Edward Gorey and Dramatic Reversal

Edward Gorey is an American writer and artist known for drawing in a dense, intricate pen and ink style. I want my students to be able to appreciate and understand his unsettling and playfully macabre sense of humour, and to make an illustration based on his style.

After perusing some of his works (I particularly like The Gashlycrumb Tinies) students will be given the prompt of creating an illustration that sets up an absurd tension by reversing scale. For example, students might choose to draw a tiny dragon being beheaded by a gigantic knight, a little dog being chased by a monstrously oversized cat, and so on.

When drawing, students should employ some techniques from Gorey's style, including mark making for shade and texture, empty space for visual drama and greytone ink washes for subtle depth.

Work can be assessed on the effective employment of the above techniques and the level of absurdist tension in the image.