Here we are, then.

To coin a phrase, the time has come. In this case, the time for me to make my own Alice illustration. In the end I decided to have a go at the gryphon- hopefully you can tell this from looking at the picture.

I am stupidly pleased with this – because, and this is not meant to be false modesty – when I make my own pictures when I’m not copying someone else’s, and not drawing something that I can actually see – most of my own drawings are utter pigswill. Yes, there are things about this that could be better, but pigswill it is not.

Ironically, after pointing out the static quality of the majority of Tenniel’s Alice illustrations, this is far more static than his gryphon. Also, being critical, there’s a slight disconnect between the lion and eagle parts – the latter being slightly too big for the former. I do like the rocky beach I’ve put him on, though.

I went back to Carroll’s text before starting. What he actually says is “They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the sun. (If you don’t know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.) Getting a little meta-textual there, our Lewis. Mind you, if you knew that you had someone as good as Tenniel illustrating your novel, then you’d surely be tempted to say something similar yourself, I’m sure.

It's maybe not perfect, well, there’s no two ways about it, it’s not perfect. However it is decent enough to encourage me to seriously think about doing more.