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. 

Back on Etsy

 Yes, gentle reader, I've been off Etsy for the last few weeks. Well, I say off - I've had to put the shop into holiday mode for personal reasons. Due to circumstances beyond my control I've been unable to guarantee delivery for the last few weeks, and rather than let people down I put the shop into holiday mode .

But things have changed, and situations have been sorted. So I've opened the shop again. If you fancy having a look at it - no obligation to buy - then just click on the link below 

Dave Clark Port Talbot Etsy Shop

It grabbed me

Look, you already know that I love painting London buses, trams, trolleybuses and the Tube. I got myself very frustrated with a tech company today – no names no pack drill. But they’re bloody useless. So I decided to try to paint away my anger.

Now, I don’t know if you’re the same as me, but every now and then I will see something – could be in real life, could be a photograph – and I’ll have an idea that it would make a nice painting. Almost as if it has grabbed hold of me and said PAINT ME! Granted, very often my efforts to produce that painting end up being nothing like as good as the painting I see in my imagination, but that’s my fault because my imagination is much better at painting than the rest of me is. Well, I saw the photograph upon which this painting is based and thought – hello, this is something I want to try. So here’s the painting.

I really rather like this. As a rule, I don’t do subtle and delicate very well, but this, to me is a step in the right direction. I took more than a few liberties with the sky, but what the hell?  It’s the second time that I’ve painted a 607 trolleybus. Here’s the first. 

This one was painted last summer, and I have to say it’s one of my favourites of my watercolours. You see what I mean that it’s not subtle or delicate, though.

A pair of Quickies

 It's a big weekend ahead, and today has been the last day with any opportunity at all for sketching. so I made a couple of copies of rather less detailed and complicated illustrations, one from Alice in Wonderland :-

and the other from Looking Glass : -

It's a funny thing, but I have drawn both of these characters before. I drew the Mad Hatter when I copied part of the illustration showing him the March Hare and the Dormouse in the Tea Party, although I didn't actually copy the Alice part of the drawing. I also made a copy of Alice with her back to the viewer looking up at Humpty on the wall as well. 

I wrote earlier in the week about Tenniel possibly drawing on some of his previous cartoons as inspiration for his Alice Illustrations. Well, this one of Humpty Dumpty is thought to draw on Tenniel's 1871 cartoon The Gigantic Gooseberry - and the similarities between the Gooseberry and Humpty in this illustration are marked. Incidentally I've tried to find out exactly what hat cartoon is about, but my efforts have thus far been in vain. 

Cheshire Cat(s)

You can believe this or not – well, obviously – but it wasn’t until I came to post my copy of Up A Tree ( the Tenniel cartoon from Punch that may possibly have inspired one of his illustrations of the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland) that I realised that I haven’t up to now copied the illustration in question. So here’s my copy I’ve just done. 

Here's my copy of the Up A Tree Cartoon which Tenniel made in 1862 as well.

The fact is that I have copied Cheshire Cat illustrations before, just not this one. I copied the Tenniel illustration where the cat’s head appears in the sky over the field with the Queen and King of Hearts.

I’ve also copied Mervyn Peake’s rather sinister Cheshire Cat,

and Arthur Rackham’s Cheshire Cat –

and Helen Oxenbury’s Cheshire Cat -

and even Ralph Steadman’s Cheshire Cat –

I may be mistaken but I think that Tenniel’s original of this particular illustration has appeared as part of the Google logo before.

The Cheshire Cat has been something of a gift to political cartoonists over the years. The idea of rapidly disappearing until only the smile is left is a highly useful metaphor for a whole multitude of issues and policies. The grin itself is a godsend. Just researching yesterday I found depictions of Prime Ministers Edward Heath and Tony Blair as the Cheshire Cat, and I wasn’t even trying. There’s been many depictions of Donald Trump as the Cheshire cat as well. Interestingly the idea of a Cheshire cat wasn’t even invented by Lewis Carroll. Carroll was born in Cheshire, which may have attractd him to the phrase ‘Grinning like a Cheshire cat’ which was in usage long before he wrote the book. One theory is that it got it’s name from assign painter in Cheshire who was known for painting grinning lions, for reasons best known to himself.

Parody and Antecedent

Following swiftly on from yesterday’s post I did some research and found another Tenniel cartoon parodying his own work. Yesterday I posted my copy of Alice in Blunderland from 1880. This is ‘Alice in Bumbleland” from Punch in 1899. Here Tenniel is satirising Arthur Balfour, a future Prime Minister, who takes the place of Alice, burbling and bumbling his way through the London Government Bill, which would create the London County Council.

It’s interesting that he chose to use the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon again. Unlike “Alice in Blunderland” this cartoon is very clearly based on the illustration of Alice and the Gryphon listening to the Mock Turtle in Chapter 9. The biggest change is that instead it is the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle listening to a standing Alice. Here’s my copy of the original illustration from Alice.

I’d love to know exactly why Tenniel decided to return to Alice for this particular subject. Like Alice in Blunderland it does relate specifically to London – Tenniel himself was a born Londoner. Was he having a sly dig at Balfour’s so-called effeminacy by portraying him as Alice? Possibly, although it’s difficult to say.

While we’re on the subject of Tenniel, during my research yesterday I found this rather interesting antecedent of the illustration of Alice looking up at the Cheshire cat in the tree. It’s called Up A Tree. 

The subject is the Mason and Slidell case. Mason and Slidell were two emissaries sent from the Confederates at the start of the American Civil War to the United Kingdom. The British ship on which they were travelling was seized by Union forces, and the two men taken and imprisoned. This led to a serious diplomatic dispute between the UK and the Union, and had the original British response not been ameliorated by Prince Albert’s intervention, then the warlike nature may well have led to war between the UK and the Union. Lincoln issued an apology and returned the two prisoners. In the cartoon Lincoln is a raccoon who is in the sights of John Bull, the traditional allegorical representation of England. In the text Lincoln’s raccoon asks if John Bull is in earnest, and when he hears that he is, then he pledges to come down.

There are differences. For one thing the trunk of the tree is on the left f the picture in the Alice illustration, not the right. Having said that the cat and the raccoon occupy pretty much the same space and position in both pictures. The arch of the cat’s back though is very reminiscent of the Lincoln Raccoon. Also, the views vantage point is different. In the Alice illustration we are behind Alice, while in the cartoon we are to an extent looking down on the front of John Bull. There’s a forest of trees in the cartoon, while the space below the branch in the illustration is clear because it is occupied by text in the book.

Nonetheless, the similarity is quite clear. Tenniel had an incredible visual memory and didn’t need models to work from, so in all likelihood he drew on his memory of his own cartoon from just a few years earlier.

All of which reminds me that I haven’t yet made a copy of Tenniel’s Cheshire Cat with Alice sketch. Hmm. Watch this space.