The final project of the Illustrators Toolkit module is to create a final illustration based on text we have been allocated. My text was, M. R. JAMES' "OH, WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD". I am familiar with James' work, and I have one of his books somewhere hidden among the many books that I own. However, I was not familiar with this piece.

The given art direction for this piece was as following: supernatural, unease, a discovery followed by the realisation that it will soon be dark. A low, windswept English coastline, the sense of being followed and/or watched. 
​
I then began to research the text, and I happened to come across a short film adaptation on Youtube, this helped with giving me a feel for the text and with different possible ideas to explore: 

Here are some stills that stood out for me in particular, and are something I can refer to when it comes to creating my piece. 

And a few from the 2010 version with Sir John Hurt 

​"What should I do now," he thought, "if I looked back and caught sight of a black figure sharply defined against the yellow sky, and saw that it had horns and wings?"

Re-reading the text, I thought that the above was just a tiny part of it and did not convey the text as a whole. Therefore I opted to draw an eerie night sky, with the moon shining on the sea. I used acrylic paints for this one:

Click HERE to be taken to my inspiration page for both modules. 

I really struggled with these two tasks, I found it hard to find the motivation to start them and struggled with ideas. I also found that my focus and concentration wouldn't last very long when I was working on these and it was just a difficult period for me to create work altogether. 

I feel like what I managed to produce is OK, however I could have done a lot better and produced a lot more thumbnails with ideas for the 'final' version. Time management is something I need to work on, big time! I ran out of time with these so here is what I managed to make for both tasks: