Alice's impossible head

 

I think that you can see my point from these five Alice heads from my copies that I’m finding it extremely difficult to draw Alice’s head, and particularly her features. I also drew her in the caterpillar illustration, but I haven’t included that one because it’s only the eyes and the top of her head peeping over the mushroom. So working from left to right and starting on the top, the first is from a copy of Alice talking to the Red Queen. I made this one as a sketch for Inktober 2018 – can’t remember which prompt it was for, though. The chin and nose are wrong, in particular the chin is far too pointy. The second is from my sketch of Alice and the White Knight. You can’t see from the head here, but it is out of proportion to the body, too big. The features just aren’t right though. There’s something about the way that Tenniel draws Alice’s eyes that I find extremely difficult to capture. The third head, from my copy of the Lion and the Unicorn is the one where I’ve come closest to capturing a Tenniel Alice. The eyes are the best Alice eyes that I’ve done, and the whole thing is almost there. Close, but not quite a cigar, I think. The first one on the bottom row is from Alice and the Dodo.Eyes too heavily shaded, giving her an evil and menacing look. And the shape of the hair on the top of her head is wrong, even allowing for the fact that it’s meant to be wet and bedraggled. The last one, from where she is talking to the Duchess during the croquet match, the face is maybe a little too thin, and the eyes are just plain wrong.

What’s the answer? I don’t know – the only answer I have is to keep trying. If at first you don’t succeed. . .