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.