Abstract
Tea Party by Ella Neslon
Spring 2023
Tea party is a dark comedy picture book dummy themed around feminine horror and twisted nostalgia. It centers around five friends gathering for a tea party who drop dead one by one. The party seemed sweet at first, but it was all a trap. The darkness in the story builds slowly as the book progresses, so as to sneak up on the reader and the characters at the same time. The colors and mood of the story reflect this, beginning with soft pastels which slowly become hazed in a murky green tone as the events unfold. the text is a twist on the Five Little Monkeys nursery rhyme, inspired by the rhyme's unsettling undertones and childlike themes.
Tea party is a 32-page picture book dummy that measures 8.5x11". The dummy contains a finished front cover, back cover, and title page, plus two finished interior illustrations; The color is an important storytelling device that is key to understanding the ending, so the remaining pages consists of loosely-colored sketches. The Tea Party concept also manifested in different forms throughout the semester, including a more comedy-based animatic storyboard.
Enjoy :)
Artist Statement
Ella Nelson is a digital illustrator with a strong love for character design, concept art, and narrative illustration. Originally from the Wild West in Tucson, Arizona, she currently lives in Portland, Oregon, where she earned her BFA in Illustration at Pacific Northwest College of Art. The biggest themes in her work include humor, nostalgia, fashion, and the relationship between cuteness and creepiness.
She has numerous goals for her career, including, but not limited to: designing a line of fashion dolls, working on animated films and shows, and becoming a published picture book author / illustrator.