ILLUSTRIOUS ILLUSTRATIONS

 

So what is it all about...?

Any regular reader of this blog will know that I have a number of favourite illustrators – some of whom I am proud to call my friends. One such is John Vernon Lord (left: self-portrait, aged 22), a prolific illustrator who (like several of my favourite illustrators, past and present) has an astonishing capacity for creating pictures of the most amazing detail and complexity...

Over the years, John has used his unique gift for pen-craft to embellish an eclectic slice of literature from Aesop's fables, the Icelandic sagas and the Arthurian legends sagas to the nonsense worlds of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll...

...not to mention his classic children's book, The Giant Jam Sandwich, which has been in print now for over forty years...

April and May 2014 are turning into a positive John Vernon Ward-fest as two new books hit the bookshops.

Last month saw the publication of Drawn to Drawing, an elegantly produced volume containing a wealth of previously unpublished material from the artist's sketchbooks and diaries, along with memoirs from Lord himself.

This essential chapter in the history of twentieth (and twenty-first!) century illustration offers an insight into the life and working practices of a master draughtsman is, as the publisher declares (without risk of being charged with hyperbole), "a must for any illustration fan". As you can see here...

 

The singular delight of this collection are the reproduction pages from John's notebooks and diaries that he fills with microscopically detailed sketches and doodles that demonstrate the discipline and penmanship of the miniaturist. You can see here just how small these consummate creations are...

And here are a few of those pages to marvel at...

 

Drawn to Drawing has an introduction by Posy Simmonds who writes: “[John Vernon Lord]  draws words and writes pictures. He is a draughtsman of philosophical reflection… He is not the only illustrator who works from black line, but he is one of the few who uses it with such virtuosity..."

The book also contains a tribute from Raymond (The Snowman) Briggs and (I am proud and  honoured to say) myself. I can't express my admiration for John better than I expressed in the pages of this book...

A book of drawing by John Vernon Lord is more than just the work of a master draughtsman, it is house filled with windows onto worlds where the commonplace becomes suddenly extraordinary and the bizarre and the inexplicable seem surprisingly familiar

An artist of impeccable skill, he can create pen and ink designs filling the page with a staggering complexity of detail that recall the engraver’s craft or, by turn, execute elaborate dances of form and space that reveal him as a supreme choreographer of the drawing board that is his stage.

 You can order a copy of Drawn to Drawing here

Copies can also be purchased from The Illustration Cupboard, where original art and signed books by John Vernon Lord – and many other illustrators – can be viewed and bought. For details click here 

One of John's illustrations exhibited at The Illustration Cupboard is for James Joyce's Ulysses...

...which conveniently leads to mention John's latest illustrative project  a new edition of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, published by The Folio Society and launched this evening at a meeting of Imaginative Book Illustration Society to be held at the Art Workers' Guild in London.

Finnegan's Wake, which took the author seventeen years to complete, is full of puzzles and paradoxes, tricks and deceits, illusions and allusions. Which is why John set himself to understand the depths of this demanding text and to then embody in his illustrations cues and clues to Joyce's narrative.

Here are some examples of John's stunning visual interpretation...

 

 

You can read more about John Vernon Lord's illustrations to James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake here, and you'll find lots of examples of John's illustrative work regularly posted on his blogspot

And I'll end this long – but, I hope you'll agree, amazingly illustrated – post with a photo of John and I, last year, signing copies of our books to one another...

LEARICAL DELIGHTS

This year marked the bicentenary of the birth of Edward Lear, nonsense poet, painter of birds and landscapes and sometime drawing-teacher to Queen Victoria.

I have always been intrigued by the life and work of Lear and, in particular, his struggles with what must have seemed, to a buttoned-up Victorian, the doubly unbearable curse of epilepsy and homosexuality.

Maybe this mental suffering spurred the creation of the bizarre characters and sadly unrequited lovers in the various volumes of  Nonsense Songs and Stories that he wrote and illustrated from 1846 onwards...

A recurrent theme within the pages of his books are eccentric partnerships or unfulfilled liaisons famously including the Owl and the Pussycat, the Nutcracker and the Sugar-Tongs and Mr Daddy-Longlegs and Mr Floppy Fly depicted here (engaged in their favourite pastime of 'battlecock and shuttledore') by that staggeringly gifted draughtsman (and a recent addition to the blogosphere) John Vernon Lord...

All these characters (along with many others) appeared in To Sea in a Sieve, a musical play which I created in collaboration with my friend the composer, David Hewson.

It was first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1989 with myself as Lear and the wonderful Polly March as the Pussycat to my Owl, the Lady Jingly Jones to my Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo and the Jumbly Maid ('with her sky-blue hands and her sea-green hair') to my Dong with a Luminous Nose.

Polly also played Ann, Lear's mother-substitute sister; Augusta ('Gussie') the former child friend to whom Lear almost proposed marriage; the aforementioned Queen Victoria and a fearfully  loquacious parrot! David Hewson's music was performed by the talented Stephen Daltry and our combined efforts were well-received – apart from the critic who mentioned that we sang a song about 'a DOG with a luminous nose'!

The following year, 1990, saw To Sea in a Sieve have a successful run at The Theatre Upstairs at London's (now long gone) Westminster Theatre. Miss March and I reprised our roles with, on this occasion, the composer at the piano.

Here for (I hope) a little year-end amusement and enjoyment is a recording Polly, David and I made of the songs and poems featured in To Sea in a Sieve...

Click the arrows to play

You can read more about Edward Lear in an informative article on the website of Poetry Foundation