The Mistress and the Peddler (האדונית והרוכל)

✦ The Mistress and the Peddler ✦
A classic horror story about otherness, identity, and survival

This project is based on the short story The Mistress and the Peddler by S.Y. Agnon, which I studied in high school literature class. The story is an allegory often interpreted as a reflection on antisemitism and the Jewish experience in exile. I returned to it during the war, when emotions were running high and themes of persecution and alienation felt painfully relevant again.

The story follows a peddler who tries to adapt and belong, only to slowly realize he never will. Eventually, he chooses to leave, resuming his wandering life through the forest. It’s a dark, symbolic, and deeply disturbing tale—a perfect example of the kind of inspiration I’m drawn to: classic, eerie, and emotionally layered. This piece is made up of four illustrations that each reflect a different moment in the story.

• Procreate (iPad) – Main tool for all stages of the project.
• Pencil Brush (from Procreate’s default set) – Used for sketching and most coloring.
• Airbrush tool (Procreate default) – Used sparingly for subtle gradients.
• Color approach – Unlike Machar and Three Mothers, this piece leans fully into a dark palette. I used deep reds and greenish navy blues to evoke a horror atmosphere.
• Textural contrast – To give the piece a rough, haunting texture, I used aggressive pencil scratching and deliberate visual tension.
• References – Used only for understanding basic forms and structure, not for styling.
• Instagram format – The final illustrations were uploaded with selected phrases from the story as accompanying captions, reinforcing the narrative tone.

The first stage of this project was focused on distillation—how to take a long and layered story and condense it into four visual moments that would carry both meaning and mood. I spent time analyzing which sections of the narrative I wanted to focus on and what visuals could communicate the allegorical weight without being too literal.

Once I had a direction, I created a series of rough sketches to explore layout, rhythm, and emotional pacing. I tried different arrangements and compositions until the core of the story felt visually coherent. The goal was not to recreate the entire narrative, but to let each image hold its own tension and mystery.

This part of the process was much more intense than in the other two projects. I intentionally leaned into a rough, scratchy style—applying harsh pencil strokes and layering textures to create unease. I worked with a deep, moody palette of reds and greenish blues to evoke a sense of dread and horror. Unlike Three Mothers, which balances light and dark, this one is purely shadowed and raw.

The textures and color contrasts were a crucial part of the storytelling—they gave the illustrations emotional friction and supported the classic horror tone I was aiming for.

After finishing the illustrations, I formatted them for Instagram and paired each with a short quote from the original text. These captions helped ground the viewer in the story while letting the visuals remain open to interpretation. The final result is a visual meditation on otherness, survival, and the inescapable weight of being seen as an outsider.