This was my final largescale illustration of The Bell Jar.

 I wanted to play around with shadows and light because i wanted to keep the detail in the back minimal. I thought about the moon shining through the window and how that would illuminate the front of Esther (The woman in the picture) and i wanted to create the effect that she was standing in a dark room as throughout the book there is lots of dark smokey imagery and depression is a main theme in the book. In this particular scene Esther is giving her new expensive clothes to the wind which carries them off into the New York skyline. This is a turning point in the book as it is the first sign of madness and depression. I chose to use charcoal as it is good at producing smokey effects and shadows which are things i really wanted to show in my illustration.