"The Captain of the Demeter"
digital hand-rendering based on ink,
pencil crayon, and gouache techniques
8" x 10" at 500 ppi • 2018
Dalnavert, also known as MacDonald House, is a Winnipeg museum and onetime residence of Sir Hugh John Macdonald, former Premier of Manitoba and son of Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald. The house was acquired by the Manitoba Historical Society and painstakingly restored in every last detail. Entirely furnished, decorated, and equipped per the late Victorian era of its construction, the museum plays host to several cultural events throughout the year. One of the most popular is a self-guided, interactive theatrical walking tour known as Dracula Unearthed.
The tour, styled as a Hallowe'en mystery game, features several props including copies of Whitby, England's Dailygraph and The Westminster Gazette of London reporting uncanny incidents using excerpts from Stoker's novel. I was brought on in the late summer of 2018 to create period-inspired illustrations for these articles.
I read and re-read the novel, aiming not only to bring its scenes to life but to stay as true to the narrative as possible. To wit, the grounding of the Demeter at Tate Hill Pier—pictured above—is typically portrayed in fog and rain with a rat-swarmed deck, while the novel specifies a break in the fog, a deck empty save for the unfortunate captain, and the stark white shaft of the East Cliff searchlight blasting the shadows.
"The Bloofer Lady"
digital hand-rendering in the style
of a block-printed ink drawing
3" x 4" at 1,200 ppi • 2018
After the death and iterment of Lucy Westenra it was reported that children, missed at suppertime, had been found insensate on the Hampstead Heath in the early hours of morning—wounded slightly about the throat as by a rat or small dog. These children, terribly weak and looking quite emaciated, were able to account for themselves only insofar as to say a "bloofer lady" had asked them to walk with her.
I patterned this illustration—somewhat loosely—after the small, untoned spot drawings common to Victorian periodicals. Needless to say, its present appearance is magnified out of all proportion!
