A Whiter Shade of Pale

This illustration is based on Procol Harum's classic song "A Whiter Shade of Pale." According to one website dedicated to collecting various versions of the song by various artists, there have been at least 200 renditions of it. Although I have heard the original song numerous times, the version I'm most familiar with was performed by Annie Lennox on her album Medusa, and I'm also somewhat familiar with a really crappy version sung by Sarah Brightman on La Luna. My visual interpretation plays mostly off of the song title and certain lines in the chorus: "that her face, at first just ghostly, / turned a whiter shade of pale". I was mainly concerned with the question of how something could be a whiter shade of pale, and I tried to resolve that question by showing that the white dove perched on her hand and the white snow gathering on her garments are not nearly as pale as her skin. Her pink irises and pupils indicate that she might even be an albino.

This image does include references to other lyrics as well, for instance, there are a total of fifteen portraits of other women on the wall behind her, implying that the main subject is "one of sixteen vestal virgins." Her high-necked, Victorian-inspired dress and veil also indicate a preoccupation with modesty. There is also a line which states that "the ceiling flew away," and so our subject is in a room lacking a ceiling which allows tree limbs and falling snow to enter unimpeded.

Although there are definitely some things I would change about this piece in retrospect (e.g. I would have had her perfectly centered horizontally on the page and I would have made sure that her features were a little more symmetrical), I'm still fairly pleased with how it turned out. I thought I would try something slightly different stylistically and this image is essentially an experimentation.