This year is the bicentenary of the publication of ‘Frankenstein’. When asked what my favourite novel of all time is, I consistently answer ‘Frankenstein’ as I have probably re-read it more times than any other novel and because I also absolutely loved teaching it back in my High School teaching days. Long term followers of either of my blogs will know that characters from Frankenstein the novel ,and the 1931 movie, and its 1935 sequel, crop up regularly in my art journal or other drawings. I was, therefore, pretty chuffed to see that the final three prompts from Mab Graves’ Drawlloween list were all referencing the bicentenary.
First up was the author, Mary Shelley. I was tempted to draw Shelley as portrayed by Elsa Lanchester in ‘The Bride of Frankenstein’. However, I decided to attempt something closer to an actual portrait, my second author portrait in a row given I had just drawn Edgar Allan Poe. I used the portrait of Shelley by Richard Rothwell for reference and used the long, slim nose and the large eyes beneath shaded lids in particular. I have always been so impressed that Shelley embarked on writing such an incredible work of literature when still in her teens – and living quite a tumultuous and tragic life – so I wanted to illustrate her in the act of writing. That then led me to think about her creative spark and then spark made me think of the spark of life that reanimated a corpse and the idea of man playing god and all these ideas collided so that, in no time at all, I had my composition.
Pict Ink 