Alice Project Update : Wonderland Completed

I have now completed making copies of all 42 of Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations for Alice in Wonderland. Which doesn’t mean that my self-imposed challenge is complete since I’ve only copied fifteen of the original illustrations for Through the Looking Glass which means I have 35 still to do. Nonetheless I’m allowing myself a small celebration. So, let’s begin with looking at the last 3 copies:-

I’m not unhappy with his one. It shows Alice growing inside the courtroom, and it’s one of my better attempts at Alice’s face. In the original, I like the way that there’s so much more going on in this illustration than you take in with a glance and that’s something that it has in common with many of Tenniel’s original illustrations.

Like the first Cheshire Cat illustration this one was designed to fit around the text on the page. It’s a nice original, a companion piece to the frontispiece that I sketched a few days ago.

Finally the last illustration in the book, with Alice realising that they are all nothing but a pack of playing cards. Sadly another less than perfect rendition of Alice’s face. Once again an illustration that has more going on than you take in with one glance. Among the animals on the bottom I can see a duck (from the pool of tears?) a lizard (Bill?) a frog (footman?) and a white rabbit (work it out.)

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So what have I learned? Not sure really. I already knew that John Tenniel was an exceptionally brilliant illustrator with huge skill and an incredible visual imagination. With regards to that last point, Tenniel never used a model for Alice, yet he pretty much got her right every time he drew her. I couldn’t do that even though I had Tenniel’s work to copy.

As a rule, I think that Victorian illustrators and draughtsmen were masters in their use of hatching and cross hatching, and none more so than Tenniel. Doubtless this was necessitated by contemporary methods of reproducing images, having to sketch them onto wooden blocks to be engraved. It has been a real challenge trying to mimic some of the effects.

This is all a matter of personal taste, but I like the illustrations featuring fantastical animals best. I think that Tenniel was an incredible fantasy illustrator, with the sleeping gryphon from Wonderland and the Jabberwocky from Looking glass as really stand out pieces. His grotesques are amazing too – I think especially of the Duchess.

Finishing off, setting out to copy a Tenniel illustration is a mini voyage of discovery each time. It really has been very satisfying and pleasurable to put each one under the microscope, and get to know it better and to try to understand how it works.

Alice Project Update

I'm really starting to get close to a finish with the illustrations from Alice in Wonderland. Here's the copies I've made so far this week:-

Earlier this year I copied the illustration of Alice looking up at the Cheshire cat in the tree, and also the earlier cartoon from Punch which he may have used for its model. This is the close up on the cat disappearing. 

Part of this original illustration was actually one of the first Alice illustrations I copied. I combined the Queen of Hearts with one of the playing cards painting the roses red. The original is a very busy illustration, but a very good one. I really like the background with the hedges and the greenhouse structure. 

Alice and the baby pig, and at last a halfway decent attempt at Alice's face.

and back to a couple of my favourite characters, the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon, in this case dancing the lobster quadrille. 

Putting this all into perspective, it means that we're now at 39/42 for Wonderland, and 54/92 for both Alice books.

 

Alice Project Update

 I'm feeling very pleased with myself. I've just finished making copies of the first three illustrations that accompany the poem "You Are Old, Father William" in Aice in Wonderland. There are actually four illustrations accompanying the poem in the original book, but I copied the fourth one some time ago. Here they are, along with the poem:-

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
    "And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
    Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

"In my youth," Father William replied to his son,
    "I feared it might injure the brain;
But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
    Why, I do it again and again."

"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
    And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door—
    Pray, what is the reason of that?"

"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
    "I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment—one shilling the box—
    Allow me to sell you a couple."

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
    For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak—
    Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

"In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,
    And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
    Has lasted the rest of my life."

"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
    That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose—
    What made you so awfully clever?"

"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
    Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!

Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
    Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

I'm pleased with myself for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I don't think that they are badly done. But also they are all fairly detailed originals, with a lot of work to do in each, especially with the shading. I wasn't actually looking forward to doing them, but I've worked steadily through them and find myself nicely ahead of schedule, and within sight of the finish line on Wonderland. This takes me down to single figures left to do on the first book. I've made copies of 35 of the 42 illustrations, and this also takes me to 50 out of the 92 in both books combined. 

Alice Project Update 2

 In one way I'm feeling quite chipper about completing five more copies of Tenniel's illustrations of Alice in Wonderland. I've tried to work systematically, filling in my gaps from he start of the book. This means that I've been doing some of the illustrations that that I'm less fond of, illustrations largely centered on Alice herself. However his has meant that the quality has been variable. Let me show you.

Oh dear. This really isn't very good. It's Alice's face, yet again, that has eluded me. I also somehow managed to get the proportions and relation between head and body wrong. Well, I tried .

Yes, again it's Alice's face that is the issue. It's a shame considering that this time the proportions of the figure look pretty good. 

Better. Alice's face s not quite perfectly rendered, but this is a pretty decent attempt.

Even better. This is a nice companion piece to the sketch with the dodo I made last year. 

I'm really pleased with this one. I wasn't looking forward to trying it, bearing in mind how much of it i Alice. Yet I made one of my most decent attempts at Alice's face, and all in all it's a pretty decent attempt.

So another five done. This takes the total for Alice in Wonderland to 32 out of 42, and for both Alice books to 47 out of 92. So we're over halfway!

If I continue working systematically, as I plan to do, then the next five illustrations to copy are the first three Father William illustrations, Alice holding the baby pig, and the Cheshire cat vanishing in the tree. 

Busy Week

 Well, it’s been a bit of a busy week. The story so far. I’m a full time English teacher – which I’m not apologising for, it’s not a crime. (yet) Now, we’ve been teaching from home since the middle of December. There are occasions when I’ve taught in school, which is still open for the children of essential workers and particularly vulnerable children, but for the most part I’ve been at home. This does not mean that my time has been my own during school hours, though. Making a meaningful remote learning lesson can involve lots of things – making a ten minute video, and editing it, for instance, can take over an hour. Then there’s sitting at the computer, answering questions, giving advice, marking work during school hours.I’m not asking for sympathy, but I’m using it as an explanation of why I was so eager to paint in this last week. This has been half term week. Normally, during this half term I go sketching aboard somewhere. This time last year was my very last trip, when I went to Reykjavik. A year before that it was Stockholm. Well, there was no trip this year, obviously, so I was glad to use the free time to produce three acrylic canvases – the 3 wild west pictures from my last post.

Prior to that, though, I’d been painting this series of vehicles in ink and watercolour, and more recently making timelapse videos and tutorials of the process for my Youtube Channel. I can easily make one of these in an evening after working hours, you see. But last week, I was spending easily 6 or 7 hours a day on the canvases, so I didn’t make any more.

Yesterday, though, I made another video, or in fact a pair of them – a short timelapse and a tutorial of this VW Karmann Ghia. The painting stage of this one was not without its traumas – if you go to my Youtube Channel you can watch it if you like.

Karmann Ghia Tutorial Youtube

Karmann Ghia Timelapse

Selling my work is not my primary motivation, but I won’t deny that it is nice when it happens. Within about half an hour of posting my first wild west picture I had sold it, and then later in the week I sold two of the earlier vehicle pictures. That means that I’ve sold almost all of those earlier ones.

I’ve also had a commission to paint a horse racing scene in acrylics. This will have to wait until next weekend for me to make a start with it – I have just about all the materials I need except time. I’ve also started my next pair of videos – an E type jaguar – but I haven’t filmed the painting stage yet.

Beautiful Britain (Take 2)

 In the few weeks since I last posted, I've been concentrating on extending my range of Beautiful Britain prints. There's a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, as I'm sure that you know if you've been following the blog for any length of time, I just love drawing. In particular I love drawing buildings with a fineliner. Secondly, after a slow start, business in my Etsy shop has started picking up, so I wanted to extend the range of prints on sale. 

So, here's the drawings from December so far: - 

Brighton Pier. I did a mental inventory of cities in Britain, and I know that Brighton and Hove became a city maybe 20 years ago. My first thought was to do the Pavilion, and I may well yet end up sketching that. My second thought, though, as this, Brighton Pier. When I first visited it in the 70s, this was the Palace Pier, as compared to the derelict Victorian West Pier. Well, sadly the West Pier is now gone. but let's at least celebrate what we have left. I have actually painted this pier before (one oat of primer and two coats of whitewash guv, I thenk yow.) and sold an acrylic painting of it a few years ago. 

Liverpool Roman Catholic Cathedral. I made a drawing of Liverpool's iconic Liver Building in the first set of beautiful Britain sketches. It has a drawback - it's not very good. I just didn't get it right. You can see it in my beautiful Britain gallery if you so desire - but it's not a drawing which is good enough to make prints of. So I really needed another drawing representative of the great city of Liverpool, and settled on this iconic building. Nicknamed Paddy's Wigwam, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Liverpool is a stunning modern building, opened during my lifetime in 1967. 

Portsmouth Spinnaker Tower and Skyline. I see this on the horizon every time I drive to visit my mother who lives in Worthing. I don't think that I quite caught it, and this is one of the least successful of my recent drawings, in my opinion. Still, allow me to gloss over that by offering you a choice piece of trivia about Portsmouth. It is the only city in the UK o be completely built on an island. 

St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall. Okay, not a city for once. I made a sketch of Mont St. Michel earlier this year, and thought that it's a shame that it's on the border between Normandy and Brittany in France, which means I can't include it in beautiful Britain. However, its sister establishment is in Cornwall, and this is it. I like this sketch - it came off for me, and I think that the shingle on the sides of the causeway works well. 

Cardiff Bay. I have sketched - and painted similar views before. but I wanted to make sure that I included Cardiff, Wales' capital, in this sequence of drawings. I like Cardiff, and the Bay is terrific, and really well worth a visit if the opportunity ever presents itself to you. 

Clifton Suspension Bridge.

So, to the largest city in the West of England - Bristol. Let's be honest, when I was weighing up which landmark to sketch, it was always going to b this iconic bridge, designed by IK Brunel. Every time I have any reason to go to Bristol airport, I always drive under it. It's a beautiful bridge in its own right, but it's situation spanning the Avon Gorge means that it is nothing short of world class. 

Edinburgh Castle

Yes, I've already sketched Edinburgh once, with a view from Calton Hill. But I just fancied having a go at the castle. What I like about this sketch isn't actually the castle, but the crags of the hill on which it sits. 

Leeds Town Hall.

This is one of the buildings in the series that I have actually visited. On my first ever appearance on Mastermind, it was filmed in the Yorkshire TV studios in Leeds. (The following year, when I appeared again and actually won it was all shot in Manchester). I was blown over by this piece of baroque neo classical. 

Now, having completed the drawing, I decided that, for the sake of variety, I'd have another go at applying a watercolour wash or two to an ink sketch. This was the result.

I have to say that I really rather like this. This is as close to what I was trying to achieve as I've ever got. I have to say, it actually looks better than this scan has made it - the colours aren't quite as washed out. Still. it encouraged me to have another go with the next drawing. Which was this one:-

The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford University. This is possibly Oxford's most famous landmark, forming part of the world renowned Bodleian Library. This is the plain drawing,

And this is the watercolour wash version. Again, I', not unhappy with the results, even though, again, the original does look a little bit better than it comes across in this scan. 

Lincoln Cathedral. This is the most complicated drawing I've made in December, and I simply haven't found time to apply watercolour yet. I guess hat Cathedrals are something of a fallback for me - if all other inspiration fails you can always go back to cathedrals - we have so many impressive ones. I think I once read that Lincoln Cathedral was, at one time, the world's tallest building, although I do stand prepared to be corrected on this one.

Finally, the sketch I made this morning, of the Roman baths in Bath. 

Acrylic Project: Horse Race Painting

Yes, my friends, I enjoyed spending a proportion of the last two weekends making an acrylic painting so much, that I've started another one this week. Last time out I painted a Glasgow tram. Well, I don't want to saturate the market, as it were, so this time out I'm making another horse racing painting. 

It's a funny thing. I don't bet on horse races (apart from the Grand National - last time I had the winner was 1991). I don't watch horse racing. If I were to list my favourite sports, horse racing would, I'm sorry, be closer to the bottom than the top of the list. But I enjoy painting horse racing scenes. I'm not really sure why that should be. Still, I do enjoy painting horse races, and I've not done badly with these paintings over the years. I've sold every acrylic horse racing painting I've ever made, and was also commissioned to do a painting of Frankel the wonder horse too.

I was late starting this morning - so late, in fact, that it was just about the afternoon. I was sketching, you see. Still, when I put down the ink pens and picked up the pencil, I sketched the basic composition onto the canvas.

I set out to make the horses and the jockeys larger than in any painting I've made before. They aren't as big as I envisaged they would be, but I like the size they are oin this composition. 

Compared with other race paintings I've made , the background is pretty uncomplicated with this one - sky above, grass below, not a lot in between. So I made the decision to paint the base for the sky and the grass to begin.

Both sky and especially the grass will need a lot more painting before we're finished, but I was glad to get this down to start. 

One of the things which makes horse racing paintings fun to paint is the brightness of the jockeys' silks, and so this was what I really planned to concentrate on for pretty much the rest of this painting session.

One of the reasons for only putting on a very light coat of paint for both sky and ground is that when I start applying full, bold colour to the jockeys' silks, they really start to pop out from the canvas.

I got this far, and had to make the decision whether I was going to start on the horses. With the best will int he world, I wouldn't have finished them tonight, even if I rushed, so I decided to just paint the basic emerald green of the cloth beneath the saddles, and then leave it there for today. So this is how far we've got today:-

 We're at the stage here where I have to tell myself that it will look completely different once the Horses have been painted, and the after that, when the backgrounds have been properly painted in. When I start the next session I'll have a couple of decisions to make. Shall I go for the horses, or do more work on the background? I'm certainly planning to do the advertising boards and the railings, probably before I tackle the horses.