The Island of Echoes, Part 4. Sleep
Serialisation of a story created for Folktale Week 2023
This is the forth part of a story created using the Folktale Week1 word prompts and inspired by ghost stories, folklore and sea journals. The forth prompt is Sleep.2
Included in this post for paid subscribers are the processes involved in creating the illustration and the materials used.
This post was originally published in November 2023. I’ve made this post free for November 2024. If you enjoyed it, you support me by sharing it with others who might like it, leave a comment or click the 🩶
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Beaufort’s exploration yields little, certainly no human life and very little animal life, save the birds that dominate the Island. He thinks he sees the tail of a small mammal disappear down a hole at the base of some rocks, but after sitting motionless for some time, waiting for this creature to reappear, Beaufort puts the sighting down to his overwrought mind.
He manages to collect rainwater from rock crevices and some small, bitter-tasting berries from barbed bushes that take payment in blood.
As daylight fades, so does his hope to find shelter and, once again, Beaufort is forced to another night out in the open.
Rest doesn’t come easy, somewhere beneath the din of screeching sea birds and the howling wind, he’s disturbed by a reverberating, thudding sound. He wonders if it’s the sound of his ship, falling apart under the might of the wind and waves, but this other sound is too close. And he can feel it too, coming from the ground beneath him.
He is thankful when, one by one, the birds stop their conversation for the night and the wind dies down to a breeze but the noise, the strange echoing beat, grows in frequency until it disturbs Beaufort’s every waking thought and makes sleep impossible.
If you missed any of the previous posts you can find them here:
Original sketches and process:
For this part of the story I reverted back to my original plan of using sketches to share instead of finished pieces. With these, I drew what came to mind whilst I was writing the story, just to get the ideas out of my head.
The main image is of Beaufort’s bleeding finger, pricked after trying to forage berries. I also did a sketch of him surrounded by birds. I wanted to get the sense of him standing still and the birds in movement and flight, I worked quickly and sprayed the wet liquid charcoal with water to add blur and motion. I think some of the birds unintentionally look pterodactyl-like! 😆
I don’t know if these sketches will become final pieces but they’re a good starting point.
This is the last part of Island of Echoes i’ll be sharing for a while, I aim to come back to this project in December or January to finish it off and will share new parts as and when they’re completed. But I hope you’ve enjoyed the story so far!
Materials used:
I used Schmincke Liquid Charcoal in Grape Seed Black, with some Conte Pastel Pencil in black to sharpen up the detail.
Created in an A4 Pith Sketchbook.
If you enjoyed this post you can buy me a coffee/pencil to say thank you 😊
The theme this month in The Creative Flock is Folktales, inspired by Folktale Week, an annual art and writing challenge on Instagram (see footnote 1).
If you would like to discover the inspiration and reference material for this story, I have posted about it here.
Thank you for reading! 😊
Folktale Week is a 7-day art and story writing challenge which takes place between 13-19th November on Instagram . It’s free to join and anyone can take part.
Set up by a group of artists and illustrators who love folktales and visual storytelling, the seven different word prompts are released on the Folktale Week Instagram account in October so participants have time to create something in time for the week-long showcase in November.
Even if you don’t take part, it's worth checking out the #folktaleweek hashtag, the challenge has a world-wide following and so much beautiful, inspiring work is shared
The word prompts for 2023 are Lost, Ink, Sea, Sleep, Underground, Illusion, Found.
Thank you Kat, and you're right! They do look like bats! You get bat colonies on remote islands, maybe that's what they should be?
Definitely recommend the liquid charcoal, I think what I love about it is it's simplicity as a material and how little you need to build up tones. Also, it's very forgiving and easy to move around the paper, reignite with water and remove with an eraser.
Wow, I love this Em. I really love the sketch, it’s so poetic. When I initially saw it, I thought of bats. The liquid charcoal has such a lovely effect, the softness of it is so appealing, I will have to try it.