Evaluation

     

      At the final point in my work, it is relevant to evaluate briefly few points about the project that is elaborated on my blog.

        Without exception, it has been my intention to reproduce an individual character for Miss Havisham and Stella that will differ from other productions from the past. Simultaneously, I aimed to keep the characters as authentic as possible as if they appeared in the Victorian era, and according to the brief.

       My research into the work of other productions, history and various artists that I carried out has greatly influenced my work. I've learnt a lot more information about costuming, hairstyling, beauty and even food that was relevant for the Victorian era.

       From the feedback that I received from my tutors and peers as well as my own intuition I feel that I did well with my project overall. My own work has some in common with all past interpretations of the characters from Great Expectation. It does, however, differ from them and that what I aimed to achieve.  I believe that the possibilities are endless. There always be a place to explore new territories.

    Some things of course could have worked out much better. Firstly, the costuming for Miss Havisham could have been more aged and torn to represent her growing out of her wedding dress. Secondly, the wig is something to work on in the future. Although I've tried to alter the design of Miss Havisham's wig, it looked too contemporary since the wig is cheap quality and not a real hair one. Thirdly, I think I would have enhanced the stress/aging lines using fine lines brown pencil - simple, HD Tv-friendly and effective technique that one of my peers used on me.

       My overall experience of creating the characters the way I see them was successful. I am very happy with the outcome. More particularly, the final images turned out very well. It does, I feel, reflect my ability to work independently in the photography studios and then in post production. All our lectures in Photography and Photoshop have been very important and useful. I have also enjoyed my practical sessions (please see Practicing in Studio page at the top) and I feel that I have learnt new techniques and enjoyed using new medias. And more significantly, contextual studies overall had a great impact on my approach to image analysis and research abilities.

     Lastly, I would like to mention that if I asked to undertake this assignment again and if I could choose which character I would like to reproduce for Great Expectation I would choose Pip as my favorite. I think it would be great to recreate a male characters and just as fun as females :-)

  Please feel free to browse through my blog and Pages at the top of it. Also, any pictures you would like to see in full better format please Click on them to enlarge or minimize.

    Thank you,
     Irisha xxx


   

Cost

Fabric Land:
Lace and Fabric: £15.00
Fake Flowers: £9.00

Wig: £15.00
Dress (Charity shop): £3.00

Accessories (Hollywood): £12.00

+ MakeUp

Final Design for Miss Havisham Character

Final Design for Stella Character

Stella

I feel that Stella's character in some of the past productions is quite simply boring: 

Victorian young girls from the upper classes certainly weren't this plain. There were so many flowers and frills going on, it's ridicules not to portray it :)

 W/D Hair Trio Antique Gold I bought from Sally's potentially for Stella's hair or clothing (brooch).


I would like to create a bonnet and see what I can come up with. Please see image below. First model from the top on the image is the one what looks the best:

Vintage photograph below is a typical upper class young Victorian girl. What a wonderful bonnet, seems as it was made of rich fabric and of course adorned in many flowers. Frilly puffy sleeves on the dress trimmed with beautiful lace:

 

This post card by Lion Coffee in Toledo, Ohio US (which also ground spices). "To secure a picture card like this you only have to But a package of Lion Coffee" (1890)

Apparently they were first great advertising campaign in history (and still around)

Amazingly, The Victorian Era heavily influenced America in this period. The lifestyle of the "American Victorianism" has occurred in heavily populated regions of the US such as New England and the Deep South. The name was obtained from the reign of Queen Victoria, which reflected the British cultural influence on the nation during the time.

I love this Victorian postcard of a girl and a collie dog. Her clothing suggests that this young girls is from upper class:

 

Child Among the Rocks, engraved by the Dalziel Brothers (published 1865)

Artist Arthur Boyd Houghton (known for wood engravings, also oil paintings ans watercolours), due to accident in childhood left him blind in one eye.

 Collection of Tate.

 It's know that Houghton produced many of his art work based on his children.

Great Victorian girl reference, maybe Houghton's daughter:

In the National Portrait Gallery

I found information on a wonderful James Tissot, French Painter who lived in England during 1870 -1882. He was a political refugee in England. During his life in England he acquired a reputation for paintings of fashionable young women. 

The painting below (1877) is an intimate portrait of the heiress Mrs Catherine Smith Gill wife of Chapple Gill, a wealthy cotton broker. Apparently, Catherine was known for her lavish dresses. There are two children and a dog present in this drawing. This gives the feel what Stella's life could have been like?

The setting is Catherine's mother's house, at Woolton near Liverpool:

Below the artwork from the Tate Collection by British artist Frederic Walker 1840-1875 (social realist painter showing contemporary Victorian life, he died at young age of tuberculosis) 

"The Chaplain's Daughter" 

(c.1868). 

You can observe a prominent difference between social classes by looking at these school children clothing:

 

"Spring" (1865) again by Frederich Walker. I love this strong realistic drawing and great colours. Beautiful Victorian girl:

Another wonderful artworks by Victorian engravers firm Brother's Dalziel (founded by George and Edward Dalziel in 1839). They worked with many great Victorian Artists, producing illustrations for a magazine and book market of the period. Among the artists they worked with were:

Richard Doyle (was the uncle of Arthur Conan Doyle - author of sherlock Holmes stories)  also was an Illustrator of the Victorian era ("Princess nobody" 1884).

William Holman Hunt (English painter and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood).

They cut the illustrations to Edward Lear's "Book of Nonsense"(1862), which I love:

and Lewis Carroll's "Alice and Wonderland", and "Through the Looking-Glass"

 

Below wood engraving on paper, by Arthur Boyd Houghton "Uncle John with the Young Folk: All Prizes and No Blanks!" engraved by the Dalziel Brothers (published 1865):

All this young children (apart from their Victorian dresses) no different from contemporary or any other children in the world! They are all excited about presents and Christmas. You can almost feel the sense of the buzz. Very cute dresses :)

The Victorians actually introduced many Christmas traditions to Britain from Europe, including the Christmas tree. They sent the first Christmas cards, and introduced us to Father Christmas. Additionally, they started the tradition of eating turkey or goose (more French style) on Christmas day, rather than roast beef. Most Victorian had their Christmas dinner about 4 o'clock in the afternoon on Christmas Day. It is scares me how this tradition is still kept in England nowadays! :)

Estella's dress, pale blue with lace sleeves. I bought this dress by happy accident from a charity shop. I paid for it only £3 :) With some adjustments it will be perfect costume for my Stella character. I will shorten sleeves, add Victorian style brooch and change collar to lace one. Simple and beautiful. The colour is pure frosty shade of blue may also suggests the coldness of the wearer:

Quick sketch of my vision for young Stella (about 12 years old):

Spare parts from the dress I used to make a bonnet for Stella. I wanted it to match with the dress. I think it turned out very well:

I've created a face chart for the character. There was not much use of make up during the Victorian time. Moreover, I've chosen to create Stella when she was very young (12 years of age). This is the time when her and Pip for the first time. She was very young and not yet completely brainwashed by Miss Havisham. Yet she is snobbishly conceited.

My digital Face chart:

Stella was adopted by a wealthy, man-hating former socialite Miss Havisham. She was raised in an old mansion and she had everything she needed - except love. Miss Havisham taught Stella to use men only for her own caprices and needs. Stella doesn't know how to give or receive love when it is presented to her by Pip in later stage. She is a spoiled girl, and at the same time very vulnerable.

Here is some testing of hair and make up on my model:

and whole look is here, I love it! I booked the studio at uni to get this look finalized professionally. But at the moment this is how I did it at home:

I have to make sure that the brooch is clearly visible, as well as ringlets of hair

This angle did not work so well, and some hair looks flat. Also, the bottom half of the body must not show in the picture.

I think I will use central focus, this angle best represents the styling, the hair and makeup.

Miss Havisham

Here some images that I found and some details that associate with Miss Havisham's character (although contemporary).

Photograph by Irving Penn, Published in Vogue, November 2007

 This two exciting images I found on Contrabandevents.com - a bunch of artists and entertainers. They created this character and although it's very theatrical I love it! The fact that it's a stilt-walker makes this eccentric old lady look even more attractive and effective (very theatrical):

 This is called The Cloisters, and is situated in Glocester, England. I imagine Miss Havisham live in this surroundings.


Below image: Great colour of the hair, I would like to keep this in mind for when I'm ready to create the look. Blue and green slight tints in the hair might look good. This uneven colour will suggest that Miss Havisham might have had some mould in her hair (just ideas):

 

Caroline Trentini Photographed by Irving Penn - Vogue US 2007

 I feel that this hair would look even better than the first photograph of Trentini in  Nov 2007 Vogue.

It looks so fine and almost cobweb-like. 

This amazing SUPER Natural photograph initially I found on juliendys.com. But originally this image comes from the US Vogue magazine, November 2006 issue.

This breathtaking headpiece of fresh roses and hydrangeas was created by milliner Stephen Jones. Photographer: Steven Meisel.

I feel really inspired by this garden theme. When imagination runs wild parts of this can be reinvented into Miss Havishams character. She can be growing into a tree or a rose bush, still beautiful but with dangerous thorns (just ideas).

Warning! Exciting New Idea:

 Okay, Miss Havisham in her wedding dress. However, I am thinking to put a turn on the styling. This will be actual for both Victorian and very much modern society; and I am very excited about my idea:

According to the novel, she is aging in her wedding dress. Yet, I feel I'd like to portray her as a comfort and emotional eater instead of thin anorexic type. Why can't she grow into/out of her wedding dress with time? This not only will be very different from any other past productions. I feel this will be so appropriate to an overall human nature, women in particular - especially during the Victorian time.

She is isolated and has nobody to speak to (besides, one of the Victorian precept that a lady was never expected "Explain or Complain" and Miss Havisham followed this rigidly). Hence her dementia and the overeating. 

Here I found this pictures of this plump lady in the Victorian Era:

Amelia Hill lounging on a couch. The Fat Lady by Eisenmann

So what did Victorians eat and drink?

No surprise that the poorest Victorians had very little to eat and drink. They had some bread, potatoes from a street stall and basic seasonal vegetable from a market.. It was improved with cheaply imported foods from other countries. They had sugar and tea, which became hugely popular drink. 

Where's Miss Havisham was one of the more fortunate and rich ladies and she certainly could afford to enjoy a greater variety of food. Array of meat, shellfish, poultry, and abundance of cheeses not only English Stilton and Cheddar, but also imported cheeses such as Gruyere, Roquefort and Port du Salut. But shall we say her most favorite food was Victorian Sponge Cake..

She eats and eats, and she loves beauty, and flowers. By the way, I'm quite surprised that Charles Dickens did not mention anything about gardens in his novel, English gardens were/are huge and so popular for their beauty all over the world.

As Miss Havisham ages and feeding her body, she may still doesn't wash or look after herself. However, she may dedicate her life to grow roses. Especially in the Victorian era naturalism was very fashionable and all the decorations on the bonnets and hair were adorned with fake flowers and natural corals.

Her hair, as she age, become very thin and cob web like. She is covered in dirt, petals in her hair and some flowers.

 

Here are some lace, fabric and fake flowers that I just bought from the Fabric Land. So ecstatic! 

I found that during that Victorian era their diet was quite rich and fat and, what is more important, huge abundance of this food. Of course, people who belonged to lower class they couldn't afford to eat as much. Most fascinating thing I found that according to the novel Pip was eating mostly bread, potatoes and flour soup, yet their pork pie was only on special occasion like Christmas. 

What was called High Tea was a refined dinner for "good breeding".

"It is usual at high tea for everything to be put on the table at once. Meat, sweets, fuit, whatever there is, are on the spot, and it is not unusual for wine to be at hand for gentlemen who are not partial to the more homely beverage" Girl's own paper, 1884.

 

The Illustrated Police News (1876)

Another funny quote, "I shouldn't like to think your father eating cheese; it's such a strong-smelling, coarse kind of thing. We must get him a cook who can toss him up an omelette, or something elegant. Cheese is only for the kitchen. ("Wives and Daughters" incomplete novel by Elizabeth Gaskell).

Meat in the Victorian era was generally for the elite but poor would buy "broxy", a sheep that had dropped dead with an illness, it was cheap compare to other meat. Broxy could get people ill with tetanus and salmonella. Also, quite common during those times was a bloated herring "Bloater", it was cold smoked. It was street food and was served on a long fork, and eaten whole including head and eyeballs! http://www.swide.com/food-travel/food-trends/food-history-trends-what-victorians-ate/2013/1/24

I think Miss Havisham's the most favourite comfort food was Victorian Sponge Cake. This simple cake was also favourite of Queen Victoria, hence the name

Digital Face chart that I've created for Miss Havisham character:

Testing the look on my model Barbra:

 

I've chosen my model for Miss Havisham and I am very happy with my choice. I am going to use a wig for her hair. This will require to curl the wig in Victorian style. 

 I decided to use cold curlers and lots of hairspray to create some crazy ringlets and barrels. I curled this wig with the curlers and left it over night.

Test: