Agatha Christie illustrations
It is time to give you an update on my Agatha Christie illustrations for The Agatha Christie Book collection series, which is still going strong and selling well. ! I have just completed artwork for her novel “They Did It With Mirrors” and thought you might like to see the results.
Agatha Christie illustrations: As the book is set in 1952, I have changed my style of a painting a little, as a nod to 1950s magazines artwork, and French fashion artwork of the 1950s, which is gorgeous!
The book itself is a Miss Marple mystery, my Dad’s favourite Christie sleuth. As usual it’s a colourful cast of sinister house keepers, seemingly gentle older folk with seething underbellies, and of course your average psycho, and femme fatale.
As usual I researched the period and had a bit of a struggle over ladies clothing. Most people think of those wide flouncy skirts, the ‘A’ line with tiny waist, but in 1952 the waistline was definitely accentuated, but skirts tapered towards the bottom and were fairly long, below the knee anyway. The men were easier to dress.
The artwork has been created using nib pen and coloured inks, but this time I used a looser more haphazard approach (within the constraints of the brief), and deliberately left bits not painted fully. I used red as my key colour and then worked in greys and greens around it, so that the palate is quite small. Too much colour can just end up looking a mess, unless you are very clever with it!
If you would like to see more on this magazine series, try this link!
