Jane Coram's pics

[Jane Coram]

Hi Stephen,

Nearly done.

There's only one bit I'm stuck on. Is that foliage of some kind at the top, or just damage? I couldn't make my mind up. That's the only bit I've got left to do. Now that I can see it in its former glory, it really a lovely picture.

Hugs

Janie

xxxxxx

[Stephen Thomas]

There's only one bit I'm stuck on. Is that foliage of some kind at the top, or just damage? I couldn't make my mind up.

Janie, sweetheart

That's the weather damage. The original was just plain purple like the columns. Again, many many thanks for doing this for me and please email me with the result in case there's any small thing that needs altering and also there's something else I'd like to discuss with you (says he mysteriously).

xxxxxxx

[Garza]

Nice work Jane! One of my guilty dreams is to buy the old Queen's Head and turn it back into a pub and put your paintings on the wall. Ahh dreams.

[Laurie]

Thank You Jane!!

Hello Jane,

I just wanted to tell you what a beautiful job you did on all of your paintings. You are truly a very talented artist! The one you did of Frances Coles was jus superb. You certainly brought out a great likeness of her personality also. She seemed like a very beautiful lady. You did a great job on all of them though. It's good to have more of an idea of what the ladies looked like in life since all we really got to see was there post mortem photographs unfortunately. The ones of Polly Nichols and Mary Kelly were also very beautiful. Thank you so much for posting all of them!!

[Stephen Thomas]

Thankyou Janie!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A few post ago I somewhat cheekily asked Jane if she could reconstruct a picture of mine that got weather damaged. Here is the result and a magnificent result it is. Many thanks Jane.

[John Casey]

I'm nowhere near as good as Jane, neither would I ever pretend to be...that said, she's inspired me to get hold of a copy of photoshop, and have a go! Here (said he hoping the attachment would work!) is my version of the Abberline pic, using the tutorial Jane gave earlier as a basis.......I'm blowed if I can work out why but mine seems to have come out more like a pen and ink drawing rather than a painting! Still....for a first go with the program I was quietly pleased with it, so thought I'd share it here...comments welcome, but be nice to the animals please!! LoL!

[babybird67]

Jane

your work and your talent is astounding. You truly are a treasure. (Suz yours were amazing too!)

love Jen xxxx

[Celesta]

I know someone mentioned earlier that they would like to see Frances Coles and Alice McKenzie. Well here's Frances anyway. It was a bit of a job working out how much of the puffiness on the poor girl's face was due to post mortem slackness and loss of muscle control, so it has to be best guess to some extent, but I think that Frances really was a very pretty girl, looking at the post mortem photograph.

The first one here is the study I did, painting it on the computer.

xxxxx

Holy cow. This is stunning. (from posts 109 and 110) I love the way you overlaid ( or underlaid) the mortuary photo with the reconstruction. Her spirit is looking right out at us.

[Celesta]

I'm nowhere near as good as Jane, neither would I ever pretend to be...that said, she's inspired me to get hold of a copy of photoshop, and have a go! Here (said he hoping the attachment would work!) is my version of the Abberline pic, using the tutorial Jane gave earlier as a basis.......I'm blowed if I can work out why but mine seems to have come out more like a pen and ink drawing rather than a painting! Still....for a first go with the program I was quietly pleased with it, so thought I'd share it here...comments welcome, but be nice to the animals please!! LoL!

You've got some potential there, John!

[Jane Coram]

Hi John,

I haven't been to this thread for ages because I've been too busy, but I think that pic of Abberline is excellent. It's a very different style, obviously, and much more like a graphic image, but I think you've captured a toughness there that Abberline must have possessed to have survived as a cop on the streets of Whitechapel! You've definitely got a lot of talent. Keep at it, because really when all's said and done it's just practice.

If you would like any help at any time on something you're stuck with, please feel free to pm me and I'll be glad to see if I can help.

Much love

Janie

xxxx

[Jane Coram]

Hi,

I was just rummaging through my image files and I found the larger copy of Stephen's collage. Whoever created it originally made a wonderful job of it. I love the colours

Hugs

Janie

xxx

[Carol]

Hello Jane!
I've just finished looking through this thread of yours which I didn't know existed! I'm lost for words - I mean that. Your talent rises far above any praise I could give you. When I saw Mary Kelly's little room I cried. You have made it look as if a poor woman has done her best to create a home for herself. All of your paintings are much more than just 'paintings'. The atmosphere you have created of the time of day and the absolute poverty and deprivation of this area of the East End just blows my mind. I could go on and on and on! I really felt I was there. Your portraits of the poor victims are all lovely and I'm sure they would have appreciated being shown as human beings instead of just corpses. Colour certainly does much to bring pictures alive.

Thank you so much for your great generosity in posting your treasures. Also for your willingness in showing us how to create paintings such as yours - the sign of a truly generous person in my opinion.

Yesterday I looked very quickly into Casebook and saw the thread where a 'gentleman' was being very unkind to you (this is where I got the tip regarding this thread of yours!). I'm sorry he was so rude to you and to the man who had just posted a coloured shot of Mary after the murder. I personally think that the work you do and also the man in question (I'm sorry but I've forgotten his name, although it might be Steve) is very important to our understanding of the lives of the victims and the awful murders that took place. I think it makes the victims the most important part of the whole sad story. Which they are.

With love and admiration
from
Carol

[Stephen Thomas]

I was just rummaging through my image files and I found the larger copy of Stephen's collage. Whoever created it originally made a wonderful job of it. I love the colours

That's a fantastic version, Jane. Again, I can't thank you enough for bringing back to life this picture and so brilliantly too.

Warmest regards

Stephen

[Natalie Severn]

Hello Jane!
I've just finished looking through this thread of yours which I didn't know existed! I'm lost for words - I mean that. Your talent rises far above any praise I could give you. When I saw Mary Kelly's little room I cried. You have made it look as if a poor woman has done her best to create a home for herself. All of your paintings are much more than just 'paintings'. The atmosphere you have created of the time of day and the absolute poverty and deprivation of this area of the East End just blows my mind. I could go on and on and on! I really felt I was there. Your portraits of the poor victims are all lovely and I'm sure they would have appreciated being shown as human beings instead of just corpses. Colour certainly does much to bring pictures alive.

Thank you so much for your great generosity in posting your treasures. Also for your willingness in showing us how to create paintings such as yours - the sign of a truly generous person in my opinion.

Yesterday I looked very quickly into Casebook and saw the thread where a 'gentleman' was being very unkind to you (this is where I got the tip regarding this thread of yours!). I'm sorry he was so rude to you and to the man who had just posted a coloured shot of Mary after the murder. I personally think that the work you do and also the man in question (I'm sorry but I've forgotten his name, although it might be Steve) is very important to our understanding of the lives of the victims and the awful murders that took place. I think it makes the victims the most important part of the whole sad story. Which they are.

With love and admiration
from
Carol

Hi Carol,
I agree with you, Jane has re-created some fantastic and beautiful images for us to contemplate but I differ a little over the interpretation of Mary"s room.
Walter Dew made a specific comment about how clean Mary"s apron always was and how neat , buxom and how very attractive she was ,but he also referred to her room as being a hovel---and we know it had broken windows,the result of the brawls she had had with her ex-boyfriend,he commented on how filthy the floor was too .So you see I really wonder about whether Mary did bother that much about keeping her room as neat and tidy as, for example, she kept herself---[ evidenced too from the way her clothing was found,neatly folded etc.].
I sometimes think we over sanctify Mary---she was probably much more like Jane portrayed her outside the Ten Bells-shooing off her rivals from her patch I think-----But yes,Jane is incredible and we love her!
Best
Norma


---how about this image by Jane of a real feisty Mary ! http://forum.casebook.org/attachment...2&d=1243580582

[Jane Coram]

Hi All,

I'm going to pm you Nats in a moment.

Hi Carol,

Thanks for the kind words. I honestly never mind when anyone says anything uncomplementary about my pics anyway, although John did say he thought they were 'nice'. I do think it's possibly a good idea to check out a person before accusing them on being a fraud though.

As to Mary's room. I think that it was more a case with Mary that there wasn't anything in the room to tidy up, and candlelight covers a multitude of sins.

She only had two wooden tables, which seem to have seen better days, a broken back chair and possible one whole one, a bed and a cupboard. Hardly much to tidy up! There wouldn't have been any washing to leave lying about, as Mary's only clothes were the ones she stood up in; no washing up because they ate fast food; ginger beer bottles would be taken back as soon as they were emptied for the deposit that had been left on them - so really Mary couldn't really have been that untidy if she'd tried!

The floors were wood with possibly a threadbare rug, and it's pretty certain she never swept them, or possibly did once in a blue moon, and I doubt she knew what a duster was, bless her, so I think that number 13 was possibly not that clean, you just can't see that in the painting!

Having said that, as Nats pointed out, Walter Dew said that Mary looked after herself and always had a clean white apron, which seems a bit incongruous with the room being neglected.

I found a snippet in the Daily News 10th November 88 in which Elizabeth Prater stated that when she saw Mary in her room last she was doing crochet work. It's actually in a couple of other newspapers as well, so almost certainly true, as it seems like a very odd thing to make up. That does give us a very different impression of Mary. Someone that sits and does crochet work or who listens to her partner reading her the newspaper, sounds as if she does have some domestic inclinations and might not have been a chronic alcoholic, always staggering from one drink to the other, with no thoughts for anything else. It seems more likely that she just got sloshed fairly regularly and tried to live a moderately normal life (for someone in her position) in between - obviously without much success. In some ways, I think that makes it all the more tragic.

I do think that people tend to glamorize Mary a bit as well. I suspect she could be a bit of a cow sometimes, piecing together all of the witness testimonies, but whatever, her life was an unbelievably tragic one.

Much love

Janie

xxxxx