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.