Le Jardin de la Mémoire

Possible inside title page design.

Print Giveaway

Comment below, or visit Facebook to Like and Share the post here to be in with the chance of winning one of my A5 snail prints. 

Printed on 225gsm Somerset Enhanced Moab by Legion Paper and packaged in a protective cellophane sleeve.
(The winner will be picked at random from a hat on Sunday 16th February)

Peryton

Peryton: a mythical deer-bird hybrid with the shadow of a man. After killing a man, it casts it's own shadow. Thought to have flown from Atlantis as the island was being destroyed by an earthquake. Possibly invented by Jorge Luis Borges in his "Book of Imaginary Beings"

Interesting fact about Jorge Luis Borges: his grandmother Fanny Haslam came from Hanley in Staffordshire, and she used to tell him stories when he was small. Occasionally Borges slips her surname into his stories.

Alternate version:

Wolpertinger

The Wolpertinger is a fanged rabbit-deer-squirrel-owl-hybrid from Bavarian Folklore.

Amateur music & short filmmaking

Capturing the play of light with my Harinezumi camera:

Website Update

My web-site is currently undergoing a much needed re-design, and will not be available over the next few weeks.

damn fine cup of coffee

I've made most of my Portraits on Postcards series available as prints on Society6, and I'll be adding new pieces over the next couple of weeks - take a peek: http://society6.com/EmmaRidgway

Magical Eels

The Abaia is a huge, magical eel in Melanesian mythology.

It dwells at the bottom of lakes in the Fiji, Solomon and Vanuatu Islands, and considers all creatures in the lake its children - protecting them fiercely from anyone who would harm or disturb them. People foolish enough to try to catch the fish from a lake containing the Abaia are immediately overwhelmed by a large wave caused by the thrashing of the Abaia’s powerful tail.

(I painted this while listening to Welcome to Night Vale - if you liked Twin Peaks or Stephen King you might enjoy it)

Limited Run Prints

I've just added some limited-run signed and numbered prints to my Etsy shop:  https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/emmaridgway

The Monkey of the Inkpot

“This animal, common in the north, is four or five inches long; its eyes are scarlet and its fur is jet black, silky, and soft as a pillow. It is marked with a curious instinct – the taste for India ink. When a person sits down to write, the monkey squats cross-legged nearby with one forepaw folded over the other, waiting until the task is over. Then it drinks what is left of the ink, and afterward sits back on its haunches, quiet and satisfied.” 

- Jorge Luis Borges "The Book of Imaginary Beings" citing Wang Tai-Hai, 1791

(I tend to get though ink pretty quickly, and I suspect there may be one of these little creatures nesting in the drawer of my desk)

Mythical Creatures

My very kind brother gave me a set of Winsor & Newton gouache paints for my birthday, and I've been busy using them to make paintings of mythical creatures. (I always forget how good it feels to paint with gouache...and whenever I use it, I remember my tutor at Falmouth saying: "it has to be just about the consistency of single cream").

This is a Fenghuang, an East Asian bird with the head of a golden pheasant, the body of a mandarin duck, the tail of a peacock, the legs of a crane and the wings of a swallow. (Descriptions vary...in some it also has the neck of a snake and three legs.)

Heart of Darkness

I've been immersed in Heart of Darkness over the past months, analysing the text and various criticisms, researching African art, learning about Joseph Conrad and his life, filling a sketchbook with drawings and notes...

These are some of the illustrations I made:

This is from a part of the book where the steamboat is described as being like a grimy beetle crawling the floor of a lofty portico. The sense of scale is immense. The Europeans are so small in their little boat and so disconnected from the vast culture and nature around them. Drawn in brush pen, mapping pen, rapidograph, and ink wash sprinkled with salt (while listening to an Alan Watts lecture).

I really wanted to play more with different viewpoints...this illustration is from the part where Marlow wanders into the "grove of death" where the exhausted slaves are dying under the trees. He notices a piece of white worsted tied around the neck of one of the slaves, and wonders what on earth this piece of material from European shores is doing in the Congo, and what it means for it to be around his neck.

Conrad describes the knitter's dress in Chapter 1 as being made from a plain fabric like umbrella material...in my illustration I've taken a few liberties and given it a "rained on" quality. I think the idea is that they are impervious; nothing can stop the progress of their knitting. They are the Fates, possessing power over everyone who passes through their chamber, measuring out their lives in black wool.

Conrad imagined the universe as an infernal knitting machine:

“There is a – let us say – a machine. It evolved itself (I am severely scientific) out of a chaos of scraps of iron and behold! – it knits. I am horrified at the horrible work and stand appalled. I feel it ought to embroider – but it goes on knitting. You come and say: “this is all right; it’s only a question of the right kind of oil. Let us use this – for instance – celestial oil and the machine shall embroider a most beautiful design in purple and gold”. Will it? Alas no. You cannot by any special lubrication make embroidery with a knitting machine. And the most withering thought is that the infamous thing has made itself; made itself without thought, without conscience, without foresight, without eyes, without heart. It is a tragic accident – and it has happened. You can’t interfere with it. The last drop of bitterness is in the suspicion that you can’t even smash it. In virtue of that truth one and immortal which lurks in the force that made it spring into existence it is what it is – and it is indestructible!
It knits us in and it knits us out. It has knitted time space, pain, death, corruption, despair and all the illusions – and nothing matters. I’ll admit however that to look at the remorseless process is sometimes amusing.”                              
                                                                              - Joseph Conrad

(speculative cover design based on the character of the Harlequin and a colonial map of Africa)