HB Pencil Sketch: Chameleon

 I belong to a Facebook group called Sketching Everyday. Maybe I've mentioned it before. Yesterday, being Sunday morning, not having any work to go to, I had a hankering to do a drawing. More than that, I had a hankering to make an HB pencil drawing. I haven't made a pencil sketch for a long time. What to do, though? Which is where Sketching Everyday came in. I had no idea what to sketch, and the group set a different drawing challenge every day. So I picked out the photo challenge to draw this chameleon. 

That's about all there is to tell, really.

New Painting: Asleep on the Tube

 

I just fancied a quick acrylic today. For this is an acrylic, not a watercolour, even though I ended up applying it as such. My original idea was to have this paper painting as part of a diptych, juxtaposing his one with a painting of a scene of Londoners sleeping on the platform of Holborn station during the Blitz. And you never know, I may yet do so. As it often does, the scanner has made a couple of rather idiosyncratic choices about the way that it picks out certain of the colours. I do rather like this, though - it's closer to what I was actually trying to do than I often get with acrylic or watercolour on paper. 

Great British Illustrators 11: Sir Quentin Blake

Sir Quentin is in his 80s now, and still going strong. He’s indelibly associated with the works of Roald Dahl – I picked an illustration from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, the first Dahl novel I ever read. For me it’s difficult to think of Roald Dahl’s books without thinking of Quentin Blake’s illustrations – as writer and illustrator they were an absolutely perfect match. However, Sir Quentin’s portfolio is much wider and more varied than that. Sir Quentin was the first ever Children’s laureate in the UK, and a good choice for that honour too. 

Like Ronald Searle and Peggy Fortnum, his style looks deceptively simple. Yet when you try to make a copy of one of his illustrations you start to realise just how clever and precise it actually is. No single pen stroke is wasted, and as a result all of his pictures crackle and sparkle with life and personality.

Great British Illustrators 10) Beatrix Potter and The Tale of Jeremy Fisher

 Any discussion of great British illustrators of children’s fiction in the 20^th century can’t ignore the claims of Beatrix Potter as one of the finest. She was arguably the greatest writer illustrator. Beatrix Potter wrote some thirty books, starting with The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Now, I’ll be honest, while I loved “The Tailor of Gloucester” and “The Tale of Jeremy Fisher” when I was a kid, I really didn’t like some of the other stories very much. For example, I thought that “The Roly Poly Pudding” was very weird, and not a little disturbing for that matter. But I still think that Beatrix Potter’s illustrations were never less than engaging, and some of them are absolutely enchanting.

Great British Illustrators 9) Thomas Henry and Richmal Crompton's Just William

 Richmal Crompton was a teacher in south east London who took up writing seriously in the early 1920s after polio forced her to give up her teaching career. It was about this time she created her 11 year old anti hero William Brown, popularly known as Just William after the title of her first collection of stories about him. She continued to write stories about William for almost 50 years, although it’s said she became somewhat resentful of the stories’ popularity, as she really saw herself as a writer of adult fiction.

Maybe it was the fact that I was generally a very well behaved, studious kid myself which made the scruffy, anti-authority, anarchic William appeal to me so much. Maybe it was just because the stories were so funny and well written that I loved William. I think it’s quite possible that Thomas Henry’s illustrations had something to do with it as well. Thomas Henry, although barely remembered now, was already a prolific and successful magazine illustrator by the time he was commissioned to illustrate Just William, and the William books kept him gainfully employed until his death in 1962. I’m a little frustrated that I just haven’t quite captured William’s face correctly in this copied sketch. Not quite.

Great British Illustrators 8) Peggy Fortnum and Paddington Bear

 If we’re discussing British children’s illustrators of the 20^th century, we can’t really ignore Peggy Fortnum. Peggy Fortnum, who passed away in 2016, illustrated over 50 books, but she’s best known as the original illustrator of Michael Bond’s charming Paddington Bear books. The idea of anyone else having illustrated Paddington is about as outlandish as anyone other than E.H. Shepard having illustrated Winnie the Pooh.

 

Copying this picture was an interesting and surprisingly challenging experience. It looks simple, yet I found that every one of her lines was precisely placed, and imprecision on my part rendered the sketch far less effective than the original.

Great British Illustrators: Stuart Tresilian and Enid Blyton's "Adventure Series"

 

Most British children who grew up enjoying reading at any time from the 1930s until as late as the 1980s will probably have gone through an Enid Blyton phase at one time or another. She was an incredibly prolific writer, although she did come under increasing criticism from critics as her fame and success progressed. Some of the criticisms are valid. She was a middle class Englishwoman whose social attitudes were formed during the early decades of the 20^th century, and to modern readers it is possible, for example, to read paternalism, and even mild racism into her books. Myself, I was never hooked on her more famous series, such as The Famous Five and The Secret Seven. However, for my 7^th birthday I was given “The Sea of Adventure”, and I was hooked, and devoured all 8 of the – of Adventure – novels.

The picture is my copy of an illustration from “The Sea of Adventure” by Stuart Tresilian. He’s little remembered now, but worked prolifically for magazines from the 1930s until the 1960s, and served as president of the Society of Graphic Art in the mid 60s. Just looking at his work brings a warm glow, and reminds me how thrilled I was by the adventures of Jack, Philip, Dinah, Lucy Anne and Jack’s parrot Kiki.

Great British Illustrators 6: Ronald Searle and Molesworth

 

Off Prompt: British Illustrators 6: Ronald Searle and Molesworth

 

In a reversal of the normal practice, the illustrator of the ‘Molesworth’ books, Ronald Searle, is far better remembered than the actual writer, Geoffrey Willans. Ronald Searle is best remembered for his St. Trinians sketches, which gave rise to some successful popular British films in the 50s, and several desperately unfunny remakes since. Searle’s loose, anarchic style perfectly fits Geoffrey Willans’ antihero Nigel Molesworth, schoolboy protagonist of “Down with Skool!” and three sequels. Molesworth is a pupil at the fictional boarding school St. Custard. Sadly I don’t think many kids still read Willans – the books are fondly remembered and treasured by any adults of a certain age, like myself , who discovered them for themselves, albeit they were already 20 years old when I first read them in the 70s. Incidentally, J.K. Rowling is about the same age as me, and I can’t help wondering if she read a lot of the same kind of books that I did at a formative age. I say this, because Hogwarts in the Harry Potter books is a direct lineal descendant of schools like St. Custard, Greyfriars in Billy Bunter, Linbury Court in Anthony Buckeridge’s Jennings books, and Enid Blyton’s Malory Towers.

Great British Illustrators 5: C.H. Chapman

In an earlier post I mentioned about my primary school library being stuck in the 50s and earlier decades. Well, Billy Bunter, whose acquaintance I first made through said library, actually first appeared in print in 1908. His adventures were written by Charles Hamilton, under the pseudonym Frank Richards. It’s difficult to explain the enduring popularity of Bunter. Taking me for instance, I was a 1970s city kid attending the local state school, reading about the pre-war adventures of a boy in an exclusive boarding school. I still have no idea about what some of the terms used in the stories meant. For example, Bunter was in a grouping at his school called the Remove. To this day I haven’t a Scoody Doo what this meant. Doesn’t matter. Bunter himself could have been a very unappealing character – he was a glutton, not above stealing, disloyal, cunning and at the same time a bit of an idiot, and very much a free loader. Yet, remarkably, there was something endearing about him, which I think comes across in the illustrations provided by C.H. Chapman.

Chapman is little remembered now, but illustrating Bunter became a cottage industry for him which sustained him for over 50 years. 

Great British Illustrators 4: Arthur Rackham

 Arthur Rackham, a near contemporary of E.H. Shepard, is synonymous with a fairytale style of illustration combining strong ink work with subtle watercolour. Rackham was the illustrator of J.M.Barrie’s first ever Peter Pan story “Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens”. He also made illustrations for an edition of “The Wind in the Willows”, although I’ve chosen to copy one of his illustrations for a later edition of “Alice in Wonderland”.

Tenniel is my hero, and for me his illustrations ARE Alice in Wonderland, however Rackham’s style is also highly effective at portraying the fantastic elements of Carroll’s story, even if for me they lack a little of the sinister quality of Tenniel’s work which I like so much.

Rackham is an illustrator whose reputation and popularity has only increased in the decades since his death.

Card Update

 Just in case you were worrying about it, I thought that I'd better let you know that I've finished making my Christmas Cards now. In the end I decided that I'd use up all of my blanks, which means I've made a grand total of 50. With that many I wouldn't be at all surprised if I end up with some left over for next Christmas.

Just out of interest, 2 of them have watercolour, 15 of them are silhouettes, 11 of them just show reindeer, 17 are based on old sketches or engravings, and the rest are a mixture of odds and ends. 

I've always said that the Christmas cards - even when I do 50 of them - are just for family and friends, and not something I would sell. Still, when it comes to stuff that I actually do sell, it's been a bit of a mixed bag of a month so far. During September and October I sold several original paintings, and some prints on Etsy. This month, not so much. I can live with it - well I haven't got a lot of choice - and it's not as if the original paintings and sketches take up a great deal of room. 

You can imagine my delight when I got home from work on Wednesday to discover an order on Etsy for one of my prints. It was almost as great as my chagrin to discover a message from the buyer asking if I wouldn't mind canceling the sale. To add insult to injury, what made it worse was the buyer explaining that he was buying it for someone else, and when he showed it to them on Etsy, they didn't like it!  

Well, I cancelled the sale and sent a polite message to the buyer informing him that I'd done as he requested anyway. No point going on with a sale if you're not both happy about it. 

Great British Illustrators 3) Ernest Shepard and "The Wind in the Willows"

 It’s unthinkable now that A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh books could have been illustrated by anyone else than Ernest Shepard, yet it nearly didn’t happen. According to one source I read, Milne originally believed that Shepard’s style was unsuitable, and only agreed to allow him to work on the verse book “Now We Are Six”. When he saw Shepard’s work for the book, though, he changed his mind, and indeed, once he became convinced that Shepard’s illustration was adding to the popularity of the books, then he voluntarily paid Shepard a percentage of his royalties.

Shepard’s most beloved work after his Winnie the Pooh illustrations are surely his illustrations of Kenneth Grahame’s evergreen novel “The Wind in the Willows”, and it’s one of these that I’ve chosen to copy.

Great British Illustrators: 2) Pauline Baynes and The Chronicles of Narnia

 Yes, you might not have heard of Pauline Baynes, but she was the original illustrator of C.S. Lewis’ enchanting Narnia books. I was fortunate enough to attend a primary school in the early 1970s whose library hadn’t been updated much since the 1950s. I picked up the library’s copy of “Prince Caspian” because I liked the look of the front cover, and from then on I was hooked. Pauline Baynes came to the attention of C.S. Lewis through the recommendation of his good friend, and fellow Oxford don, J.R.R. Tolkien, (no mean illustrator himself) for whom Pauline Baynes had illustrated his highly enjoyable “Farmer Giles of Ham” tale.

I love the cleanness of her work, and her effortless ability to conjure up epic landscapes with a few strokes of the pen. As a kid, one of the first sketches I made that I was ever really proud of was a copy of a Pauline Baynes illustration of a little sad dragon from “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”. This is a copy of an illustration from “The Magician’s Nephew”, not the first to be written, but the first part of the series in terms of the ongoing narrative. An utter joy.

Great British Illustrators: 1 Edward Ardizzone and "The Land of Green Ginger"

 One of the ways that I kept myself sane and occupied during the first lockdown in April and May was in making a list of some 50 of my favourite British illustrators, and copying an illustration that each of them had made. Writing about my love of 18^th century and Victorian illustration in my last post brought it back to me that I did this. So what I’m planning to do is to make a series of posts showing you the illustration copies that I made. My apologies to all of the artists involved, whose work I’ve undoubtedly failed to do justice to.  

1) Edward Ardizzone and The Land of Green Ginger

Edward Ardizzone was an English illustrator of French-Italian extraction, who illustrated a very large number of children’s books through the 40s, 50s and 60s. It's really rather fitting that he was the first artist I chose, since he was the first winner of the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration of a children's book“The Land of Green Ginger” by Noel Langley, is an absolutely wonderful book, full of wit, whimsy, humour and adventure. Although it’s called a children’s classic – which it is – it’s sadly out of fashion now. It continues the story of Aladdin, through his son, Abu Ali, focusing on Abu Ali’s quest to win the hand of the beautiful Silver Bud. It’s just great, an utter gem, and I can’t wait until my grandson is old enough for me to read it with him. 

The illustration I’ve copied shows Abu Ali and Silver Bud on the left, while his rival suitors, TinTac Ping Foo and Rubdub Ben Thud look on from the right. Noel Langley, who wrote the novel, was a South African writer, who wrote the original screenplay for the smash hit film “The Wizard of Oz”, but this book, I think, is his most inspired creation, and it’s perfectly portrayed in Ardizzone’s unique and distinctive style.

Victorian Illustration on Christmas Cards

Yesterday I made another batch of Christmas cards, and once again, a significant number of them were copied from original Victorian engravings and illustrations.

I just really love that style of illustration, from the engravings of William Hogarth in the middle of the 18^th century, then the savagely biting political cartoons of men like James Gillray, which begat the social conscience driven work of men like George Cruikshank, Hablot Knight Brown (Phiz) and John Leach in the first half of the 19^th century, which in turn begat the more satirical work of artists like Sir John Tenniel, primarily in Punch magazine.

I’d already fallen under the spell of Hogarth and Gillray long before I discovered that I have a family connection to Hogarth himself, and to Gillray’s generation of cartoonists. In the early noughties when I was researching my family history, I discovered that one of my 5x great grandfathers was an artist called Philip Dawe. He may have been a pupil of Hogarth – he certainly worked for him at one time. Philip made a crust from engraving other people’s paintings, from publishing prints, and also from tutoring promising young artists, including George Morland. He was also a political cartoonist, although as his cartoon “The Bostonians in Distress” here shows, he was, in my opinion, competent but uninspired.

I’ll try to illustrate what I like so much about Victorian illustration with some of the cards I’ve sketched this year and in the last few years.

This one shows a cook steaming the Christmas Pudding. Christmas pudding is one of the stock subjects that Victorian illustrators would return to throughout the century, although more often to the bringing in or the serving of the pudding like this one.

The first illustration shows one of the things that I love, the way a Victorian illustrator could suggest a whole background interior with just a few well paced lines, and with careful use of hatching and cross hatching. I think that artists like the man who made the original of this one were also great storytellers too.

This one of this year’s batch is copied from an illustration made right at the end of the Victorian era, in 1900, but it illustrates my point about storytelling here – with the cheeky chappy beckoning the young lady, all the while hiding the mistletoe behind his back. Victorian illustration, when it’s not being satirical in the pages of Punch and the like, can be very sentimental, but that’s another reason why I think they make great Christmas cards – because Christmas is a time of year when being sentimental just fits.

I also really like the rather different ways that Father Christmas/Santa Claus is portrayed. In the cards I’ve made over the last few years, I’ve largely followed two distinctly different traditions, the British and the American. In Victorian times, British illustrators tended to depict Father Christmas as a very traditional figure, a hearty – although not noticeably fat - old man with long flowing white beard, a long robe, crowned with holly, often holding a Christmas tree, and spreading good cheer in the form of food and drink, rather than delivering toys to children. I’ve made a few cards in this tradition this year.

I haven’t made any based on the Victorian American Santa this year, but I’ve copied a lot of the work of the great cartoonist and illustrator Thomas Nast in the past.

As you can see from the cards I’ve posted here, his Santa is a fat, twinkly rogue – not quite in the full coca cola Santa Claus garb yet, but delivering presents for all. I think that Nast's inspiration was the description of Santa Claus in Clement Clark Moore's famous poem "A Visit from Saint Nicholas" ('Twas the night before Christmas etc.) 

Another Christmas subject that Victorian illustrators liked was carol singers. These two from last year demonstrate a couple of different ways that they explored this idea.

You can see from this first one the artist's social conscience is very much at work, with this rather ragged family deriving some little cheer from carolling in the open in the run down area where they live, hoping to make a few bob, enough to be able to eat on Christmas Day. Well, that’s the meaning I bring to it when I look at it, and it’s a testament to the skill of the original that sitting here, getting on for the best part of 2 centuries later, and I can read that into it.

One of the other things to note about Victorian Christmas illustrations is the wistful harking back to days gone by. This design, showing cheerful folk dragging a yule log up to the big house – in return for which they would presumably be received with a pat on the head, a mince pie, and a glass of the cheap stuff from the Lord of the Manor. The most famous Victorian Christmas story, Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” pulls this same trick. It may be set in contemporary London of the late 1840s, but it’s wrung from Dickens’ own longing for the Christmas of his childhood some twenty five years earlier.