Agatha Christie - Summer Sketchbook Work

These are my drawings based on 'Death on the Nile' which I have read. 

Linnet Ridgeway was the first and crucial murder victim in the story but a misleading parallel storyline to her murder is the theft of her pearls. They are also a symbol of her wealth and status. I drew them as well in her hand with red nail polish on which is also relevant to the story. 

 One of Dr Bessner's scalpels was stolen and used to kill Linnet Ridgeway's maid, Louise Bourget.

Dr Bessner's scalpels

A camel - relevant to Cairo (a bit cliché).

Portrait of Agatha Christie - I tried to keep the line work really simple and not over complicate the image. I felt this captures her attitude to writing because her stories are easy to read and follow and although there is enough information to make it interesting, it isn't confusing. I also put this into photoshop and added some basic colours. 

I am doing these drawings while reading 'A Murder is Announced', I am drawing the objects which seem significant as I work my way through the book. I don't know yet whether these are relevant to the murder or not or whether they have been thrown in as red herrings. 

Wilting violets - there seems to be particular attention drawn to the fact that a vase of violets are wilting which is unusual in a usually well kept household. 

Dora Bunner (Bunny) takes some aspirin for a headache. The aspirin have been replaced with poisoned pills and she dies in her sleep - the tablets belonged to Mrs Blacklock and were by her bed. 

These are some drawings of medicine bottles which are one of the motifs I have picked up on. Poisons are commonly used in Christie's crimes and her extensive knowledge of this is from when she was trained as a dispenser during the war.

These are two very different styles, I think the watery gouache captures the glass best but I also like the scribbly quality of the blue pencil drawings - its a bit different and not what I would usually do.

 Agatha Christie was born in Torquay which is in the English Riviera. I have a good knowledge of this area as it is where the majority of my childhood holidays were. The houses on the estuary banks are what I seem to remember, they all seemed crowded as if stacked on top of each other because they are on such steep hills. I have drawn some of these kinds of houses from reference - I didn't spend too much time on this. I know the area is relevant to Christie but these drawings specifically don't show much of a connection.

Agatha Christie - 25 Pieces of Information

I have chosen Agatha Christie as the author I would like to progress with. Out of the three authors I have researched, I have found valid points for why I would want to work with all of them but the thing that clicked with Christie's books was that they inspired me to draw. I wasn't finding it a chore to read her work and I was becoming engrossed in her stories. 

I have ordered five more books from Amazon and want to get stuck into these as soon as possible. I enjoy drawing objects and observation drawing which is something that her literature will allow me to do due to the significance of the clues to the crimes that she includes. Also, her descriptions of characters, both of appearance ands personality, will hopefully push me to work with character in some way. I haven't enjoyed working with character yet but I am hoping her work will encourage me to be persistent with this and maybe realise that I can do it. 

Finding out more about Christie will be crucial to the development of this project. She is a mystery herself as she has done very few interviews and never went into detail about her personal life. I want to treat this whole project as a mystery of my own and hopefully pull information from various sources to piece together who she was as a person, almost like solving one of her murder mysteries. 

5 Quotes / selected pieces of writing

• ‘In everybody’s life there are hidden chapters which they hope may never be known.’
• 'People should be interested in books, not their authors.'
• 'There's nothing like boredom to make you write.'
• 'Instinct is a marvelous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.' (The Mysterious Affair at Styles)
• 'What good is money if it can't buy happiness?' (The Man in the Brown Suit)

5 Motifs

• Poisons - the most popular method of murder in all of Agatha Christie's novels.
• Money - the most popular motive for the murders in her novels, this could have stemmed from some financial difficulties in her family when she was younger and may also be why most of the characters in her stories are wealthy and of higher classes. 
• Guns  - guns are often used or mentioned in most of her murder mysteries, it is an iconic symbol of murder  and is particularly relevant to Christie because as a child she had a recurring nightmare of 'the gunman' which potentially sparked her interest in crime writing. 
• Trains - this was probably Christie's primary method of travel which is why it is mentioned a lot in her novels, numerous murders were committed on trains. 
• Mousetrap - this is the name of her longest running play, the script was first released with no title on the front page, just an image of the mousetrap and a splash of blood. It could also be a symbol relevant to the rest of her novels to show that the killer gets caught in the end. 

5 Characters

• Hercule Poirot - a Belgian detective, a fictional character created by Agatha Christie who features in over 30 of her crime novels. 
• Jane Marple - more commonly known as 'Miss Marple', a fictional character based on Christie's grandmother. Marple is an elderly spinster, not actually a detective, but manages to act as one to solve the murder mysteries. 
• Linnet Ridgeway - a young, rich and beautiful woman who is one of the murder victims in 'Death on the Nile', I think that the status of her character summarises what Christie bases the motives of her murders on. 
• Ariadne Oliver - a recurring character featuring in 8 novels, Christie admits that the character is loosely based on herself and although she never directly solves the crime, she often unintentionally leads the detectives towards the solution.
• Mary Westmacott - Agatha Christie wrote six novels under this name, she used them to try and understand herself and the world and left the stories unresolved. It would be interesting to see this name as her mysterious hidden character. 

5 Locations

• The English Riviera - the general area where she grew up, various locations in this area feature in her stories sometimes under different names, includes Torquay where she was born. 
• London - where she over to start a family, a strong contrast to the villages and small towns of where she was raised.
• Greenway House - her holiday home in Galmpton near Brixham. This is where her notebooks were found and the layout of the house and gardens is picked up on in some of her novels. 
• Grand houses of the middle/upper classes - a lot of descriptions in her novels to work from.
• Locations abroad - (Istanbul, Egypt, Jerusalem, St Lucia, France, etc..) Agatha Christie liked an adventure as much as she appreciated her home in Devon. 

5 Pieces of information

• Studied to be a classical musician but was too nervous to perform. 
• In the process of qualifying as a dispenser Christie gained a good knowledge of medicine and poisons. 
• West and theatres dimmed their lights in memory of Agatha Christie on the day she died. 
• She has only been outsold by William Shakespeare and the Bible. 
• Agatha Christie had limited education in her early years, her mother wouldn't even allow her to be taught to read until she was 8 years of age.