The Language of 19th Century Fiction {Jane Eyre}

Hello everyone, hope you are having a good weekend.  I mentioned in my last post that I wasn’t feeling well, well it did seem to drag on and I ended up being in bed all week!  Turns out that sort of thing always sounds more appealing that it actually is.  I ended up with backache from too much lying down lol.  Today is my first full day out of bed since last weekend, but the good news is that I am feeling much better and I was able to visit all of the lovely entries to the challenge so far, and even got some arting done!

As you know, I am Guest Hosting the May challenge over on Art Journal Journey this month and my chosen theme is…

Language!

You can find a nice list of ideas about language inspired pages in my introduction post just click here and on my theme intro on AJJ.

For today’s post, I wanted to make a page inspired by the language of the nineteenth century, specifically 19th century fiction and for my page I used one of my all-time favourite books – Jane Eyre.  Here’s how that came about…

Due to being poorly, I am also behind with my ATCs for #the100dayproject so at least that was something small I could work on. The last day of the 100 days is tomorrow!  I do not have 100 ATCs (yet).  As I worked on the latest batch, I was thinking about my next journal page and how I would create it. I really liked how this sketch turned out, I know it’s not the best ever but there is something about it that I like so I took a photo of it separately before I started colouring it and possibly ruining it lol

This is the cover for one of the copies of Jane Eyre that I own.  Apparently I have at least four copies of this book;  I kept finding more of them on the shelves and there might even be more lurking in the depths of the bookcases.  So one of my ideas for the language theme was to create a page inspired by the language of 19th Century fiction, so what better example than Jane Eyre.  I wondered if I could copy my ATC sized sketch into my journal…  This is my second attempt lol, there’s another page in this journal with another version of her that looks worse haha.  There’s something not quite right about the angle of her face so she looks different to the ATC version and somehow her nose grew much longer!

I used my neocolour IIs to “paint” her like I did with the ATC version.  Believe it or not the background colour is “Burnt Sienna” though it looks a bit pink.  I wanted to use words from the text of the book but I couldn’t bring myself to sacrifice any of the multiple copies of Jane Eyre than I own lol.  So, I went to the online version of it, searched the book for the passages I wanted to use and then copy/pasted them into a word document and printed them off!

I scribbled all over the background, writing lines from the book, and then painted over the book passages with another neocolour crayon to make them less white, and then outlined the blocks with a black stabilo, finishing by writing the title and author etc on the page.

Here are some closer looks at some of the passages I chose to include on the page.  This first one is when she is leaving Lowood school and I included it because it’s similar to how I feel right now.  I want “a new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances” and I think a lot of people feel that way now after the year we have had.  Then there is the passage below that talks about “cool language” and doesn’t it sound so modern to say that, though her meaning is a little different to our modern day “cool”.  They way they used to speak/write in those days is so graceful, so elegant ” a thankfulness for her kindness” and “a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me”.

This passage also contains some French language.  If you are not familiar with the story of Jane Eyre, she accepts a place at a country house in England, as a governess and the child she will be teaching turns out to be French.  Jane’s French is very good as she explains below.

The final passage I included is the opening paragraph to chapter XXXVIII which contains the most famous line “Reader, I married him.”

Jane had a hard life so she’s entitled to look sad, though you’d think marrying Mr Rochester would cheer her up a little bit!

Here’s the book, the journal and the ATC all together.

Photo Shoot Blooper:

You have everything ready to snap a photo of your page and then this happens…

Do you think Miss Lily was just not impressed by this page or perhaps she thought what Jane Eyre needed was a paw to the face?  The kitty has no respect for the art LOL

I hope you feel inspired to join us at Art Journal Journey this month.  Language is all about communication, and I would love to see you communicate using language on your pages, in whatever form you choose. I have a lot of ideas for language-inspired spreads to share with you over the course of this month, so do keep checking back if you need some inspiration or ideas, or even just to say hi!  I can’t wait to see what you do with this month’s theme and I will be dropping by to see all your lovely creations.

Let me know what you think in the comments.  As always, thanks for reading!

Ingredients

My handmade art journal, neocolour iis, stablio, pitt pens, book text printed from computer,

Challenges

Art Journal Journey – Language – May Challenge

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Ma Tasse De Thé (My Cup of Tea)

Language – Guest Hosting at Art Journal Journey May 2021

She Wore A Thousand Faces All To Hide Her Own