Roald Dahl: The Witches

The Witches
First published by Jonathan Cape 1983
Published in Puffin Books 1985
The edition I read was published in 2013

Text: Roald Dahl
Illustrations: Quentin Blake

Set in Monotype Baskerville
Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

The year 1983

I decided that I would research events that happened in the year The Witches was published. I picked out things that could have influenced the art of the time. 
- The migration of ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed. (The beginning of true internet.)
- Britain's Conservative government which was led by Margaret Thatcher is re-elected by a landslide.
- Second Cold War.
- Neil Kinnock is elected leader of the British Labour Party.
- Contemporary art gallery, Galeria OMR, founded in Mexico City.

I have always been a fan of Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake and I think The Witches would be an interesting book to illustrate because there are a lot of different characters to think about and create an image for.

I read through the book and I found a lot spikes where an illustration would fit in. I also began to understand the mind of Quentin Blake when reading the book because the aspects he was illustrating I was also picturing in my head before I even seen the illustration which I think is good because it shows me I'm in the right mind set to illustrate a book.

I scanned some of the illustrations from the book which I really liked and would take inspiration from if I were to choose this book to illustrate. I think these images are very influential because it gives me a rough idea of what the characters appearance is like which I think can be both a good and a bad thing. It's good because I can understand the character better but bad because there is the possibility that I could end up illustrating it too similarly to Quentin Blake without even realising it. These are the illustrations I looked at:

Leighton Johns

Leighton Johns is a London based digital illustrator and I found that he had digitally drawn some illustrations for The Witches. I think that his work is really unique and I didn't think that digital illustration for this book would work, because the originals are so traditional, but after looking at the images Leighton has produced I changed my mind completely. The colours work amazingly and the style the illustrations have been drawn in give a sense of adventure which I think is really good. Here are some of the images he produced:

 

http://leightonjohns.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/more-dahl-daubings.htmlhttp://www.leightonjohns.co.uk/thewitches.html

Amelie Glienke

Amelie Glienke is a German graphic artists, painter, illustrator and cartoonist. I came across her illustrations for The Witches on tygertale.wordpress.com and I really like the style she has created these images in because they are simple but they are really effective. The use of lines create texture and realism. In the image below of the pots and pans when the mouse is pouring the formula into the soup bowl there is a lot of lines being used but they work really well. Images from http://www.pinterest.com/.

I am really interested in this book and I think it would be really fun to illustrate. I think I could come up with some very effective images and techniques.