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Luthien Rising
Lorien
Mar 20 2007, 3:55am
Views: 2129
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These should be visible now!
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When it comes down to it, it’s all pencil and ink, isn’t it. Today, of course, few authors write their drafts by hand, but Tolkien often did, and always corrected that way. And when he wasn’t sure what to write, or when he had some other issue to work out (as we’ll be seeing him do tomorrow), he stopped writing and began to draw. Sometimes he drew on his manuscript pages. Sometimes he drew on scrap paper, or the backs of menus. And sometimes – as tonight’s selections from his illustrations to The Lord of the Rings show – he set out more deliberately, to illustrate his work.
He’d been doing that for a long time, of course, and doing it with a view to publication as illustration, which always means thinking about both what is illustrated and the audience. I’ve always rather thought that when it came to The Lord of the Rings, though, he was very much his own audience. And this, in part, may tell some of the story of the shift from the woodcut-like inkings and the brightly coloured paintings of The Hobbit to the finer pencils and inks of The Lord of the Rings. Or at least so they seem to me. You, of course, are welcome to challenge that!
First to his inks, because there we see, perhaps, the most continuity with the work on The Hobbit.
This is one of many illustrations of Orthanc (Orthanc (I), illustration #162 on p. 166 of Hammond and Scull – if anyone has a link to a larger online version of this, I’d appreciate it, but if one doesn’t appear here by morning I’ll scan it and link to it):
from http://www.warofthering.net/...ien/Untitled-164.jpg
We’ll come back to this one later in the week, and talk about things like architectural style. But now let’s look at it as stuff.
1. Tolkien’s materials here are pencil, black ink, and coloured pencil. How does this compare with his earlier use of materials? How do the different materials serve him here?
2. Do you (like me) wish you knew the scale of the original drawing? Why would he – as it seems here – be drawing in a size larger than would fit in a published novel?
3. This drawing was made on “the blank verso of a leaf of examination script in 1942” (Hammond & Scull, p. 169). Well! What do you make of that? Does it change how you think of the drawing? Of Tolkien’s act of illustration?
Tolkien used a similar range of materials in another large-scale illustration, this one of Barad-dûr with Mount Doom in the background (Barad-dûr, illustration #145 on p. 152 of Hammond and Scull):
from http://www.warofthering.net/...ien/Untitled-147.jpg
(A larger copy can be seen here: http://www.aumania.it/fa/tolkien/004.jpg)
4. Tolkien has again used both pencil and ink: his materials here are pencil, coloured pencil, black and red ink. How does his use of his materials here compare with those in Orthanc (I)?
5. This time, since I may not come back in detail to this one (though, ok, I may), let’s also look at what he does with his materials in specific relation to his subject. This is not Barad-dûr in its entirety, as we saw all of Orthanc, but the junction between rock and building. How does Tolkien’s choice of where to apply which material show us something about his subject?
(Okay, I really am going to come back to this particular illustration sometime later this week.)
At times Tolkien pushed his inkwell away – or it wasn’t handy. Here is Old Man Willow (illustration #147, on p. 155 of Hammond and Scull), in just pencil and coloured pencil:
from http://www.warofthering.net/...ien/Untitled-149.jpg
(A larger copy, but not, I think, a good reproduction: http://www.aumania.it/fa/tolkien/056.jpg – I may just give in and scan this one in the morning.)
6. Tolkien’s Old Man Willow is a less frightening creature in appearance than Jackson’s Hobbit-eating tree or the imposing ancient knotted trees that photographers shoot and label as Tolkien-inspired. Why might Tolkien have pushed the inkwell away for this one, if he did? How does he use the materials he does have at hand to show some level of menace?
7. Time for a High School Essay Question: Compare and contrast Tolkien’s Old Man Willow with the same artist’s illustrations of trees for The Hobbit.
Lúthien Rising
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. / We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
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Subject
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User
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Time
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JRRT Author & Illustrator, ch. 5: LOTR: Pencil & Ink
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Luthien Rising
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Mar 20 2007, 2:16am
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Uh-oh...
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Sandicomm
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Mar 20 2007, 3:27am
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ack!
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Luthien Rising
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Mar 20 2007, 3:39am
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*with visible illustrations*
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Luthien Rising
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Mar 20 2007, 3:55am
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pen, ink, pencil
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a.s.
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Mar 20 2007, 11:02am
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Brick seems a strange choice to me.
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GaladrielTX
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Mar 20 2007, 12:44pm
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Quick, late-night comments...
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NZ Strider
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Mar 20 2007, 9:34am
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where do you see the face?
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a.s.
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Mar 20 2007, 10:36am
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I see a crooked nose
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drogo
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Mar 20 2007, 11:18am
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Oh, yes, I see that!
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GaladrielTX
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Mar 20 2007, 12:40pm
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Once again...
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Eowyn of Penns Woods
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Mar 23 2007, 5:02pm
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I can't draw lines on an image...
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NZ Strider
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Mar 20 2007, 6:29pm
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If I can, you can
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a.s.
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Mar 21 2007, 12:36am
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Foundations of Barad-dur
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drogo
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Mar 20 2007, 11:10am
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Not only that, but...
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GaladrielTX
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Mar 20 2007, 12:42pm
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Pars pro toto?
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NZ Strider
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Mar 20 2007, 6:36pm
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I think that was it
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drogo
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Mar 21 2007, 2:02am
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I'll discuss Old Man Willow first.
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Curious
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Mar 20 2007, 3:32pm
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I always thought Tolkien did draw Treebeard, only earlier
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squire
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Mar 20 2007, 5:40pm
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No hands, feet, or beard, though. And
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Curious
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Mar 20 2007, 7:51pm
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Barad-dur and Orthanc.
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Curious
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Mar 21 2007, 11:15am
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Salix morgothensis
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Beren IV
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Mar 22 2007, 4:32am
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Scattered thoughts
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Finding Frodo
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Mar 24 2007, 2:46am
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Vogon architecture is of course the third worst in the universe. /
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GaladrielTX
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Mar 24 2007, 2:55am
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Tolkien's so-so architectural sense
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squire
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Mar 26 2007, 3:02am
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Mr. Willow
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Daughter of Nienna
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Apr 4 2007, 12:31am
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