the left hand slowly beckonskonstfack.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1444087/...lovecraft’s...

TheLeftHandSlowlyBeckonsMarcus Jernberger Konstfack 2020BA - Grafisk formgiving och illustration Tutor : Catherine Anyango Grünewald

2Marcus Jernberger / The Left Hand Slowly Beckons

Abstract In my Bachelor’s project I have attempted to explore and develop my relationship with the amorphous concept that is ”style”. As an illustrator I am sometimes torn between the idea of having a single recog-nizable style or to be experimental and to use aesthetics as a tool rather than a signifier of a personal brand.

The project takes the form of an anthology of weird fiction stories, where each of the eight stories are illustrated in different ways and with different materials. I have choses weird fiction as a subject not only because of personal interest but also because of the specific qualities of the genre. Weird fiction deals in uncertainties and mood, with a huge emphasis on how things are told, not what is told. In this project I have attempted to transfer some of these qualities to my illustration practice. Letting the contents of the image take the backseat to how it is drawn. Both as a method for producing the anthology but also to develop as an illustrator overall.

Contents 1.Introduction / 3

2.Background / 3 – 52.2 Defining weird fiction

3. Illustrating the weird / 5 – 6

4. The foundations on which we draw upon / 7 – 94.1 Content 4.2 Material 4.3 Style

5.The Anthology / 10 – 14 6.The Drawer and the illustrator. /146.1 Moving forward.

7. Index /15


1. Introduction This text is a companion piece to my bachelor project ”The left hand slow-ly beckons”. The project consists of an illustrated weird fiction anthology with eight stories by eight authors. The texts are of varying length and are written over a rough 200 year span, the earliest being published some-where around 1740 and the latest 1936. The book is 120 pages long and contains 68 illustrations of varying sizes. Each story is illustrated, and to some extent designed, in its own style and with its own materials. Alternating styles has been a way to challenge my-self as an illustrator and a way to find new modes to work in. The styles I have worked with are sometimes meant to match, sometimes contrast but always to take the story someplace new. Nowhere have I attempted to be contemporary with the style and the aesthetics that would exist when the story was written.

In choosing to work with the Risograph, I have based my decision both on utility and philosophy. I see the project as a reflection of the anthology as an argument in the discussion around a topic. The ephemeral and limited qualities of the riso can be likened to the limited scope of the pamphlet or the zine. Something that justifies its existence not by expensive materials but engaging contents. It should be added that the risograph has been an important part of my practice during my studies and this project serves as a sort of pièce de résistance and my most ambitious project yet.

In this text I will first attempt to explain the definition of weird fiction I have chosen to work from and then what I have learned in doing so and what special demands it has put on the work. Lastly I will dis-cuss how I define this work from a purely illustration perspective and my view on illustration, both as it pertains to my own practice and the field as a whole.

2. Background My own interest in weird fiction started in my teenage years, borrowing Lovecraft longer novels form my high school library. I don’t quite remember when I first became aware of his writing, but I certainly heard the word ”Lovecraftian” before I heard the name Howard Philips Lovecraft. A lot of media I con-sumed at the time had hints and references to his work, I guess there was this fascination with his work that didn’t warrant adaptation but mention. It was kind of amazing realizing that there was this author that not only influenced so much the general horror aesthetic but also so directly influenced authors like Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Junji Ito, Neil Gaiman and many more.

Nowadays it wouldn’t consider myself a huge Lovecraft fan. Not only because of the emergent criticism leveled both the quality of his writing and the possibly racist contents therein. But mainly because I now have discovered many other writers in the genre of weird fiction. I was never one for the monsters in Lovecraft’s stories and he has a tendency to tip his hand too early. If I want to really get the goosebumps I prefer Arthur Machen, maybe because I aesthetically prefer witch-haunted English countryside over New England invaded by fish people. For the more heady stuff I like Walter De La Mare, who’s tales has only slightly touch on the supernatural but are fascinating all the same.

2.1 Defining weird fiction

The definition of weird fiction is an elusive one, as definitions of genre tend to be. Some define it as being a phenomena of the early twentieth century, but many stories that fit the definition have been written before and after. Others try to place it culturally as a product of the pulp publishing boom,


and while many weird stories were published in Weird Tales and similar magazines, as many has been published in completely dif-ferent contexts. Weird fiction is neither a sub-genre of science-fic-tion or fantasy as for every story about demonic powers or alien tentacles, there is a story about the psychological struggle of the everyman. Furthermore, Weird fiction doesn’t have its roots in a western context, although the will to define it might have, as it is western writers that are most often is spoken of regarding the gen-re. All cultures have stories about the uncanny and the unknown, and the modern or postmodern treatment of these stories exist all over.

To be able to reliably refer to weird fiction in any sort of argument or conversation, I would suggest using the weird effect as a meas-urement of what qualifies as weird fiction. But what is the weird effect? Hard to pin down but not entirely undefinable the weird effect is what you have left if you remove the qualities of the traditionally unsettling and horrific from one of the applicable tales. The weird is not something that scares us, rather something that challenges us. CS Lewis puts another word to this in ”The problem of pain” where he describes the concept of the numinous, the experience of religious epiphany or arousal.

”Suppose you were told there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told “There is a ghost in the next room,” and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a dif-ferent kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is “uncanny” rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply “There is a mighty spirit in the room,” and be-lieved it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking—a sense of inadequacy to cope with such a visitant and of prostration before it—an emotion which might be expressed in Shakespeare’s words “Under it my genius is rebuked.” This feeling may be described as awe, and the object which excites it as the Numinous.” (1.)

The distinction of the fear of what may harm us and what may shake our worldview is a central concept. As some stories of the weird fiction genre do not contain an element of the horrific but may still create that same uncanny effect.

Going along with this mode of thinking it becomes possible for fiction to ”fall out” of being weird. Ar-guably all storytelling that goes beyond the possible could be considered weird at its conception. The first story told about the area specific boogie-man would produce a Numinous effect. The sheer idea of an evil being lurking the local woods, both produces a response of terror as the being might harm us, but also a weird effect since the mere idea of it challenges a stable worldview. It is only later when the story has become commonplace that the Numinous effect fades leaving the story to be just scary. The monster is still terrifying but the idea of it has been absorbed into the collective unconscious and has been neutralized in terms of being strange.

A lot of weird fiction attempt to reverse this by proposing something new about figures and concepts already processed by culture at large. By suggesting something more deeply terrifying about concepts that is otherwise considered to be the stuff of fairytales, the authors reaffirm these figure’s original numinous status.

H.P. Lovecraft ”T

he Call of C

thulhu” From

”Weird Tales” 1928


Writing that previously would have been interpreted as philosophical or religious musing also gets a broad-er appeal as entertainment. The writer Arthur Machen deals a lot with the idea of creatures of folklore sur-viving into the modern day but also leans heavily on Catholic sin as a concept. Content wise we can find a lot of similarities between the the ideas of Machen and the theologic speculation of writer John Milton but the 300 years that separate them puts their writ-ing in completely different categories. Both authors work in the field of religious speculation but Machen lived in a time where the musings on the supernatural had gone from the profound to the weird.

3. Illustrating the weird When visualizing the weird one has to navigate the difficulties of showing too little and showing too much. Many stories in the weird fiction genre stay quiet about the deeper mysteries of the plot, only hinting at the true nature of the story and what goes on within it. This leaves the reader to imagine what horrific truths are not written or creates a sense of unease when the reader can not imagine the unimaginable.

An illustrator is often told to illustrate what is read between the lines of a text and to add an extra dimen-sion to the work. But with weird fiction one can not simply draw what one imagines for them selves. The unknown must be kept as such.

In Arthur Machen’s ”The white people” The following passage happens fairly early on in the story.

”So I went after the animal by a very narrow dark way, under thorns and bushes, and it was almost dark when I came to a kind of open place in the middle. And there I saw the most wonderful sight I have ever seen, but it was only for a minute, as I ran away directly, and crept out of the wood by the passage I had come by, and ran and ran as fast as ever I could, because I was afraid, what I had seen was so wonderful and so strange and beautiful. But I wanted to get home and think of it, and I did not know what might not happen if I stayed by the wood.” (2.)

The main character sees something so odd and wonderful and scary that she has to go straight home and think, just to be able to process what she has just seen. Machen never tells us what the girl sees in the woods and neither should the illustrator taking on the text. The effect would be lost if the reader read the passage and then on the other page saw a picture of a dragon or fairy queen or a treasure.

These kind of stories provide a very amorphous content to work with. As mentioned before the illus-trator can not add their own interpretations. But approaching the material as if the happenings within are mundane is not an option either. The illustrator needs to rely on their ability to match the mood or aesthetic of the piece without influencing the reading too much. During the project I have attempted to achieve this balance and have developed a few different angles of approach.

Mood through setting:Maybe the most obvious way to achieve is the desired effect is to take all information not decided by the author, or knowingly left out by them, and twist it towards a reading fitting the stories mood. If the story takes place in the woods but no time of day is stated, make to woods dark and scary. By playing the ”set designer” we can help the reader have a more rewarding experience.


Affection and adding character:By helping the reader feel something for the characters in the story, what happens to them will have a greater gravitas. The most obvious way to achieve this is to make the characters attractive and their feelings obvious. But this method can also be used in a more subtle way when deciding on characters looks. We will read different things into different characters if we get information about things like how they dress or what body language they have. Here the drawn image has a lot of opportunity to add things to the text.

Symbolism:By adding symbols the illustrator can help to add layers to the story. The illustration can have a conversa-tion with the story about themes and concepts without tipping the hand to the reader. A lesser version of this is to add symbols that may only seem to add depth to the story without really adding anything more than the feeling of symbolism.

Execution and material:The look of a piece can be an efficient way to lead the reader to a mood. The jagged speaks of aggres-sion and speed, the rounded of softness and calm. Red is blood and gore, blue is the tranquil sea. Using these notions in surprising or anachronistic ways can help produce the weird effect.

In my work I have used these approaches in different combinations. Both in an attempt produce a good piece of work as well as challenge my self as an illustrator. I have also gone out of my way to differentiate the stories through style and material. The anthology would be impossible to produce as a single illustrator if I did not take this approach. It simply wouldn’t be the same thing if all eight stories were illustrated in the same manner. This has in turn made me consider what actually goes into creating illustration and how I consider my own approach.


4. The foundations on which we draw upon

I would like to suggest a model on in which we divide illustration into three distinct elements, or al-ternatively three legs that the illustration practice stands upon. These are; content, style and material. The relation of three varies from image to image and illustrator to illustrator but are always present. All illustrative work exists along the lines of:

Subject (content) depicted (style) with material, by person (style)

Boiling down an artistic practice to its bare bones might seem both disenchanting and pedantic. But I suggest that this line of thinking might be useful. Not only as a mode of analyzing existing works but also to help formulate a constructive way of approaching one’s own work and practice as well as the field of illustration as a whole.

An illustration or an illustrator can be unevenly strong in these three parts, without it being a problem. But skills and focuses work differently in different context and will be demanded by different situations.

4.1 Contents

To be able to discuss content in a useful manner I will de-fine it as what an image depicts, its subject matter and its theme. In most cases this is the information that is decided before the visual work begins. Sometimes this is decided by the illustrator themself but often predetermined by the nature of an assignment or commission. I would argue that in modern illustration content has be-come the most important element of illustration. One of the mainstays of the industry is working with editorials. In these assignments the content isn’t only set but also of considerable artistic merit. The contents are not to be heightened by the illustration as much as matched. A com-mon approach to this type of job is what I would like to call the ”pun illustration” where the subject of the contents is reflected literally in the drawn material. This could, for instance, be done by visualizing some wordplay or abstraction present in the text. This kind of work gives the contents a huge impor-tance in relation to material and style, since what is reflected is not the illustrator’s creativity but the writer’s. The tools chosen become only a means to an end and the style inconsequential since what stands in focus is what is said, not what is shown. This approach can be seen in many other fields where the illustrator works as accessory to someone else creativity.

4.2 Material

The tools used to produce a picture tells their own story. Materials and methods give different asso-ciations and tells of the labor put into the work. It also tests the viewer’s knowledge of the process of image-making. Someone unfamiliar with the concept of etching might mistake a printed sheet for a graphite drawing, which undoubtedly alters the viewers idea of what kind of picture they have in front of them.

Material has an unmistakable relation to labor. In a modern world we might think that any and all mate-rials would be at the illustrator’s disposal. But in actuality the demand put on the work of the individual artist might limit the possible tools used for the task. The most obvious being time as a limiting factor, different methods and materials demand different amount of time and labor. Comparing oil paints to digital drawing we will see a preference for the latter among professional illustrators. Not because of any

Micheal D

river for the Guardian


inherent, artistic quality, but because it simply expedites the process. Technological advancements that offer new ways to produce work are often evaluated along these lines. Ease of use becomes highly valued in a market-place where quick turnaround is paramount. The speedier an illustrator can produce a finished, arguably polished work, the better. This standardization of tools creates a playing field where everyone is expected to be able to perform along the same parameters.

Take for example Adobe’s acquisition of the rights to the digital brushes cre-ated by Kyle T. Webster. Kyle produces high quality digital brushes that try to replicate different analog materials, but has had the most impact on the illustration field as a whole with a hand full of brushes that has now become Adobe’s, and the creators subscribed to its service, standard. This standard-ization is not only visible in observing workflows but in the aesthetic of the work produced.It’s not only among digital tools this can be observed. A few years back the brush pen became a popular alternative to the much messier brush and ink combo. This popularity could also be identified in many illustrator’s work not only because of what it made possible and what it made difficult. But also because of how people inspired each other in how to use this newish, popular tool.

Comparably this would be like if Gibson suddenly dominated the guitar in-dustry and any and all bands would use Les Paul guitars as part of their sound.

Obviously this effect is something to be aware and maybe even wary of. Ease of use isn’t a bad quality to look after in one’s tools. And I see no inherent virtue in using the most messy and difficult tools just for the sake of it. But that is not to say that the path of least resistance is always the right one. The big problem emerges when the demands of the industry limits the viable options of materials since this also limits the range of aesthetics in the field.

To me, some of the most interesting qualities of a material is what it can not do. When we push or distress a tool its limitations show in the picture that is made. This can take its expression in lack of fine detail or scale. In these inconsistencies the viewer can see both the material and the makers hands.

4.3 Style

It seems to me like style has become something that is considered bad to talk about. Style has over time become synonymous with surface and artifice. But style is where the individual creator has the most opportunity to influence their work. Content might be predetermined and materials might be limited or limiting but the style is in large part a choice.

Style is connected to the illustrators imagination but also their knowledge of how things have been de-picted before them. We might imagine ourselves a unique genius that creates work never before seen on the face of the planet. But realistically all art exist within a context and most, if not all, things drawn or painted can be likened to something that precedes it. This, I think is something that is essential to accept, not only for the sake of humility, but because know-ing our place in a larger tradition is fundamental in mastering ones own style.

I think there exists a bias in how we talk about illustration, where good work is rewarded with terms like unique and is described as a product of a singular genius. Where as bad work is lauded as derivative and unsophisticated because of it. These things might be true in individual cases but I take an umbrage with the value system in this kind of critique.

The idea that something exists as a singular, unique expression of the individual genius says more about


the observer’s knowledge than the work it self. The person observing the work might truly ”never seen anything like it”. This however does not mean that nothing like it exists. The critic lacks the literacy to give a truthful analysis of the works uniqueness. This line of reasoning might sound like a way to ”expose” more work and artist as derivative, but a callout of work being less than original only exists as the other side of the coin, of calling it unique. My point being that the whole coin is less valuable that we might think. The acceptance that work can not exist without influence is an essential part in learning to handle these influences constructively.

If we attempt to distance ourself from the notion that style is a product of individuality, style instead becomes an incredibly useful tool in communicating with the viewer. When someone sees a piece of il-lustrated work they will, consciously or unconsciously, be reminded by other related work and attempt to place it in a context. So if we are in control of what other work our work resemble, we can steer the viewers associative chain. This is not to say that the best way is to develop is to learn to steal. But the knowledge and skill to handle style has to be in the hands of the illustrator, else it falls to someone else.

To retain the control of ones style is in the best interest of the illustrator and their development. Since others might not have as much of an interest in this knowledge of the self. Proclaiming something or someone as peerlessly genius is a strong tool in the hands of those with vested interest in the individual creative. The artistic development and a visual diversity of the craft and its perpetrators are not always the most important things to those that benefit from the illustrators work. If we let someone else decide the field easily ends up in a place where style becomes standardized around concepts such as efficiency and recognition. No more clearly exemplified than with the proliferation of the style that has become known as ”Corporate Memphis”(4.). A perfect storm of technological innovation and artistic rationali-zation, first seen in the communication of tech companies but now in publications and political com-munication. Given a name likely only because of how common the style has become, and because of how problematic some in the industry find it.

Interestingly the style is often stated to be inspired by late work of Henri Matisse (3). Work he pro-duced while bedridden at the end of his life. I find it interesting that what was the necessary com-promise of the life long painter and sculptor now serves as an artistic style willingly chosen by many able-bodied designers.

The discussion around corporate Memphis has also been an interesting one because of how it points to the political realties of aesthetics and the labor to create them. As Rachel Hawley puts it in her article on the subject for Eye on Design:

”Airbnb, Hinge, Lyft, Airtable, Google, and Youtube are all in on the craze, along with seemingly every other new app or startup in existence. For these companies, adopting a visual language that signals positivity and connectedness is a tool to paper over the social and political harm and divisiveness their products create—and illustration has increasingly become a centerpiece of the strategy.” (4.)

To me the mere idea of the discussion, makes me cautiously hopeful that the field is questioning the parameters of its existence. Do we exist as a part of art and culture, or do we exist to serve the purpose capital finds for us.

The Parakeet and the M

ermaid: H

enri Matisse

Facebook Alegria: Studio Buck (exam

ple of corporate Mem

phis)


5. The Anthology

The Night Ocean - R.H. Barlow & H.P. Lovecraft - 1936

The story doesn’t follow any real structure and serves more as a meditation on a mood than a narrative. We follow an unnamed artist as he awaits the results of mural competition on a new England beach re-sort. The main antagonist, if you can call it that, is the main characters mood. He constantly fighting off his darker thoughts and the ocean capti-vates him to no end. There are hints of a deeper mystery, swimmers have gone missing and strange things wash up on the beach. But ultimately the internal struggle of the artist takes center stage.

Of all the illustrations in the anthology the ones for The Night Ocean are the ones with the most singular inspiration. The somewhat messy, cross-hatched drawings take a lot from the work of Tove Jansson. Oddly I find a lot of similarities between the story and Jansson’s book ”sommarboken”. Both dealing with humanity’s relationship to the sea and to themselves.

The method of drawing I have adapted uses different crosshatches to crate halftones between black and white. In some cases the threshold be-tween halftones replaces line-work all together. This hazy effect is meant to match the gradual and unclear progression of the text.

The Town of Cats - Hagiwara Sakutaro - 1935

I had no heard of Hagiwara when I started this project, likely because The Town of Cats or Cat town as it is sometimes translated as, is his only short story. The troubled writer was mainly a poet and is more ”well known” for his modernist poetry.

Nothing much happens in the story but creates a suspenseful effect by positioning that ”something must happen” as well as an interesting take on the concepts of perspective and illusion.

In my illustrations I have tried to match the protagonist, and Mr Hagiwara’s, love for the feeling that comes with discovering a new place. The story gushes over how lovely many of its locations are. The story takes place in a Japan that is going through changes and here and there Hagiwara mentions western influences and the distinct mood this hybridization creates.

The work I have produced for the story are divided into two categories; the first are small black and white line drawings placed in the margins on of the pages, the second are three full spread color illustrations of locations mentioned in the story. The former serves as a help for the reader by giving them a visual representation of some of the cultural references that might be foreign to them. The latter serves as mood pieces and the main aesthetic interpretation of the story.


From the Dead - Edith Nesbit - 1893

The story starts out as a romantic drama with nary a spook to be sighted. The characters are engaging and their dialogue is very well written. But a misunderstanding turns the tale to the tragic and to the horrific. From the Dead is the story with most in common with the regular ghost story, but has its weird moments, especially towards the end.

Since the story is very much character driven I relied heavily on portraits to illustrate it. The graphite I used made it possible to gradually ramp up shadows and contrast as the story went on, illustration by illustration.

The Haunted House - Pu Songling - 1740s

By far the oldest and shortest story in the analogy. The Haunted House is an oddly matter of fact account of two weird incidents in a house. The story might only fall into the category of weird rather than spooky because of cultural differences be-tween east and west. What we expect from a haunting is so different from what happens in this Chinese story.

I wanted to capture the clarity of the descriptions in the story as well as some of the tactility that the apparitions are described with. The illustrations almost touch on being sequential, this of course, is because of how incredibly short the story is.

The White People - Arthur Machen - 1904

When I set out to make this project this was the first story I knew I wanted to include. Something about the completely unknowable combined with a fairly familiar folkloric setting really sparks my imagination.

The story consists of a single paragraph of some thirteen thousand words. The narrator is an unnamed teenage girl and we are meant to understand the story as her journal. The plot can be hard to follow at times and the text contains several nested stories, retold to us by the girl but originating with her, probably witch, nurse.

The narrative is fueled by Mechen’s fixation on sin, both in the Catho-lic sense and as a broader concept akin to ”sin against nature”. But the story can be fully enjoyed without the Catholic world view. In a modern context the story can even be interpreted as proto-feminist, with the young girl coming into her own, albeit in a horrific manner. The story originally contained a lengthy framing device which dis-cussed the themes of the story as Machen’s thinly veiled self-insert sees them. I elected to remove this part as I prefer to let the reader take what they can from the story without it.

When visualizing the story I chose to work entirely with colored pen-cils and with a very firm hand. Laying down areas of single value color. The style is meant to match the narrative’s sense of wonder that carries throughout the story. Horrific things happen and are spo-ken about but the tone of the story never shifts and always return to be framed as a game the girl is playing. Similarly, my illustrations never ”judge” their contents. Everything is drawn in the same decorative manner, from forest streams to witch burnings.


Ligeia - Edgar Allan Poe - 1838

To me Ligeia has been the hardest story to work with. Poe is so impreg-nated with his own gothic aesthetic that it becomes difficult to inter-pret. I can use little imagination when drawing the raven haired Ligeia since Poe spends a sizable portion of the story describing her being. In the end it was this obsession the protagonist, and his creators, has with this woman that I latched on to. To me this almost religious fascination with the female form is reminiscent of the more problematic, but also interesting side of anime and manga. The concept moé (萌え) describes the obsessive and paradoxical preference of the human, most often fe-male, as a symbolic signifier carrying different traits rather then a per-son being certain ways. It should be said that this fascination is distinct from objectification in the sense that it exists as a form of sexualization. Even though there is overlap moé can be experienced in completely non sexual sense. The classic example being experiencing a moé attraction toward a small train that is ”trying it’s best”. Poe never really sexualizes Ligeia but still frames his protagonist relationship with her in a disturbing way, as a ”child groping benighted”. The weirdness of this tale lie in it the psychology of its characters, the supernatural parts are mere set dressing.

In illustrating the story I used this parallel to inform the style choices. The gothic element is still there but my main visual inspiration became Japa-nese animation form the late 80’s especially the ”magical girl” sub-gen-re. Both because of the aforementioned parallel to moé but also because some of the iconographical overlap. Moons, stars and magical diagrams suit both sides of the parallel so to say.

The House of the Sphinx - Lord Dunsany - 1912 A strange, very short story. An unarmed protagonist happens upon the eponymous house. Inside is the sphinx and her followers, or maybe cultists. An un-specified ”deed” has been committed and something is coming for the sphinx but she sits in silent ruminat-ing on the deed, unwilling to react to the approaching danger. The protagonist escapes and the fate of the sphinx is ultimately unknown.

Interestingly Dunsany based the story on a drawing by his friend, the artist Sidney Sime. This might explains the story’s very limited scope, being based on a single image. I did not know this when I did my interpre-tation so in a way my piece is the third in a century spanning game of telephone.

In my interpretation I let the sphinx be the centerpiece and adorned her with symbols of prophecy, something related to the sphinx, both in the story and in broader cultural sense. The image also has an architectural aspect reflecting the house in the story and it seemingly Escher like qualities.

The story is only a bit more than a thousand words and therefore only takes up a spread in the analogy. This gave me an opportunity to work with the design, letting the text frame mimic the archway in the main illustration.

Sime’s O

riginal drawing.


The Tree - Walter De La Mare - 1922

The tree is a wonderful example of exploring the weird through character. The story centers on two half-brothers; the fruit merchant and the artist. The tree that give the story its title is the source of the artist inspiration, having bought a cottage with the tree in its garden. The tree houses its own ecosystem of birds and bugs and underneath it weeds sprout, all of the lifeforms reminiscent of known animals and plants put non of them quite right.

I have chosen to illustrate the sto-ry only trough drawings of flora and fauna. And have attempted to match the recognizable but uni-dentifiable in terms of categoriza-tion. One of my main inspirations where the biological illustrations done by Katsushika Hokusai. These lesser know, mainly monochro-matic, works approach nature not through exact representation but rather captures something quintes-sential about each creature.

In a few places I have let the sto-ry sneak into the drawings, eyes on a moth’s wings match those described to belong to the artist brother, two broken eggs in a nest parallel the brothers falling out.


6. The illustrator and the drawer I, and I think many with me, started their creative paths not as illustrators but drawers. I only took on the moniker of illustrator when the possibility of turning drawing into a job was presented to me. But what has been clear to me is that with going over the threshold, what can be considered good has changed.

For the drawer the only thing that matters is beauty and the tangible experience of creating. And while at moments I wish I was a hermit with only the clothes on my back and pocket full of pencils, free from influence from the ever faster turning wheel of the industry, that is no way to live, at least not for a mod-ern narcissist such as myself. But If you want to be seen you will also see, and therefore be influenced.

The only solution I can see is to hone one’s craft so as to not be tempted by shortcuts. And to have a clear enough mind as to be able to self criticize but not to be swayed by current trends. To have the guts to believe that what you are doing will go somewhere even though it does not fit the current demand.

And to be like the weird artists I have venerated in this project. The true weird can never be bought or sold. It is something you have to let embrace you on your own terms. Create the subtle, the uncanny and the terrifyingly beautiful if you can. And if you can’t, learn how to.

6.1 Moving forward

A lot of things I write in this text take on the form of argument but, to me, this project and this text have served to help to define, for myself, what I find important and how I can try to achieve those things.

When I set the parameters for this project I worked around the assumption that I would convincingly be able to change my style around for every project and to give a proof of concept of the idea that being able to change ones style is a good tool in working with illustration. But now when all is said and done I feel like what I really have been doing is to challenge my own idea of what style is. All of the illustrations in the book reflect different aspect of my illustrative mannerisms, they are all my style. Maybe style is something broader then the rational parameters of color and shape. My criticism of the modern illustra-tion industry still stands but I think now that what it really does is limit us in imagining what our creative output can look like, what expressions and mannerisms we are able to handle.

I hope now to be less afraid when illustrating to be able to spend less time worrying about what ex-pression is good or bad or when I have moved too far away from my true style. Mannerisms exists for a reason and all have qualities and histories beyond the individual picture.


Index1. Lewis, C.S. The problem of pain. The Century Press, 1940

2. Machen, Arthur. The White People. J & W Horlick’s 1904 (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_White_People_(Machen))

3. Stinson, Liz. How Matisse’s Cut-outs Took Over the Illustration World. Eye on design. 2018-07-13 https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/how-matisses-cut-outs-took-over-the-illustration-world/

4. Hawley, Rachel. Don’t Worry, These Gangly-armed Cartoons Are Here to Protect You From Big Tech. Eye On Design. 2019-08-21 https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/dont-worry-these-gangley-armed-cartoons-are-here-to-protect-you-from-big-tech/

the left hand slowly beckonskonstfack.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1444087/...lovecraft’s...

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