HOUSE OF MOURNING

Here is your Illustration of the week. The text to be printed on the page says it all:

Our house was the house of mourning. My father's health was deeply shaken by the horror of the recent events. Elizabeth was sad and desponding.

"When I reflect, my dear cousin, on the miserable death of Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before appeared to me. But now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood. Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness? William and Justine were assassinated, and the murderer escapes; he walks about the world free, and perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned to suffer on the scaffold for the same crimes, I would not change places with such a wretch."

I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony. I, not in deed, but in effect, was the true murderer.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Sometimes, more often than I'm comfortable with, I will redo a page in it's entirety because I am unhappy with it. If I'm lucky, I will notice my discontent with the piece in time and start over before I've done too much work. But then there are times, where I try to fix the problems or am complacent with the piece, and it's not until the piece is finished that I realize that it needs to be redone. This was the case with the piece above.

When the monster starts to tell his story, it is done with simple black and white cartoons to reflect the infantry in the monsters development. This black and white treatment is done on illustration board which is ideal for ink work. The second chapter of the monsters story reflects a step in development by using black and white washes as my medium. I thought sticking with the illustration board would be the proper choice. But after completion and some time for reflection, I now see that black and white washes using watercolor on watercolor paper would produce a much cleaner result.

So, without getting discouraged, I took to reproducing the piece from scratch. I hope that you notice the difference. I sure do. Unfortunately, this won't be the last page that needs a redo. When all is said and done, it is for the good of the end result. My goal, as it should be with any artist, is to deliver a masterpiece.