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Working
as a volunteer with Winchester Museums Service has uncovered a wide
range ideas for future artwork and transformed my working
process.
Always concerned with
drawing, these fragmented artefacts encouraged me to work on closely
observed pencil studies like this tiny
(7.6 cm by 4.8 cm) carved carved walrus
ivory
"gable". It was possibly made to embellish
a
keyhole at the top of a box. The naturalistic style and energy emerged
from a kind of
mini-Renaissance that flourished in the 10th century -
thanks to King Alfred's hard-fought peace
with the Vikings.
The sepia version on the right is correctly positioned but posters
often show
it upside down (left) possibly because the angels look happier rising
rather
than falling. They aren't actually falling at all, but similar to a
medieval illustration of the time which shows angels descending to
the baptism of the infant Jesus by John. The large hands
aren't just my lack of skill, they're
another characteristic of this style, which became known as "The
Winchester School".
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Pencil drawing led me to the illustrations of E H
Shepard. I've not considered illustration as a source of inspiration
before, but now I'm old enough to be objective about his work, can
appreciate its Surreal qualities: how else could you describe the
parlour teatime depicted in the link below (which will appear in
another window for comparison:
First of all,
notice how spare Shepard is with his line and tone compared to my much
cruder style! But to appreciate his observational skill, note that
everything in his pre-war English parlour is drawn with botanical
precision: the kitchen clock, the turned wooden chair, the
straight-sided honey jar. But that same precision describes the diners
as stuffed toys, devoid of facial expression, human in
scale
and gesture. Disney couldn't help putting his toytown characters into
toytown settings. Shepard's teddy bear and piglet live in ours.
I f you like Winnie
the Pooh you'll either love or hate this next link.
Click on the bear ( below) to view the 1960's Soviet Union
version of A. A. Milne's stories. Russians are only now discovering the
origins of their "Vinni-Pukh" TV series. Gorgeous.
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