The Owl and the Pussy Cat

How many times have this classic odd couple been illustrated? Thousands at least based on a quick Google search.

I rediscovered this blissful pair through a modern master of enigmatic written and illustrated works. I found Edward Gorey's, "Amphigorey", a few years ago in a used bookstore and became enamored. I read some biographies about Gorey where he listed Edward Lear as an influence and had illustrated Lear's, "The Jumblies" and "The Dong with the Luminous Nose." I managed to find both of these at a local library. Gorey's illustrations for "The Dong" are hauntingly beautiful with sweeping cross-hatched land and skyscapes, and I feel was his best illustrated work.

After reading some Lear at the library I bought his complete works edited by Vivien Noakes. He is a very interesting character himself traveling the world painting landscapes and wildlife. If I were basing his artistic ability solely by his illustrations for his nonsense writing I would say he was the Scott Adams of his day, where his writing was his strength. However you can't always judge a book by its cover. See his detailed painting of an eagle owl to see the difference.

About my color illustration:

The final art is actually in vector format and was used as another Christmas gift T-shirt. To create the pencil texture I scanned my pencil drawing, loose guidelines and all, and converted it into vector format using Inkscape. Here is a detail to see the texture.

This works best when you increase the contrast of your pencil scan to the point where the lines are nice and black. As I mentioned in other posts I still found it easier to color it in Illustrator.

A few years ago I took a stab at trying to make a few illustrations for "The Owl and the Pussycat" blending concepts from my engineering books with the animals into a nonsense world, but I couldn't quite get down on paper what was in my head. I think I was trying too hard to force a style on myself.

Let your curiosity take you places to find new sources of inspiration. And take advantage of your local library not just the Internet!