In 2020, I made a quarantine-themed photobook, attempting to express feelings of both isolation and intimacy. Most of the images were photos of my flat, as well as my mother-in-law's flat (where my husband and I stayed for a time), and these photos captured the "isolation" side of things: empty halls, darkened rooms, glowing windows. None of these photos, notably, contain any people, only indications of human life, e.g. a neighbour's illuminated window, seen through mine.
To complement these images of isolation, I did a few illustrations of my husband (then my fiancé), Gustaf, sleeping. These pictures cover the other half of the theme: intimacy. During lockdown, Gustaf and I spent a lot of time together doing mundane things. Since I had a lot of free time on my hands, both to draw and to study the details of his face, I rendered the illustrations in extreme, arduous detail, aiming for extreme accuracy and precision. (Virtually every line was drawn and re-drawn on Photoshop until it was absolutely perfect.) Hopefully, this painstakingly intricate approach captures/reflects the essence of those times.
As for the subject matter, I wanted to convey all that I felt towards Gustaf during lockdown. If it feels claustrophobic: well, we spent a year of that quarantine living in the same small room of a London flatshare. After that, we hunkered down in his mom's guest room in Stockholm, where she generously allowed us to stay for several months. All that time spent crammed together might sound like a nightmare, but, miraculously, it brought us closer together. Nothing prepares you for marriage quite like spending twenty-four out of twenty-four hours together, in the same room, for two years.
I plan to upload the photobook in full at a later date, but, for now, here are the illustrations (presented with a bit of commentary).
You know, normally Gustaf is a one-pillow man, but that doesn't make for a dynamic image, does it? Sometimes, you need an excuse to draw loads of folds and creases. (I have a positively Dutch obsession with fabric.) Another artistic liberty is the mouth; incredibly, Gustaf sleeps with his mouth completely closed. But if I were to portray his sleeping face as it actually is, he wouldn't look like he was sleeping. He looks far too serene. It's annoying, actually.
Here he is with just one pillow, but there are headphones lying on his chest to add interest. I wanted to capture one of those typical quarantine moments where you fall a sleep in the middle of doing something.
This is the only illustration where Gustaf isn't sleeping. At first glance, it might look like he is, but if you take a closer look, he's actually got a phone in his hand. Typical millennial!
You see the top head and bottom head? That's the facial expression I mentioned earlier: his typical "sleeping face". Angelic, right? Meanwhile, I drool all over myself.
As a little peak behind the curtain, here are a few practices sketches from my notebook. They're quite accurate/detailed, but I was able to achieve a higher level of this with Photoshop, since it allows you to re-draw the same line as many times as you want. With real paper, there's a limit to how much erasing you can do before the paper erodes.
So, what do you think? Are my illustrations dreamy, or did they put you to sleep? ◈
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