Our last Kick-About together was inspired by the simple figurative line work of Jogen Chowdhury. The human figure is front and centre in this latest edition too, with this week’s ‘artworks made in a short time’ riffing on Harry Clarke’s illustrations for Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales Of Mystery & Imagination. For all previous editions of The Kick-About click here.
Marion Raper
“I am very interested in the local history of my home town of Chesham. Quite close to my house is the dell where the martyr Thomas Harding was burned at the stake in 1532, for reading the Bible in English instead of Latin. Mercifully someone threw a log at his head which either knocked him out or killed him to spare him from the pain. I thought this would be a suitably dark image to use to depict the work of Harry Clarke and you could imagine this scene in a tale by Edgar Allan Poe. I have also included some sketches I made of two gargoyles at St Mary’s Church, Chesham.”
James Randall
“I loved Harry Clarke’s beautifully detailed illustrations, and after a couple of previous Halloween ka’s I was looking forward to dragging out a skeleton from the cupboard. I’m fiddling with a bit of illustration anatomy drawing so I added a few swirls and a background that I based on one of the Edgar Allan Poe short stories. Drawn up in Illustrator and finessed in Photoshop.”
Phil Gomm
“Inspired by the hushed daylight scares of John Carpenter’s Halloween and the dense textural noise of Harry Clarke’s illustrations that seem to cloak and conceal their subjects, I set about staging some unsettling figure-centric photographs of my own. Turns out it is easy to spook yourself, even when you know you’re the one taking the photographs. This is what director John Carpenter knows too; you don’t need much to elicit menace: all you need do is lurk.“
Kerfe Roig
“I loved all the detail in Harry Clarke’s Poe illustrations. I chose to work with one of his images from Poe’s story ‘Morella’. As always, I was subject to the whims of the contents of my collage box. I found a face for the character of the Ophelia-like Morella right away, but I could not find something satisfactory for the narrator. I kept returning to the cut-out of Elvis – too small, really, but then the extra large hand presented itself. It seemed just right for this tale of death and desire, or being both larger and smaller than life itself.”
kblog.blog / methodtwomadness.wordpress.com
Graeme Daly
“3D renders of various plant life and other oddities framed and rendered with a shader that isolates everything to just the line work. To dial things back towards more of the analogue quality of Harry Clarke’s gorgeous illustrations, I painted over certain parts of the renders in Photoshop. I had to stop myself from adding colour, but I’m still curious and may return to this.”
@graemedalyart / vimeo.com/graemedaly / linkedin.com/in/graeme-daly / twitter.com/Graeme_Daly / gentlegiant.blog
Tom Beg
“I set out to capture the cosmic horror lurking behind the scenes of Harry Clarke’s illustrations. Using generated patterns as templates, I attempted to create some digital paintings. Though the desired level of creepiness eluded me, the process taught me some valuable things and new techniques. I’ll shelve this idea for now, maybe revisiting it at a later date.”
twitter.com/earthlystranger / vimeo.com/tombeg / tombeg.com
Charly Skilling
“Having been involved with amateur dramatics for many years, Harry Clarke’s illustrations just screamed ‘Costume!’ at me. The medieval lines of dress and sleeve, the layers of pattern and texture, all align with the gothic nature of Edgar Allan Poe’s writing to create a very distinctive and very theatrical style.
I started by crocheting the coat, using virulent oranges and pinks, with black and silver. I gave it length: long sweeping sleeves and an infinity of flounces. The collar shape was a little problematic as it was too heavy to sit properly, so I incorporated some wire, which helped but did not entirely resolve the issue. I’ll know better next time. I originally wanted to create a mask (having the Masque of the Red Death in mind) but found I was short on time and skill, so went for a veil and headdress instead; some suitably ‘spooky’ material and a tiara, (crocheted over wire and coated with PVA glue to stiffen) and the work was beginning to take on a life of its own.
I was pleased with what I’d achieved but it was the photography that took it to a whole new level for me. All of a sudden, the costume revealed different characters it could conjure, like an impressionist showing off all his different voices. The use of monochrome or colour, the ‘busy’ background or the plain; the position and the style, all these contributed and enhanced the images beyond my previous imaginings.
I have put far more hours into this than I usually manage for a Kickabout, but I learnt so much and enjoyed every minute. (Well, nearly every minute.) But I do keep hearing a voice saying, ‘Nevermore! Nevermore!’. Is that a bird? Is it a Raven? No, it’s a grumpy Scot (my husband!) ‘Nevermind!’ quoth I. He’ll get over it.”
Gary Thorne
“The very manic nature of H Clarke’s ink drawings put me in a spin, as his fascination or obsession with detail pushed me away. The memory of his balancing dense black areas in contrast to a frenzy of graphic detail stayed with me, and with that, came about a revision of KA #90. H Clarke’s stained glass windows in Honan Chapel, Cork, did however seduce me, in particular Saint Gobnait, due to a richness of colour and pattern, so, into KA#91 I’m sneaking-in an additional experimental work.”
And, by way of our next launch pad (appropriately enough), the artist Cai Guo-Qiang, Boom!
Red's Kingdom 
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