The Brief –

For this exercise I decided to look at the work of E.H Shepard; although he seems a popular obvious choice to pick from the rest of the artists’ I hadn’t particularly heard of. E.H Shepard is famous for his illustrations of Winnie the Pooh; I have tried in the past to search for the first drawing of Winnie the Pooh which is held in the Wren library in Cambridge but it was during the Covid days and sadly I wasn’t able to see it.

I like the sentiment behind Winnie the Pooh and this makes the drawings and the stories more personal and more “real”. Although, I never realised until I researched E.H.Shepard that Winnie was drawn from a Bear called “Growler” belonging to E.H.Shepards granddaughter, not in fact from A.A. Miles son’s Bear, (Christopher Robin). It also reminded me of a collection of “odd” stuffed toys I have in my house from when I worked in my previous job in Textiles In a school. A group of students passed down their work to me (the collection of “odd” bears!) which I kept in my classroom until I left. They now sit in my home on top of a vintage typewriter and I have always joked that if I was to ever go on maternity leave or have a long break from work (very unlikely!), I would create a children’s’ book and illustrate it just like E.H Shepard did with Winnie the Pooh. The Tales of Old Bear also comes to mind, a blast from the past in the 90s when I was growing up! Researching E.H Shepard and my stuffed toys gave me the idea for this first brief before I had even started.

Although Shepard is a Painter, the works I mostly looked at for inspiration for this first exercise were his works in pencil. His initial first sketches for Winnie the Pooh were drawn in pencil. Shepards work has a lot of energy, movement and playfulness which I like – His drawings brought inanimate objects to life. His work was very “sketchy” and his pen work was “scribbly”- combining pencil and ink and this is particularly what draws me to the work of the illustrator as I like to draw in pencil and ink. Shepard drew a lot of rural scenes and when he used colour in his work he was very expressive; later illustrations of his that were remade for newer books using washes of colour over the top of his existing ink did not work as well as the original watercolour that he painted with his ink.

So… Who was E.H.Shepard?

Ernest Howard Shepard was born on 10th December 1879 and died on the 24th March 1976. He had two children; a son and a daughter. His son died during the World War and his daughter went on to become an illustrator too. Shepards first wife died early on in his life and therefore he remarried for the remainder of his life. Growler the Bear in question belonged to his granddaughter Minnie but was destroyed by their Dog. It seemed that Ernest resented his work that he did for Winnie the Pooh, or that “silly old Bear”, as he said it “overshadowed” his other work. As well as illustrating Winnie the Pooh, he also illustrated another famous book known for it’s soft, cuddly characters – The Wind In The Willows.

Shepard’s original 1926 illustrated map of the Hundred Acres Wood from Winnie the Pooh, (which features in the opening pages of the book and also appears in the opening animation of the first Disney adaptation of Winnie the Pooh), sold for £430,000 in London which set a world record for book illustrations.

Shepard was a painter; his Mum was the daughter of a watercolour painter and his Dad was an architect. He was very much born into creative genes! Shepard attended some Fine Art schools and by 1906 he had become a successful illustrator having worked on and illustrated editions of Aesops Fables, David Copperfield and Tom Browns’ Schooldays. He also worked as an illustrator at Punch – a magazine that would later be edited by the husband of his Daughter. He exhibited at many exhibitions -both traditional and radical but his favourite was always The Royal Academy on Piccadilly in London where he showcased 16 times. His first wife Florence was also a painter and as Ernest was a Londoner, they found home in London’s West End for her 25 year career.

In his mid-thirties he was assigned to World War 1 and was assigned to sketch the combat area within the view of his battery position. He served briefly as an acting Major and was awarded the Military Cross. He continued to observe and send back information in spite of heavy shell and machine gun fire.

Throughout the War Shepard had been contributing to Punch where he was a regular cartoonist. In 1945 he was promoted to main cartoonist. It was here that Shepard was recommended to A.A.Milne, Milne thought that Shepards style was not what he wanted to pursue but he used him to illustrate one of his books of poems and then once he was happy with the work Shepard had produced he commissioned him for Winnie the Pooh. Milne also shared royalties from the book with Shepard.

Milne inscribed a copy of Winnie the Pooh with a personal message to Shepard which read:

When I am gone,
Let Shepard decorate my tomb,
And put (if there is room)
Two pictures on the stone:
Piglet from page a hundred and eleven,
And Pooh and Piglet walking (157) …
And Peter, thinking that they are my own,
Will welcome me to Heaven.

A. A. Milne

Shepards work is so famous that 300 sketches were exhibited at the V&A Museum in London in 1969, Shepard was 90 years old.

Megan Hess

The second part of the research in this exercise was to find a modern, contemporary illustrator and explore the differences in style and imagery.

I chose to use Megan Hess as my second illustrator. I have always been interested in fashion and fashion illustration from a young age – my primary school teachers used to say that I would grow up to become a Childrens’ book illustrator as I loved drawing illustration of fashionable older girls wearing cool clothes that I would have never been allowed to wear!- influenced massively by The Spice Girls and the fashion of the 90s! Later on when I studied my BTEC in Graphic Design I had to complete a project on 1960s fashion and once again I was asked if fashion was more of what I was suited to rather than Graphic Design! I do believe though that all areas of Design are under the same creative umbrella and they all overlap and intertwine some how. This exercise seemed like the perfect opportunity to put that to play!

Megan Hess has a lot of similarities to Shepard, it’s just that her work is from modern day and her chosen subject is Fashion illustration for books. Megan writes her own books focussing mainly on fashion icons of times gone by which she illustrates although she has written and drawn her own range of Childrens’ books which focus more with young people in mind and cuddly characters (similar to Shepard) but still making them fashionable and modern.

I own a couple of Hess’s books – one about Coco Chanel and one all about the most iconic dresses and figures from the last 100 years.

Home

Megan Hess famously illustrates using her Monte Blanc ink fountain pen that she fondly names Monty! Hess has a very fluid, freehand, free-flowing effortless style which I love. The majority of Megans work is Black and White ink but when there is colour present on her drawings it is mostly in the form of mixed media digitally manipulated onto the illustrations.

I had a copy of her book which used to rip out pages for a display board at work so I used this to glue some examples into my sketchbook to show how she manipulates mixed media digitally onto her work. Designing digitally is definitely something that would not have been possible in the early years of E.H.Shepard.

First Ideas..

For my illustration I was about to do for this exercise using inspiration from both illustrators – I knew I was going to be making a modern piece for the fact that I was using such a modern day illustrator as part of the process. My piece would need to have a nod to Fashion but still maintain a childlike, imaginative story. There is such an air of innocence with Winnie the Pooh – it is very soft, gentle, innocent, warm and happy. I needed something modern and grown up to clash with a subject very childlike. The instant thing that came to mind was a Teddy Bears Party – not a tea party and a picnic in the park though! I was imagining an elite Cocktail party at a posh Cosmopolitan Hotel in London or New York, two very unlikely pairings! The image of a glamorous, Designer clad, waif woman being walked home late one night after a party after a few too many cocktails guided back to rural home by the streetlights from the city with Teddy Bears to hold her hand… or in this occasion my “odd” Bears! I would draw my “odd” Bears in a similar style to E.H.Shepard; give them personalities, bring them to life and then pair them with a contrasting chic drawing of a fashionable, 9-5 woman who works in a fast paced Fashion industry in the city. Bringing childhood and imagination back to the grown up.

This idea also made me think of Jean Shrimpton and her time in New York with David Bailey where they were photographed for the first time for Vogue in a very controversial manner – Bailey insist that she have her photograph taken with a Teddy bear that she was carrying around the city much to the Editors dislike at the time. I also thought that maybe my illustration could have some 1960s influence – a babydoll nightie which were very popular in the 1960s but create a modern-day, going-out version of the dress for my character to be wearing to the tea party.

I needed to try and sketch some drawings in the style of the illustrators and research into my ideas first though:

I really liked this illustration; it is very free-flowing, loose, fluid and sketchy and I really liked the 1960s style of dress. The hair reminded me of an advertising poster I found in some of my Mums old stuff about 15 years ago that I loved and I now keep as inspiration for any of my future work:

I wasn’t sure though if it resembled too much the work of Megan Hess; The dresses she normally illustrates are very voluminous, dressy, big and Princess-y.

I found a YouTube video by Megan Hess where she gives a tutorial on hoe to draw in a similar style to her, I gave it a watch and redraw again but this time with a bigger dress.

I then needed to start drawing up some of my characters for my piece – My “odd” Bears! Well, I only have 2 “odd” Bears and then I made the third Bear up in a similar style to Winnie The Pooh.

I felt that I wanted my fashionable woman character to be holding the hands of the Bears but she would be too tall for this – I envisioned her to be holding the biggest Bears hand and then for the others to be holding on like a chain link. I photographed my Bears in this way so I could draw them more accurately.

Below is a rough sketch of the idea I had in my head of her holding the Bears hand and a few illustrations I sketched out in a rough, free-flowing, care-free style of E.H.Shepard.

The illustration below is a more detailed yet still a rough sketch of how I wanted my final drawing to look. I added a party hat onto her head to bring the childish element into my drawing. This illustration represents grown up Fashion but it also shows the softness, kindness and child-like play.

Usually I never like drawing faces! I used to when I was little – but I would always draw my characters with massive heart-shaped cupids bow lips, big eyelashes, perfectly arched eyebrows, little cute commas for a nose and some freckles or a beauty spot!

I knew that my character would need a face; I needed to be brave and try to draw some facial features and expressions. Below are my test pieces in the style of Megan Hess!

(I think a few of them resemble Megan Fox with the high cheekbones!!)

I decided that my character would have a ponytail in her hair with a big Bow – it is modern, chic but timeless and also a lot of Megan Hess’s illustrations have similar hairstyles.

I then had to think about trying to draw an accurate representation of a Woman leaning over holding Teddy bears hands whilst holding her long dress from trailing on the floor in the other arm. To do this I knew that I needed to draw from person and enlisted my husband to help me pose for some photos and take some of me in various poses that I could draw from them to get a close representation for my drawing. I also needed the Bears to be holding hands and needed to hold them in a similar position to draw from. I also massively struggle drawing hands and needed a visual representation to draw from.

I was trying to use the quilt cover on the bed as a a representation of a puffy dress but it just didn’t work! I also tried with my Wedding dress but it was too fitted to my body!

I also needed the correct representation of how her hands would look on the drawing, so I used myself holding a stapler to represent how she would hold her dress in my drawing!

I wanted to use Ink and Pencil to draw the main illustration but I also knew I wanted to use another media that both the illustrators use – this was Watercolour. Shepard and Hess both use a wash of Watercolour over there sketchy ink drawings.

I am not very good using Watercolour so I knew that I firstly I would need a practise piece:

In my final piece you can see that the city landscape is in the background and that they are walking back home along the shore line. The bigger Bear of the 3 is having fun stepping in and out of the sea as it washes in and out carrying a balloon from the party they have just been to.

I liked the washy Watercolour over the ink but it just looked a bit flat; for my final piece I would need to add more depth and tone.

The Final Illustration

Looking back on my finished illustration I think the idea for the narrative of the illustration was good, (I would have liked to have created a series of prints storytelling the whole party!) but the illustration still needs some work. I am not pleased with her face, it looks very alien! Her hair is also not very lifelike. I like how I added tone and depth to the illustration though. The colour of the dress is very rich and bold and I tried to emphasise the size and shape of it with tonal value.

Overall I think I captured the style of both illustrators in my illustration through the techniques they used with their chosen media but also through the narrative and story of the illustration.