Mistress Masham's Repose

Mistress Masham's Repose by T.H. White
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Maria is shown the tiny livestock
illustration by Fritz Eichenberg

The premise of Mistress Masham’s Repose is a clever one - the travels of Lemuel Gulliver described in Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels” actually took place and some Lilliputians, captured on a later expedition, have escaped and have been hiding out and living in exile on a rundown English estate.  For over a century, they have managed to avoid detection by living inside of a garden folly. Their secret comes close to being exposed when they are discovered by Maria, a young girl living on her ancestor’s estate. For me, the best parts of the book were in White’s descriptions of how the tiny Lilliputians are forced to cope in a land of gigantic threats. The writing is often somewhat dense, but filled with humor and White shines in describing the foibles of his characters. The character of Maria is not always likable but White uses her to show how a little power can corrupt even a person with the best of intentions. As is often the case, the villains of the story are often the most interesting characters and White has created a devious pair in the characters of Maria’s governess, Miss Brown and Mr. Hater, a greedy Vicar. There is a lot of suspense created when these two conniving schemers discover the existence of the Lilliputians and plot ways to make a fortune off of them. They even discuss murdering Maria if it should become necessary to achieve their gains. White fills the book with doses of English humor (which may go over the heads of some younger readers) and frequently goes off on rather esoteric tangents, which I felt slowed down the narrative. If it weren’t for these esoteric and wordy asides, I probably would have given this book 5 stars. All in all, it’s an enjoyable read, especially if you’re in the mood for a story rooted in a classic of English literature. If you can, make sure and find an edition that contains the fantastic illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg. His amazing pen and ink work perfectly captures the humor and drama in White's story.

All illustrations are by Fritz Eichenberg and were scanned from a 1946 copy of Mistress Masham's Repose by T.H. White, published by G.P. Putnam's Sons.

The book has recently been reprinted by The New York Review Children's Collection.


Click on the illustrations to see them larger.

Miss Brown and Mr. Hater poke a captured Lilliput

Miss Brown discovers the People in Maria's room

The Professor and the People try to figure out
a way to release Maria from the dungeon

Some of the dangers faced by a
person who is only six inches tall.

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Illustration Friday - Lost

I've been very lax about posting to this blog.  Lately, I've become addicted to tumblr and have two blogs there where I post sketches and other items of interest with minimal writing attached (vincentdesjardinsdraws and Jumbled Planet).

But, today I wanted to post and talk about the image I submitted for this week's "Illustration Friday," challenge which is the word 'Lost.'  I was originally inspired to create this illustration by a photo of a spooky, moss covered forest (you can see the original image, below left).  I created the final image in Painter, but before I began, I opened the photo in Photoshop and created a threshold layer so that I could better see the lights and darks in the image. I then used this as a visual reference to create the darkest shapes in my image.

From there, I began sketching in Painter 12.  Originally I had thought to do this as a digital oil or gouache painting, but then I thought it might be more dramatic to do it as a black and white digital pen and ink drawing.  From the very start, I knew I had wanted to have a rabbit in the image.  I like rabbits and I thought it might provide some tension to show an innocent looking little rabbit lost in this rather imposting and dramatic looking forest.

Beginnings of digital pencil sketch

In the above image, I've begun to map the darkest areas

After I had blocked in the darkest trees, I added additional layers to fill in the background shading.  By having the cross-hatched background shading on a different layer, I could erase areas of it without damaging the main shapes.  This came in very handy when I decided to add some shafts of sunlight to the image. As I continued to work, I began to deviate from the original photo and started adding branches and leaves where I thought the image could use some texture and visual interest.

Here, I'm filling in the background with lots of cross hatching.

As I darkened the background, I decided to add some rays of sunlight, to help guide the viewer's eye toward the rabbit.

Finally, after finishing the image in black and white, I decided it might be fun to do a colored version.  Since I had created the black and white image on several layers it was easy to add another layer underneath to create the color.  All I did was flatten the black and white layers to a single layer and changed the resulting layer to a 'multiply' blending mode, which allowed the color to show through in the white areas.

Above is the finished piece and below, you can see what the watercolor layer looks like without the pen and ink layer.

More from Erik Blegvad

This past Christmas, one of the gifts I received was a vintage copy of "Dusty and the Fiddlers," by Miska Miles with illustrations by Erik Blegvad.  Followers of this blog will know that Blegvad is one of my favorite illustrators,so it should come as no surprise that I was delighted to receive one of his books that I was not familiar with.  The book was published in 1962 by the Atlantic Monthly Press as part of their Weekly Reader Children's Book Club. It's a charming little book, just a little over 50 pages long that is about a feud between two fiddle players and how the feud is resolved by an ingenious young boy named, Dusty.

Blegvad created a number of double page spreads for the book, but instead of having the illustrations run across the gutter, he split the spreads into two illustrations.  This was a smart move on Blegvad's part and I'm sure he planned it this way to keep his detailed line work from getting lost in the gutter of the book. You might think that a wide gutter between the illustrations would be distracting, but Blegvad skillfully composed each side of the page so that each half of the illustration was able to stand on its own, but when you pair the two together, you see one panoramic scene.  As usual, Blegvad's illustrations are filled with wonderful details, and yes, the artist's trademark little black cat appears in many of the illustrations.

In the images below, I've included both sides of each double spread as they appear in the book, including the text so that you can see how Blegvad composed his layouts.

In this illustration, I particularly like how Blegvad has used the barn to divide the image.  On the left side, we see some of the guests as they arrive at the party.  On the right side, we see more guests on their way.  Each half of this two-part illustration works beautifully on its own.

In this illustration I think it's interesting how Blegvad has split the space to accomodate the text.  On the left, the text is above the illustration of the audience, while on the right, the text takes up the lower part of the page and is placed beneath the illustration of the performers.  Once again, each of these illustrations can be looked at as separate, beautifully designed compositions, each with their own balance of lights and darks and areas of interest.

I love what's going on in this illustration, a scene of a busy train station with a train just pulling into the station. On the left we see the train has arrived, a dog is barking, people are rushing to catch it and a little girl covers her ears to block out all of the noise. All of the activity on this side of the illustration lends it a sort of snapshot feel.  On the right, the scene is calmer. We see Dusty and Viola sitting on a trunk where they have been waiting for the train.  They look off to the left, their gaze carrying us back across the gutter to the train. Some other nice details on this side of the illustration are the two swallows perched on the telephone wire, about to be joined by a third bird, and the horse in the pasture that is running toward the train. A man on the right edge of the illustration is also looking toward the train. His positioning, which is almost a mirror image of the position of the little girl on the left, makes a nice bookend for the illustration.

Interview by Karen McQuestion

This past summer I was hired by AmazonEncore (Amazon.com's new publishing division) to create 15 black and white illustrations for author Karen McQuestion's fantasy, "Secrets of the Magic Ring," which is due out in November. Karen and I exchanged quite a few emails while I was working on the job. I sent her sketches and she would write back with comments. She was a great author to work with because she only requested two small changes! As part of the publicity campaign for the book, Amazon asked Karen to come up with some questions for me, related to illustrating her book. Unfortunately, because of space limitations, Amazon won't be posting the entire interview. But I have no space limitations on my blog, so, below is the full-length version of the interview.

True confession—before I knew for sure that you’d be doing the artwork for my book, I secretly stalked your website and blog and was so impressed! The examples of your work show very diverse styles. How did you become so versatile?

First off, thanks for the compliment. I’m always thrilled when someone tells me that they were impressed by my work. As far as my versatility goes, I think in order to compete in today’s competitive illustration market, an illustrator needs to be versatile. But actually I think any versatility that I may have achieved is probably due to my career-long search for a style. As an aspiring children’s book illustrator, I’ve heard over and over again how important it is to develop a personal style. I’ve always worried that my work was too “all over the map” and that I didn’t have a style.  I’ve been doing my work digitally for over twenty years, and in the digital realm it’s much easier to explore and take risks. If you make a mistake you can “undo” it and you can save multiple versions of the same image. I also have so many different illustrators that have influenced me that I often find myself creating challenges to see if I can do something in their style. I suppose I could say that’s how I stumbled upon any versatility that you may or may not see in my work.

When my editor told me you were available to do the illustrations for Secrets of the Magic Ring I was over-the-moon thrilled. How did you prepare for the project?

Well, first off I read the manuscript straight through. Then I went back over it for a second pass and underlined all of the passages that I felt had visual potential. When Terry Goodman, your editor, forwarded me one of your emails where you said you were a fan of N. M. Bodecker, the illustrator of Edward Eager’s books, I went to our public library and checked out all of his books so I could study the illustrations. Bodecker has a wonderful style, he was especially good at using patterns and stylizing things like trees and plants  I learned a lot from looking at his work, especially when it came to drawing backgrounds - trees, plant detail, etc.

With publishers tightening their belts, fewer middle grade books are now illustrated. What are your thoughts on this?

Of course as an illustrator this is something that directly affects my profession so it makes me sad. As an avid reader of children’s middle grade fiction, it also makes me sad, especially when I browse the books in our library’s children’s classics section and I see the beautiful pen and ink illustrations that filled so many of the books from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. I know that when I was a child, I would always go for the books that had pictures in them. When starting to read a book, I would find and look at all of the pictures first because then I found it fun to search for the accompanying text while I was reading. When I would get to the text that was being illustrated, I would always go back and forth between the picture and the text to see how the artist interpreted the author’s words. I still do that. 

sketch of Vicky falling

We had a fun back and forth via email while you were working on this project. At one point, you showed me a preliminary drawing of Aunt Vicky falling into a pool. I realized then that I hadn’t done a very good job describing her appearance.  After explaining that Vicky was a glamorous aunt, I added more description to the text, and you made changes to the illustration.  Are you willing to share the initial sketch and the final illustration? 

Final illustration with more
glamorous Vicky

I’d be happy to share the original sketch. I was glad that you commented on my original drawing of Vicky because looking at my original drawing now, I can see that I made her look too generic. When you mentioned the name of a particular celebrity as an idea for how you imagined she should look, that was a big help. I even googled that celebrity to see how she wore her hair, so that I could give Vicky a more glamorous looking hairstyle.

Do you draw from memory?

Not entirely.  I usually do a rough layout sketch of where I want the figures placed and then I use various types of guides to help me flesh things out.  For example, I will often google images of plants and animals to use as drawing aids. Sometimes I will even google things like women’s hairstyles. For the dog, Clem, in your book, Secrets of the Magic Ring, I looked at photographs of a breed of dog called an Otterhound. While I was working on the illustrations that featured Clem, I found several images on the internet that I kept open on my desktop while I worked. Also, for reference, I used a program called “Poser,” that allows you to pose and set up human and animal mannequins in three dimensional space. You can even change the lighting on them to use as an aid in creating your shadows. That program was an invaluable tool on this job, especially for the illustrations that required unusual perspectives, like the scene where Paul is climbing up the ladder and sees Henry standing above him. For filling in simple background details, for example, the objects you might see in a laundry room, I usually just use my imagination and memory. 

Can you tell us about some of your influences?

I have a lot of favorite artists, all of whom I guess could be considered influences.  For the black and white work I did in this book, I was heavily influenced by the works of Erik Blegvad, N.M. Bodecker and Louis Darling. Blegvad has illustrated lots of children’s books including Mary Norton’s “Bed-knob and Broomstick,” Judith Viorst’s  “The Tenth Good Thing About Barney,” and Marjorie Winslow’s “Mud Pies and Other Recipes.” As I mentioned before, Bodecker illustrated the Edward Eager Books, as well as other books that he himself wrote, like “Hurry, Hurry Mary Dear,” which is a wonderful book of his nonsense poems. Louis Darling illustrated a number of children’s classics, including Beverly Cleary’s “Henry Huggins” and her Ramona Books. Darling also illustrated one of my childhood favorites, Oliver Butterworth’s “The Enormous Egg.”  I have also been influenced by people like Mary Blair, Gustav Tenggren, J.P. Miller, Tibor Gergely, John Schoenherr, David Small and many more.

How old were you when you knew you wanted to be an artist?

I knew I wanted to be an artist from a very young age. I had asthma as a kid and my mother would often keep me inside. In addition, I was also somewhat sickly and would stay home from school a lot. My mom encouraged me to draw. She was a frustrated artist herself and had lots of talent which unfortunately, once she started raising a family, she didn’t get to use very often. Before she had my older brother, she had enrolled in the Famous Artists Correspondence school. As part of that course she was sent three large art instruction books. The books covered everything from drawing basic forms, to human anatomy. Even though she never finished the course, she kept the books and when I showed an interest in drawing, she gave them to me. I spent a lot of time looking at those books, which I still have by the way, and would often copy images out of them. I guess I’d have to say that those books were my first drawing teachers.

You took a drawing I’d thought was perfect, redid the scene from a different angle and made it even better.  Can you show us the before and after, and explain what you did and why?”

This image was somewhat of a challenge. I had to try and figure out a way to show the two children, Paul and Cecelia, and the dog Clem while they were sitting inside their house watching a swimming pool being dug outside their window. I know that kids, especially little boys, seem to like pictures of digging equipment and trucks. Because of that, I wanted to make the backhoe somewhat prominent. Because the children were sitting in the house I had two choices: I could show the children from behind and have the backhoe in the background, or I could have the backhoe in the foreground and the two children could be seen inside the house in the background. Because I didn’t want to show the backs of the children, I decided to go for the second option. But since they were going to be in the background, that option meant the children were going to be quite small.  I completed that illustration, which I think was perfectly fine, but after showing it to my critique group, they pointed out to me that since this was to be the first illustration in the book, the children should be the main focus. So I went back and redid the illustration from a different point of view. I did end up showing the children from the back, but instead of having them looking out the window, which would have meant you’d only see the backs of their heads, I had them looking toward one another which allowed me to show their faces in profile. It was a perfect compromise. I was really happy that I decided to re-do it, because I think it turned out to be a much stronger illustration. 

original version

final version from new angle

Illustration Friday - Shadows

For the past couple of 'Illustration Fridays,' I've used work that I had previously done that seemed to fit the theme. At the moment, I'm in limbo over the final details of an illustration job (an actual paying job!), so I decided I would paint something new for this week's 'Illustration Friday' word challenge which is "Shadows."

I actually ended up creating two pieces on this theme, both involving trees and their shadows. My first attempt was a digital pen and ink drawing that I created from my imagination. I'm not very good at drawing trees without a reference, so I'm not completely satisfied with this first attempt (see image at left). I'm especially dissatisfied with the middle tree, maybe because its branching structure is too symmetrical. I also couldn't get the shadows on the ground to look right.

I decided to give it another try, this time using Painter's digital oil brushes. But this time I also decided to use a photographic reference. I love photographing trees, especially in the fall when they put on their colorful show. I took this panorama photograph last year in Bryan Park which is just a couple of blocks from where I live.

I made a sketch based on the tree that is just to the left of center. Here is my image at an early stage with the sketch still visible. I wanted this to be a somewhat loose and impressionistic piece, so I kept my sketch fairly minimal. I started off painting with fairly light tones.  As I went along, I added new layers with darker glazes. Every once in a while I would collapse the layers so that everything was on one layer and then, when necessary, I would add a new layer and once again add darker glazes. I created my glazes by using Painter's Wet Oily Blender brush set to a low opacity. Since I would paint these glazes on their own layer, I could also layer the opacity of the layer itself, which gave me much more control over how dark the glaze appeared.

The finished piece

More Pen & Ink Sketchiness

A few days ago I wrote a blog about working in a sketchier pen and ink style. I so enjoyed working on that illustration, that I decided to go ahead and do another one. Like the last one, this is also based on a scene from Eleanor Cameron's "Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet," a middle grade sci-fi fantasy that was one of my childhood favorites. In this scene, the scheming and ambitious Horatio Q. Peabody is determined to get to the bottom of the secret discovery that was alluded to in a letter from Tyco Bass that was sent to his employer, the astronomer Dr. Frobisher. After tricking Chuck, David and Theodosius Bass into thinking that he's a professor, Horatio takes Dr. Frobisher's place as a guest lecturer at the boys' Society for Young Astronomers and Students of Space Travel. The scene in my illustration takes place after Horatio's lecture, when he has pretended to go to bed, stuffing his bed with pillows to make it look occupied:

"Then he turned out the light, surveyed the lump that in the darkness looked exactly as if someone were lying there, then on tiptoe he slipped out of the house and around to the cellar door. Here he hunched down behind a bush and listened. The boys and Mr. Theo were talking . . . " 

In my earliest sketch, I had Horatio standing in a sort of hunched over pose.  I didn't care for the way he looked and in order to better hide him behind the bush, I needed to put him in more of a kneeling pose.  To the right, you can see my original sketch.

To the left, you can see my original version, after I've begun to ink it in. As I continued to work on it, I became more and more dissatisfied with the Horatio figure. He was standing too far out from the bush that he was supposed to be hiding behind.

In the image on the left, you can see that I have erased the standing figure and re-sketched him in more of a kneeling pose. In this version I still don't have the legs quite right.

Building up the black shadows was the most difficult aspect of this illustration, especially the shadows around the bush and the tree. I didn't want to make them so dark that the foliage became obscured.

I'm fairly happy with the outcome. I especially like the way the light from the cellar illuminates part of the wall of the house. I'm not entirely happy with my design for Horatio, but I am happy with the way he's lit. I left enough highlights on him, to make him visible, but not so much that he stands out as a distraction.

I set out to create a scene that had a dark, mysterious atmosphere and I think the result was fairly successful in achieving that goal.

Sketchy Style

I've written several posts on this blog on pen and ink work and on artists like Erik Blegvad whose black and white illustrations are some of my favorites. I've also posted several of my own pieces that I've created in black and white using Corel Painter's digital pen brushes.  Most of my black and white work has been very detailed, containing lots of cross-hatching, which is extremely time consuming.

Lately, I've been reading lots of William Steig, not only his picture books, but one of his middle grade books, "Dominic," the story of a restless dog who goes out looking for adventure. "Dominic" contains some really charming black and white illustrations that are done in Steig's very loose style. Inspired by Steig, I decided I would try experimenting in a looser, sketchier style myself.

The problem that came up immediately was, 'What should I draw?' I scanned one of the bookshelves where I keep some of my middle grade books and found one of my childhood favorites, "Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet," by Eleanor Cameron, a book with no illustrations. Because I had not read it in many years, I couldn't recall off hand any particular scenes to illustrate, so I sat down to read the first couple of chapters. The early chapters serve as an introduction to the characters and since this book is a sequel to "The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet," they set the background for what happened in the first book. The main plot point that takes place is that the boys meet Theodosius Bass who is the cousin of their old friend Tyco Bass. My first attempt showed Theodosius sitting in Tyco's old chair while the boys are standing nearby. But I felt that showing these characters just sitting and standing around was uninteresting and boring so I read a little further until I came to a scene at the start of Chapter 2: Theodosius has been telling the boys about his wanderings around the world and his search for a place to call his own. He says: "'Once I thought the Aleutians might be the answer - but oh, the cruel winds, the fogs, the bitter cold! A great mist-ake, you might say, eh?' And he darted the boys a sudden, twinkling glance, and they grinned at one another and knew with certainty they were going to get along with Mr. Theodosius. 'Something you'll never fog-et, you mean!' burst out Chuck, and then he slapped his knee and roared with laughter. David looked disgusted, but Mr. Theo seemed to think it a fine pun, and laughed and laughed." Even though the characters are still in their same positions, there is a more lively interaction going on - Chuck is in hysterics, David's looking disgusted and Mr. Bass is laughing at Chuck's word pun. If you compare my first attempt (at top) with the final result, I think you'll agree that the second illustration, which shows something of the character's personalities, is a much better illustration.

Erik Blegvad and Oddity Land

For those of you who have been following my posts, you already know that Erik Blegvad is one of my favorite illustrators. I've featured his work in two previous posts and, as I think I've already mentioned, I'm slowly building a collection of some of the books that he has illustrated. Since most of them are out of print, I'm constantly on the look-out for them at library discard sales and in used book stores. I've also bought a few of them online. The book that I'm featuring in this particular post is one that I acquired on eBay. It's a book titled "Oddity Land," by Edward Anthony which was published in 1957. It's a funny little book, aptly titled, that is made up of limericks devoted to various animals that the author says he knows.  For example, this little verse that accompanies a wonderful pen and ink drawing of some dogs enjoying a ride on a merry-go-round:

"I know a hound
Who often is found
At the carnival riding the merry-go-round."

Or this one about a spaniel named Daniel

The book's dust jacket contains this quote by Louis Untermeyer regarding the contents of "Oddity Land":

"Oddity Land" is as lively and laughable a collection of wild whimsicalities as I have seen in many years. It has been a long time since so many delightfully queer creatures have been assembled in a single volume."

The book certainly does contain a collection of queer (in the sense of unusual) creatures and Blegvad has done a wonderful job of matching his illustrations to the whimsicalities of the limericks. There are so many small gems in this book. Here are a few more examples:

The illustration below, of some ice-skating mice is one of my favorites. It's easy to see which of the seven mice is the one who doesn't like skating. He's the one on the far right, standing with a cane on the shore of the frozen lake. 

Mr. Blegvad manages to give personality to each of the creatures in his illustrations. I love the blissful grin on the face of this possum who is enjoying eating some orange blossoms . . .

. . . and the feeling of comfortable coziness that he conveys in this image of a dignified looking rabbit (which reminds me a bit of some of the rabbits by Garth Williams, another favorite illustrator of mine).

I'll finish with another of my favorites, an illustration depicting a diverse flock of birds gathered together around three small trees. The image is placed on the page opposite this text:

"There are birds, of course, in Oddity Land

But, as you have guessed, they are differently planned,

A fact that you'll be arriving at

When you read these little announcements that:

I know a bobwhite

Who's so very polite

He won't sing a note till he asks if he might

I know a canary

Who works in a dairy.

She likes it because it is sunny and airy.

I know a flamingo

Who loves to play bingo.

I know a crow

Who's learning to sew.

I know a squab

Who likes corn on the cob."