News / Illustration
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Sep 04, 2012
On My Bookshelf...The Patchwork Cat
Read more →A lot of my books are classics, but it’s great to share one that isn’t so well known. This one combines CATS with TEXTILES! WIN. As usual this is/was a fave bedtime story, from 1981. It tells the story of a cat called Tabby. The illustrations are GORGEOUS. Soft and delicate yet incredibly detailed. This person loves cats for sure. And Tabby kind of looks like my Bengals Tulu/Mi-Go. In it we learn how Tabby loves her life and LOVES her patchwork quilt. And loves the Milkman (hope that’s special Cat milk he’s giving her). The mum in the story...
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Aug 28, 2012
On My Bookshelf...Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Read more →If you follow this blog regularly you might have been thinking ‘when will she do Alice?’ My edition is a facsimile of one printed by The Bodley Head in 1907, illustrated by WH Walker. Not a very well known illustrator, and not the ‘famous’ Alice illustrator, John Tenniel. Charming nonetheless. I like the wood engravings best. ALICE FOUND HERSELF FALLING DOWN WHAT SEEMED TO BE A VERY DEEP WELL “COME BACK!” SIR CATERPILLAR CALLED AFTER HER. “I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO SAY!” I think the most interesting thing I can say about Alice book illustrators is how many there have...
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Aug 14, 2012
On My Bookshelf...Enid Blyton
Read more →My Enid Blyton books were some of my bedtime stories, and the first books I had when I was learning to read as a kid. Looking at them now there’s obviously a theme because I enjoyed all the ones with a naughtly little girl at the centre the most. Before I go on, dear reader, I feel like I ought to insert some sort of disclaimer; When I got these books off the shelf it was the first time in maybe 20 or more years I’d properly looked at them, and seeing the illustrations and skimming through the pictures as...
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Aug 13, 2012
Art Crush...Gustave Dore
Read more →The Death-fires danced at night – Rime of the Ancient Mariner The Valley of Dry Bones Paul Gustave Doré is a rock star of the great lyrical epic literary world of the 19th Century. In the New Wave Romantic super group, Doré plays Bass (Coleridge on lead guitar, Shelley on keyboards, Tennyson on drums, Lord Byron lead vocals, obvs). Click to see bigger versions. Inferno – Canto 5 Camelot – Idylls of the King Orlando Furioso He was born in France in 1832 and lived to be fifty, and a very rich man. A prolific engraver, artist, illustrator, and sculptor,...
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Jul 31, 2012
On My Bookshelf...Lucie Attwell's Goodnight Stories
Read more →Get ready for a toothache – it’s Mabel Lucie Attwell. It’s a lovely side effect that, until I started blogging this series of posts I never really realised what a lovely collection of works I have, of some of the great classic children’s book illustrators. When I picked this week’s book and started to look through it I realised I probably haven’t done that for maybe 20 years or more, and following on from last week’s post, it’s a rare and precious thing to rediscover lost childhood memories through the pages of a beloved book. That said, this isn’t the...
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Jul 24, 2012
On My Bookshelf...Mrs Babcarys Diving Machine
Read more →I am being a lazy blogger. Not a lazy PERSON though, but a very busy one. But a lazy blogger because, forgive me, I am recycling this post from September 2011, because a) it’s a book, so relevent, b) because I am too knackered to write something new today, soz, and b) because it is LOVELY and only 16 people ave viewed it. Enjoy! Sometimes you get a little glimpse back into your childhood and rediscover something that makes you understand your grown-up self a bit more. This made me very happy. I used to LOVE this book, and this...
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Jul 17, 2012
On My Bookshelf...Little Draculas Christmas
Read more →And now for something completely different… I hope you have been enjoyin gmy Tuesday dose of visual books that I love and am inspired by. I have so far mainly shared my Folio Society editions of classic children’s fiction. Well, time for a switcheroo I thought. Now I know it’s not Christmas, and it’s not Halloween. But, in my heart, it always is a little bit. And when I was browsing my bookshelf for this week’s edition I saw this thin little book, 16 years old, hiding at the end, and thought ‘Why not?!’ One of the nicest things I...
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Jul 11, 2012
Art Crush - Embroidery Edition
Read more →This month I am featuring the work of illustrator Chloe Giordano – specifically her hand-embroidery work. I can’t remember how I first stumbled upon Chloe’s work – Flickr or Pinterest or some such probably – but I was immediately stunned by both the delicacy of her illustration and the gentleness of her technique. I find them almost dreamlike. On her Tumblr blog, Chloe describes herself as ’23 year old Buckinghamshire based illustrator, avid reader, history lover and dreadful knitter.’ I know – I couldn’t believe someone producing such accomplished and mature work was so young either. As someone who was...
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Jul 10, 2012
On My Bookshelf...The Arabian Nights
Read more →The Arabian Nights, with illustrations by Detmold. This Folio edition was first published in 1924. Click the images to see enlargements. “My father hurriedly mounted his horse, and spurred it toward that of the negro, who…dashed forward brandishing his scimitar” “The Rukh, which fed its young on elephants” Edward Julius Detmold was born in 1883 in London, with a twin, Charles Maurice. They were both prolific Victorian illustrators and precociously talented – their watercolours being exhibited in the Royal Academy at 13. Their familial interests in both natural history and Japanese woodprints nurtured their talents and both these and Art...
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Jul 03, 2012
On My Bookshelf...Hans Andersens Fairy Tales
Read more →Sorry I missed last week’s ‘Bookshelf’ – I was busy frolicking in the hills! This week it’s another of my treasured Folio editions, that classic Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales, as illustrated by William Heath Robinson. Click images to enlarge! This is the 1918 version of the tales written between 1835 and 1872. It was this book that first introduced me to William Heath Robinson’s illustrative work and the main reason I like this book. Robinson was born in 1872 to an artist family, including 2 brothers who were also illustrators. He’s actually most famous for his humourous cartoons, particularly of...