John Tenniel’s work and illustration from Alice in Wonderland has always been an inspiration to me. The story of Alice in Wonderland has always resonated with me in a way, and still as an adult it is one of my favourite stories. It may be a different interpretation to many, but I have always struggled to get out of my own head, I struggle to understand the world around me, and always have, and I use my world inside my head, the stories it holds and promote them outwards to gain an understanding. Alice in Wonderland to me always felt like an escapism within Alice’s own head.
John Tenniel’s illustrations illustrate this fantastical but dark ideas in Carroll’s book, and the texture and attention to detail is something I would like to be able to achieve. But also how much storytelling and narrative can be told in one illustration. Even though this work is extremely different to my own, I love expressive narrative within images and with being such a prolific book illustrator and political satirist, there something/a lot to learn even if his work is so far away from my own.
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/john-tenniel-an-introduction
