Friday, November 12

The Lost Mariner







These are the images I've been working on for my latest uni brief - Oliver Sacks' The Lost Mariner, a case study from The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. 

Jimmy G, the character in the story has amnesia that has wiped all memory from the age of 19 to 49, at which point he arrives at the residential home where Sacks works as a neurologist. He has short-term memory of just a few minutes but remembers his youth and life on a navy submarine in 1945 as if it were the present. He struggles to find any long-term interest in games and puzzles (at which he is adept) and remembers little from one day to the next - a kind of limbo. This is until he finds gardening and chapel, which fulfil him on a higher level and hold his attention, giving his existence some meaning. 

It was a really interesting read but not an easy thing to illustrate! I wanted to go for a kind of vintage textbook feel, to suit both the era that the story was set and to entertain myself. I decided on an abstract way of handling the equally abstract themes, and although I realise the images don't do much on their own, I hope they add something to the text.



3 comments:

laputain said...

Amazing! I'm reading The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat right now and read The Lost Mariner only yesterday!

Will have to go back and consider text and your illustrations side by side.

Francesca said...

i love these anna, they really do have a vintage feel, they're really dynamic too. great work. x

Percy Owl said...

I really really really love these illustrations! The vintage feel, the lines and shapes, and the great colours together. So awesome!!!!