A pair of Quickies

 It's a big weekend ahead, and today has been the last day with any opportunity at all for sketching. so I made a couple of copies of rather less detailed and complicated illustrations, one from Alice in Wonderland :-

and the other from Looking Glass : -

It's a funny thing, but I have drawn both of these characters before. I drew the Mad Hatter when I copied part of the illustration showing him the March Hare and the Dormouse in the Tea Party, although I didn't actually copy the Alice part of the drawing. I also made a copy of Alice with her back to the viewer looking up at Humpty on the wall as well. 

I wrote earlier in the week about Tenniel possibly drawing on some of his previous cartoons as inspiration for his Alice Illustrations. Well, this one of Humpty Dumpty is thought to draw on Tenniel's 1871 cartoon The Gigantic Gooseberry - and the similarities between the Gooseberry and Humpty in this illustration are marked. Incidentally I've tried to find out exactly what hat cartoon is about, but my efforts have thus far been in vain. 

Cheshire Cat(s)

You can believe this or not – well, obviously – but it wasn’t until I came to post my copy of Up A Tree ( the Tenniel cartoon from Punch that may possibly have inspired one of his illustrations of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland) that I realised that I haven’t up to now copied the illustration in question. So here’s my copy I’ve just done. 

Here's my copy of the Up A Tree Cartoon which Tenniel made in 1862 as well.

The fact is that I have copied Cheshire Cat illustrations before, just not this one. I copied the Tenniel illustration where the cat’s head appears in the sky over the field with the Queen and King of Hearts.

I’ve also copied Mervyn Peake’s rather sinister Cheshire Cat,

and Arthur Rackham’s Cheshire Cat –

and Helen Oxenbury’s Cheshire Cat -

and even Ralph Steadman’s Cheshire Cat –

I may be mistaken but I think that Tenniel’s original of this particular illustration has appeared as part of the Google logo before.

The Cheshire Cat has been something of a gift to political cartoonists over the years. The idea of rapidly disappearing until only the smile is left is a highly useful metaphor for a whole multitude of issues and policies. The grin itself is a godsend. Just researching yesterday I found depictions of Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Tony Blair as the Cheshire Cat, and I wasn’t even trying. There’s been many depictions of Donald Trump as the Cheshire cat as well. Interestingly the idea of a Cheshire cat wasn’t even invented by Lewis Carroll. Carroll was born in Cheshire, which may have attractd him to the phrase ‘Grinning like a Cheshire cat’ which was in usage long before he wrote the book. One theory is that it got it’s name from assign painter in Cheshire who was known for painting grinning lions, for reasons best known to himself.

Parody and Antecedent

Following swiftly on from yesterday’s post I did some research and found another Tenniel cartoon parodying his own work. Yesterday I posted my copy of Alice in Blunderland from 1880. This is ‘Alice in Bumbleland” from Punch in 1899. Here Tenniel is satirising Arthur Balfour, a future Prime Minister, who takes the place of Alice, burbling and bumbling his way through the London Government Bill, which would create the London County Council.

It’s interesting that he chose to use the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon again. Unlike “Alice in Blunderland” this cartoon is very clearly based on the illustration of Alice and the Gryphon listening to the Mock Turtle in Chapter 9. The biggest change is that instead it is the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle listening to a standing Alice. Here’s my copy of the original illustration from Alice.

I’d love to know exactly why Tenniel decided to return to Alice for this particular subject. Like Alice in Blunderland it does relate specifically to London – Tenniel himself was a born Londoner. Was he having a sly dig at Balfour’s so-called effeminacy by portraying him as Alice? Possibly, although it’s difficult to say.

While we’re on the subject of Tenniel, during my research yesterday I found this rather interesting antecedent of the illustration of Alice looking up at the Cheshire cat in the tree. It’s called Up A Tree. 

The subject is the Mason and Slidell case. Mason and Slidell were two emissaries sent from the Confederates at the start of the American Civil War to the United Kingdom. The British ship on which they were travelling was seized by Union forces, and the two men taken and imprisoned. This led to a serious diplomatic dispute between the UK and the Union, and had the original British response not been ameliorated by Prince Albert’s intervention, then the warlike nature may well have led to war between the UK and the Union. Lincoln issued an apology and returned the two prisoners. In the cartoon Lincoln is a raccoon who is in the sights of John Bull, the traditional allegorical representation of England. In the text Lincoln’s raccoon asks if John Bull is in earnest, and when he hears that he is, then he pledges to come down.

There are differences. For one thing the trunk of the tree is on the left f the picture in the Alice illustration, not the right. Having said that the cat and the raccoon occupy pretty much the same space and position in both pictures. The arch of the cat’s back though is very reminiscent of the Lincoln Raccoon. Also, the views vantage point is different. In the Alice illustration we are behind Alice, while in the cartoon we are to an extent looking down on the front of John Bull. There’s a forest of trees in the cartoon, while the space below the branch in the illustration is clear because it is occupied by text in the book.

Nonetheless, the similarity is quite clear. Tenniel had an incredible visual memory and didn’t need models to work from, so in all likelihood he drew on his memory of his own cartoon from just a few years earlier.

All of which reminds me that I haven’t yet made a copy of Tenniel’s Cheshire Cat with Alice sketch. Hmm. Watch this space.

Tenniel Self- Parody?

Does this look familiar, and yet somehow different to the Tenniel illustrations of the Alice books that we know and love so well? There’s a good reason. For this is (my copy of) A Tenniel cartoon, and yet it isn’t Alice in Wonderland or Alice Through the Looking Glass. No, this is Tenniel’s Alice in Blunderland, and it appeared in Punch in 1880.

Over the years Tenniel’s illustrations of the Alice books have provided inspiration for many political cartoons over the years, and even Tenniel himself got in on the act. This passes comment on the City of London authorities’ decision to erect the current Temple Bar Memorial, which stands to this day in the Strand. Temple Bar itself was removed to make room for the building of the law courts in the Strand in the 1870s. It was rebuilt in Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire until a successful campaign brought it back to London where it was carefully re-erected in the shadow of St. Paul’s on the entrance to Paternoster Square.

The cartoon accompanied a written skit, satirising the decision to put up the memorial in the style of Alice in Wonderland. The criticism was mainly that the Memorial would create a traffic obstacle when congestion in the City was already of unmanageable proportions.

As for the cartoon, well, Alice is clearly Tenniel’s Alice. The choice to include the Griffin and the Mock Turtle was probably dictated by the text, but also rather obvious considering that the Memorial is topped by a sculpture of a griffin, the heraldic symbol of London, holding up London’s coat of arms. The Griffin looks quite different from the depictions of the Griffin in Wonderland. Not as different as the Mock Turtle here. The Mock Turtle in the carton represents the Mansion House authorities of the City of London, which is why it wears the shield of the City. There’s precious little mock about this particular turtle. No calf’s head, but a real turtle head instead, for example.

Here's my copy of one of the griffin and mock turtle illustrations from Wonderland.

Double or Nothing Today

It’s funny just how well some of the original poems in both Wonderland and Looking Glass have survived. Although having said that Lewis Carroll is often held up as one of the masters of Victorian nonsense verse along with Edward Lear. Personally, I’m not a great fan of Edward Lear. Yes, he wrote “The Owl and the Pussycat”, but have you ever read any of his limericks? They’re bloody dreadful, and a great many of them cheat on the last line by just basically repeating the first line.

“Father William” appears relatively early in “Alice in Wonderland”, when Alice is told to recite it by the caterpillar. It is accompanied by no fewer than four Tenniel illustrations, one for each of the paired questions and responses by the young man and Father William.

So I’ve read, Carroll wrote the poem as a parody of Robert Southey’s “The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them.” It’s ironic that the original poem is pretty much forgotten. It’s not surprising. I’ve read it, and it’s po-faced and rather miserable, with the old fellow explaining how he didn’t waste time having fun when he was younger, which is why he has lived to such a healthy old age. Hmmm.

I picked this illustration from the poem to copy partly because I think the figures are so well observed in the original. I can’t help having a mental picture of Tenniel chuckling away in spite of himself as he was drawing them. I also like the way that the eel that the old man is balancing on his nose rather looks like a curvy sword. That’s got to be deliberate.

Back to Alice (Alice - who the hell is Alice?)

 OK, so I woke up this morning, and thought - hmm. I'm looking after my two oldest grandchildren today, it being the first day of Half Term week. With the best will in the world, it is not going to be a painting day today. So let's get the fineliners out.

Last year I got myself into a bit of a John Tenniel kick, which became an Alice in Wonderland / Alice Through the Looking Glass kick. It started with a prompt on Sketching Every Day on Facebook, where we were challenge to copy or produce something inspired by John Tenniel. I made a copy of his famous Punch cartoon "Dropping the Pilot". Then I coped a couple of other cartoons. Then I copied something from Alice. Then I did another. And another. In the end not only had I copied more than 20 of Tenniel's originals, but also quite a lot of illustrations by other illustrators of Alice, notably Mervyn Peake and Ralph Steadman. 

So when I was stuck for inspiration this morning I thought - I know. Let's do another Alice. Here it is - the iconic illustration of the Duchess with Alice from Wonderland. 

Let's ge the self criticism out of the way first, The Duchess' face is not right, not quite. The baby's face is too big, it should be a bit smaller. But there we are, considering how 'busy' the original illustration is I'm really not too unhappy with it. 

You know, I'd forgotten just how much I love doing something like this. I've said before that judging by some of his political cartoons I don't know that Sir John Tenniel and I would have necessarily got on very well. But my goodness, I don't half admire the man's skill. In order to copy something like this you have to look, and look, and look. I wouldn't go so far as to say that you do most of the drawing with your eyes, but I would say that your eyes are as important as your hand. 

It took about 3 and a half hours, and I bloody loved it. 

More Ealing Watercolours

 Cut to the chase, Dave. OK. SO, yesterday I had a hankering to paint part of the towpath of he Grand union Canal, where the old sight of St. Bernard's hospital backs onto the towpath. I just wanted to get on with it too, so I set myself the challenge of making a direct watercolour. In case you  have forgotten (wouldn't blame you) a direct watercolour is painted directly onto the paper, without any helpful sketching in pencil or any other medium to guide you. This is what I painted:-

As a direct watercolour, it's okay. I took ages over the brickwork and I think that's come out quite nicely. As a straight watercolour - meh. There are perspective issues with the building, which is grade II listed and was supposedly once a brewery.  A for effort, C- for execution. Being as it's half term week, I didn't have any reason why I couldn't paint again this morning and so that's what I did. 

I like this a lot more. For one thing I don't see the issues with perspective. Shouldn't do , mind you, because I did sketch in pencil. Mind you, I did it differently than I've done before. Really and truly I just sketched in the skyline first, then painted in the sky I was deliberately going for muted, softer colours today. Then while the sky was drying I just added more pencil details. Then painted some areas in, then sketched again and so forth.

I rubbed out the pencil lined until I could only just see then as I went along. It's a pretty similar view to this one I painted last summer:-

- although this one was some 20 or 30 years earlier, and the colours are much brighter. I think that somewhere between the two will possibly be as good as I can get it.