bubble floating in the ether. The couple inter locked as shade and light represented their unreal world they created for themselves.
Wild Nights! by Emily Dickinson
Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile - the Winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden -
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor - Tonight -
In thee!
The passion in this poem seemed to be brimming over so I was intrigued about the author and keen to find out what inspired Emily Dickinson to write with such verve! It was interesting to find out that this prose is all from imagination as opposed to real life.
I felt a connection to this poem and came up with the concept of her as an island as my first thought. I enjoyed working into the detail of the sea and the gentle curves of the body on this one.