CHAPTER 1. There is No One Left

Chapter 1. 
There is No One Left

Summary: Introduced to our protagonist Mary, a sour looking and disagreeable little girl living in India with her unloving parents. Starved of attention Mary takes out her anger on her Ayah who waits on her hand and foot. Mary doesn't like India as she finds it far too hot and boring. There is an outbreak of disease which kills all but Mary and she is left an orphan.

Characters: Mary Lennox, Mary's Mother, Mary's Father, Ayah, snake, Barney.
Setting: India.

Quote to work from: "But no one came, and as she lay waiting the house seemed to grow more and more silent. She heard something rustling on the matting, and when she looked down she saw a little snake gliding along and watching her with eyes like jewels."

Research, references, inspiration: The first thing I looked into for this chapter title illustration were the different Indian breeds of snakes. I wanted the authenticity of the type of snake to be from a region of India as that is where Mary is living when she sees the snake.

Green vine snake (Ahaetulla nasuta) ඇහැ‍ටුල්ලා

The snake that stood out to me from my research was the green vine snake (Ahaetulla nasuta) ඇහැ‍ටුල්ලා, a slender green tree snake found in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and other countries. This snake stood out to me as it's eye was unique, it has a horizontal pupil unlike most snake-eyes and this to me resembled somewhat a jewel not an eye like Mary describes in the chapter.

I chose this part of the chapter to illustrate as it was the most visually stimulating description of a character or person so far, the visuals created with "eyes like jewels." I thought would be really fun to illustrate and from this stemmed several ideas. I then looked into jewels and jewels typical of Indian culture and colours to use as inspiration for the snakes eyes.

Sapphire and Ruby.

Amber.

My initial findings found that jewels typical of Indian culture were rubies and sapphires, however, I felt for the art style they were too typical and bland colours for a snake and this character so looked into other gems and jewels of richer colours and a more palatable colouring. This is where I discovered Amber. Amber is a less typical jewel of India but used as an Amber preservative, having preserved bugs, insects, fossils and other such things inside. The idea behind this to me is more interesting and I thought the colour amber against the vivid green of the snakes body would be striking.

Indian fabric.

 

As I really wanted to capture the feeling of this first chapter being in India whereas the rest of the novel is set in Yorkshire, England I really wanted to explore and collage this in the body of the snake. Typical things I think of when I think of India are spices, colour and their rich, detailed fabrics. The fabrics were important to weave into my illustration and I decided to do this by making up a collection of assorted fabrics the snake skin as I have made the jewels it's eyes.

Illustration for a South Indian food chain, Vaagno, Devashree Dhakras.

 The colour palette in this piece is something I would like to take forward into my own design.

Roughs/sketches:

Final artwork: This is the final outcome, as the process is digital collage the original drawing itself is quite basic.

Original drawing.

Colour palette.

Final artwork.