Miskatonic University PressI saw a mention of “On the Illustrating of Books” (PLA Quarterly, 1957, vol. 1 no 3.) by Edward Ardizzone and was delighted to find it, and the rest of volume one, openly available from the Private Libraries Association (“an international society of book collectors – collectors of rare books, fine books, single authors, special subjects, and, above all collectors of books for the simple pleasures of reading and ownership”).
This wonderful short article has much wisdom.
The training of the born illustrator, if any, is academic in the true sense, which is the learning of the right way to draw things rather than the particular way to draw a particular thing.
The born illustrator’s method of drawing is usually what I call the empirical one, a matter of trial and error. For example, should he want to draw something and is not entirely certain how to do so, instead of finding the object and drawing directly from life, he is more likely to practice drawing it, doing it over and over again, until it looks right on paper. This gives his drawing that personal quality which is usually his.
Just as the author’s world, if he is a novelist, is not reality but a semblance of it, so must the illustrator’s world not be reality but a semblance of it created specially to fit the author’s.
The truth is that it is not the illustrator’s job to supplant the reader’s imagination but rather to help it, and to give it ground to work on. It follows, I think, that dramatic scenes are best avoided. It is the view from the window, the picnic in the fields, the mystery of the empty room, rather than sudden death or violent action that should be the illustrator’s subjects. In any case violence is usually better described in words, and it is not the illustrator’s business to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of the author