Whaaaat actual progress on drawing the Tilly Johnson era??? I thought we'd never see the day these two got posted, especially after the first version I had started over a year ago up and vanished and I had to start all over...
That aside, we have Ada Johnson, twin sister of Phineas Johnson and aunt to Tilly, with little May, who exists in the gray area between Ada's adopted daughter and housegirl (live-in servant) at the point in time when people were just starting to try to figure out how fostering and adoption should work. Ada is a weaver, having inherited that side of a long-standing family linen business while her other brother Jesse has the farming side, but, between her own failing health (think COPD although they didn’t have that term) and the Carvers' nearby cotton mill and many other mills like it crowding out the local linen industry, the Johnson business has been struggling to survive for many years.
Ada is also the owner of what became known as the Tilly Johnson House. Ada, May, Tilly, and Tilly's step-father all lived there together by 1856 (that lore will surface eventually), and as we know 1856 was the year Tilly's novel was published and became famous, which made enough money to keep all the Johnsons secure despite their failing business.
On to the art, I won't go over everything but as usual I'll point some things out starting with May:
The pattern on her dress has elements from all the M's, first with nods to the little girl's plaid and Megan's floral as well as the little girl's red, Megan's light blue, and more subtly Mary's dark brown. The 1850s adored plaid so that was a no-brainer, and I hadn't planned on the floral part, but then I saw the dress in this portrait with a great mix of both patterns in the colors I was after so I worked off that.
M's peter pan collar and long sleeves are ofc her staples but while they wouldn't be out of place in 1858 (except that this is set in the summertime and girls predominantly wore short sleeves) I figured I'd go with styles more typical for children's clothing this time. The two parts are not related by the way; the collar is an interchangeable piece sewn into the dress, and the undersleeves are from her chemise (the base layer of female undergarments).
Part of May's role is to serve as an errand girl in the Johnson business, where she goes back and forth between the house in town and the farm on the outskirts. That has an important part in the story, hence the basket I gave her.
Also note the piecing of her dress fabric up by the shoulders, included just for funsies. Cloth was not to be wasted, so it was not uncommon or frowned upon to more or less carefully piece odd-shaped sections of cloth together to squeeze as much out the fabric as possible, even when it meant putting random seams in conspicuous places and even if the pattern didn't quite match up.
Ada:
She's wearing a one-piece wrapper, which was the unstructured in-between sort of garment a woman would wear in the morning when she wakes up to get stuff done around the house before she gets dressed for the day. A sick person who didn't get out of the house much might have worn one throughout the day, which is Ada's case since she is chronically ill. (They weren't necessarily as short as I made hers but they were very casual and I wanted to draw 1850s cloth shoes my beloveds, these in particular having similarities to Angela’s two-tone oxfords). It made a perfect equivalent to Anne's housecoat, especially with quilted trim inspired by this extant wrapper. And ofc it’s done in horizontal stripes like Angela’s shirt, and it has shades of brown, blue, and a version of pink, adjacent to canon A-ladies’ colors.
Her chatelaine✨ Basically a clip that was worn on a belt with chains suspending various items that were useful to have on hand. They have a long history and were popular for women to wear at home as well as in certain occupations. I was very excited to give her one after I took notice of the purse Amy has on her belt.
She is wearing an indoors day cap (not a bonnet), a relatively simple one similar to Amy's bonnet. This era was the last hurrah for women wearing headgear at home and only older women were still doing it.
And lastly, her hexagon eyeglasses✨✨ You see them every so often in antique photos and I'm a big fan.
Here are the other drawings I've done for this set so far:
1858 Tilly Johnson (I'm going to do this one over eventually but that's the old version for now)
Ok it's random but what if Tilly Johnson werewolf✨
Back to werewolf posting, now I gave Tilly a pale belly/front and darker fur on her back/cheeks ears and such to simulate the way we tend to draw her hair, liked the blue marble eye look on Anthony so I figured I'd bring it back for her, how did I do?
Of course, I couldn't resist to write a little more Vinya. Kinda. ;)
19 – Sun & Moon (Tilly)
Tilly always wanted to be a writer. She grew up with her father reading her stories, and with her mother encouraging her to read them herself. Since then, stories had always been a part of her life, and now, she was writing her own. To both of her parents’ disapproval, Tilly loved horror stories the most, but thankfully, they still supported her in every way they could.
At first, she only wrote short stories, too overwhelmed by the idea of writing a full novel. It was much easier for her to come up with ideas that filled a page or ten, but much more difficult to create something that was worth more pages.
Until she fell in love with the most amazing person she had ever met.
Victor was as vibrant as the sun, just like Tilly was as somber as the moon, and they complemented each other wonderfully. He was the one who inspired her to write her first novella, “Sun and Moon,” which was a horror and a love story at the same time. Tilly made sure that both the first and the last sentence were the same.
She woke up, and knew it had never been a dream.
Thankfully, her life right now exactly felt like one.
Tilly Johnson at 10 years old with her father Phineas
Lore and the uncropped color drawing undercut. Above is the 19th-century hand-painted photo version, where I tried to mimic the (goofy-looking) way people added color to photos in the early days of black & white.
Kindly note Phineas's earring (he has one on the other ear too). He's an experienced merchant sailor, soon to be appointed captain for the first time on a risky sailing trip to expand the Carver textile enterprise. It was the wrong time of year for the trip and no one in his right mind would do it, but the payoff was good if the venture succeeded and he had a wife and daughter to provide for, so Phineas placed his bets alongside Solomon Carver and set off in 1846 and promptly failed big time (the ship wrecked and Phineas died).
I envisioned this as a little father-daughter outing not long before he died where they stopped somewhere to get an impromptu photo taken. It's probably one of the few photos Tilly had of him, if not the only one.
And yes this is my belated birthday art for T that wasn't done by August 22. Some folks will remember the art I did for T's birthday last year where I didn't get to include young Tilly, so I'm making up for it now and putting her in the purple dress I would have put her in back then (+ extra pieces, because the collar and long sleeves are detachable. It's that good 1800s practicality, we love to see it).
