Me & Edith Head

Here are some pages I drew about a month ago of Sara Ryan's story Me & Edith Head. This was just for fun, sort of a diagnostic essay for the Periscope people, since Me & Edith Head had already been published, illustrated by Sara's own husband Steve Lieber (a Periscope member). Without ever reading Steve's original, I set about illustrating the first four pages of the story.









Even though I feel I've come quite a ways from here, this project was a lot of firsts for me. First time illustrating somebody else's script. First time using blue non-repro pencil. First time using a mechanical pencil. First time coloring digitally. (Edit: the colors now appear correctly on the internet.)

It's also my first time lettering digitally, and as you can see, I still haven't completed that part, which is why there are no captions or dialogue. So you might be kind of confused. Here's a little summary of what your missing.


Page 1 - Katrina has just tried out for the role of Queen Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." She's daydreaming about how nice it will be, but the sound of her parents' bitter arguing in the next room sours her mood.

Page 2 - The next day, Katrina nervously waits to see what role she got, and found out that she has been assigned "costume design," a role she considers herself totally unfit for. She has to go see Gabriel Chang in the costume room. He explains that costume design is all about mixing and matching and considering "juxtapositions." Katrina takes a utilitarian view of clothes and isn't buying it.

Page 3 - Katrina impugns that Mr. Chang is a costume man now because, like her, he was once turned down for acting roles. He says no, and in his office pulls out two books, "How to Dress for Success" and "Edith Head's Hollywood," a biography of the famous costume designer. He tells her to read them.

Page 4 - While her parents put together a slap-dash meal, Katrina reads Head's book. Edith, in a very 1950's way, says that a wife must continue looking as well turned-out years into her marriage as she did at the beginning, and not "as if she had been shot out of a cannon." This leads Katrina to picture first her mom and then her dad, well...

Over the rest of the story, which I won't draw, Katrina gets more and more into costume design, and starts taking better care of her own personal appearance as well. Meanwhile, her parents keep fighting and end up getting divorced. She designs a terrific costume for Titania and the cast, and even though her parents sit separately in the audience, they're both proud of how self-assured she's become.