Since I am indulging myself by writing about my most loved children’s writers – and also illustrators – how can I miss out Pauline Baynes. Here is a really interesting interview with her, by Charlotte Cory.
from The Manhatten Rare Book Company
She brought the books of Tolkien and CS Lewis to life for me, and had an enormous effect on my own drawing. Along with Audrey Beardsley, she was probably my greatest influence – a strange combination.
Its difficult to find online examples of her fine line drawings that do justice to them. They tend to come out quite blurry. Here are the nobles in the court of Charn, from “The Magician’s Nephew:
And from the rather trippy “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader”, this page from the magician’s book with its cure for warts:
And those lovely colour book covers:
from Brian Sibley
As you will read in the interview, it seems she got on rather better with Tolkien than with Lewis – and the work she did for him is lovely also. I quote from the Pauline Baynes Fansite “Detailed Jewels” – this is what Tolkien wrote to her about her work: “And I thought of you, because you seem able to produce wonderful pictures with a touch of “fantasy”, but primarily bright and clear visions of things that one might really see.”
from Brian Sibley
Masha du Toit 
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