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. 

Alice Project Update

 It's been a busy few weeks since I last posted on the Alice project that I've set myself, and in all honesty I've made no progress whatsoever until this current weekend. I've been away in Riga, hence my last post, then the week after that I did myself an injury ice skating with my grandchildren. Then last week I was back in work. Still, I've managed to add another three copies this weekend. That takes me to 27 copies of the original 42 Tenniel illustrations of Alice in Wonderland. So, here they are. 

Now, don't misunderstand me, I love all of Tenniel's illustrations for the two books. I don't think there's a duff one among them. But we've got to the stage when I'm going to have to copy illustrations which I would not say I have a burning desire to copy like I did with many of the others I've already done. The one above is actually the first illustration of the book that accompanies the frontispiece. Having cpied it now I can honestly say that it is a wonderful picture. There is so much more going on in it than you can take in through just one glance. But it is really busy. I took a coupl e of hours last night and still didn' finish it and only finished it this morning. 

Tenniel does love his exterior illustrations. To be fair, this is largely dictated by Carroll's text. Still, I know from past experience just how intricate and complicated his illustrations set in gardens, woods and the countryside are. I think of the caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, and in Looking Glass, the Jabberwocky to name but three. A decent job done, I think. 

Looking at the illustrations from Wonderland, I noticed that most of the illustrations I've copied have come from the middle of the book rather than the beginning or the end. I know why this is. I do struggle to copy Alice in particular her head, and so I have fought shy of copying illustrations where Alice is the star, or even the only figure and there are quite a few of these at the start of the book. But needs must, and again, I'm not unhappy with the head on this one. 

So, as I may have said, the totals stand at 27 out of 42 for Wonderland - 64 percent - overall including the Looking Glass illustrations I've done 42 out of 92, which is about 46 percent.

Sketches in Riga

 Yes, I've been urban sketching in Riga for the last few days. Here's a selection of sketches I made.

Looking Glass Copies comparison

Okay, so in my earlier post I explained about my self given challenge to copy all of the Tenniel illustrations of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. I said that from now on I plan to concentrate on finishing all of the illustrations from Wonderland first, but I have already produced fifteen from Looking Glass. So here they are alongside the originals – they’re on the left and mine are on the right, as if you couldn’t tell.

Now, I personally generally prefer Tenniel’s illustrations from Looking Glass to those from Wonderland. They are generally a bit darker and I don’t just mean physically but also figuratively as well. With reference to the tone, as with the Wonderland copies you can see that mine are notably lighter than the originals. I am glad that the Jabberwocky illustration does at least stand up to comparison with the original. The original is a strong candidate for my favourite Tenniel illustration of all.

The sepia toned copy at the top of these next four is not a copy of mine that I’ve ever rated, so it’s quite pleasing to see that it does at least bear some comparison with the original. I’m pretty pleased with the accuracy of the bottom two as well.

The wool and water copy at the top of these next four is one copy that I really don’t rate at all. The proportions aren’t right, but a lot of it is due to the fact that areas of it just aren’t dark enough. Looking at the bottom one as well, the shape of Humpty’s head in my copy isn’t right, it’s too, well, not exactly pointed but the curve isn’t right, it’s too steep. Humpty on the wall in the picture above it though is not badly done at all.

Not a bad little set here. In fact I’d say the only one where there are serious issues with proportion is the bottom one, Queen Alice. Alice is just too tall. It’s ironic really since this is possibly the most decent job I’ve done with Alice’s profile.

Again, it’s just really a question of the darkness of the original compared with my copy here.

Alice Project

 The Story So Far:- Since early exposure to Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass I've always loved Sir John Tenniel's illustrations for the two books. I love Tenniel's style and have come to love his political cartoons too although I don't love his politics very much at all. In the past I 've copied a few of the Alice illustrations or used parts of them to copy.

In 2022 we were set the challenge to draw something either by John Tenniel or something inspired by him for the Sketching Every Day group on Facebook. I copied "Dropping the Pilot" and enjoyed it so much I copied several other Tenniel cartoons, and then some of the illustrations for the Alice books. Off and on I just kept doing another, then another and so on.

Well, I've made my mind up. I'm going to copy all 90 of them, or at least I'm going to try. I'm over halfway with Wonderland now. I've decided to work methodically and complete Wonderland first before I move on to Looking Glass, although I've already done over a dozen of the Looking Glass illustrations. 

I thought it might be interesting to compare my inferior copies with the Tenniel originals. I'm sure that I don't need to say that the originals are on the left and my copies are on the right.

So if you look at the first four the most obvious thing is that with my copies the pens I'm using are lighter than the printed Tenniel illustrations. I can't really help that. You know, it's a sobering process this. When I made the white rabbit sketch I was congratulating myself on how like the original it is. Yet look at the two side by side and it really isn't. Mine is too thin.

The falling rabbit saw me use a different pen and this is about the closest I get to the shading of the originals. 

Again it's the contrast between the lightness of my copies and the darkness of the printed originals that sticks out. Generally I have to say that I am pleased with what I've managed to do. These are all decent renderings of the Tenniel originals. They are nowhere near perfect, but then that's no great surprise because I'm not perfect either. I'm nowhere near as good a draughtsman as Sir John Tenniel was. 

Allowing for the fact that they are all still lighter than the originals this is not a bad set of copies. I did drop a real clanger with the Hatter's top hat which is far too tall on my copy of the picture of them bundling the dormouse into the tea pot. But they're really quite good apart from that drawback.

The biggest drawbacks with these is the same drawback that afflicts almost every picture I make showing Alice's face. I can't copy her face very well. I always try my best, and it never quite comes off. The tiny little deviations from the original which don' have such an impact when I copy almost anything else just always stick out like a sore thumb to me when I draw Alice's face. Also did you notice that I've left out the shading just behind the gryphon's posterior? I've only just noticed that myself. 

Isn't it funny? Again the White Rabbit was one of my earlier sketches and I though that I'd done it well. But look! Mine is far too thin. Nt only that but look at the ears. I've dropped a huge clanger by making the lower ear shorter than he higher one, it should be a bit longer. How I have only just noticed that I don't know. Compare it with the lobster above. Yes, the ink is far lighter on mine, but other than that It's a pretty decent copy in terms of the proportions.

Again, it's the lightness of the shading which sticks out as the proportions are pretty well observed, I think.

I've just been doing this as a personal challenge. I have drawn all of my copes freehand. I haven't used grids or anything like that, so bearing that in mind I don't think I've done very badly. If nothing else it has given me a heightened appreciation of Tenniel's, well, for want of a better word, his genius, frankly.