This is the first in a weekly series that starts on Wednesday 23rd March 2022 and will feature excerpts from articles taken from 1 of my 7 issues to date (more coming soon!) of “Pottering About” (Previously known as “The Pottering Artist” magazine.

You can buy the PDF of the magazine here from me - https://www.thepotteringartist.co.uk/product/issue-1-the-pottering-artist

or

You can buy the softcover copy here - please note - if you buy from Blurb I will not know your details as they are not given to me ok!)

https://www.blurb.com/b/9265779-the-pottering-artist

Cinderella’s Coachman - Creating your own worlds

Back in September 2017 - the 30th of September to be exact. I
was killing an hour (I am always WAY too early for appointments) at a
Costa Coffee in Cardiff before teaching a private watercolour workshop.
The seafront wind was lashing torrential veils of freezing rain across the
carpark as I sipped my cappuccino. That morning I had received a copy
of “Create Your Own Universe” by The Brothers McLeod. I had seen it on
Amazon while casting around for inspiration. The title hooked me at
once.
Putting my coffee down I eagerly opened the book and smelled the pages
(I always do this with new books) and began reading. Each page offered
some delight that hit all the right buttons for this artist. It spoke of
creating unlimited types of worlds populated by your own imagined
characters with unusual lifestyles and whimsical ways.
It suggested out of the box exercises to draw out your inner story-teller
and world creator - I was enchanted!
The hour flew and my daydream was abruptly shattered by the phone alarm which I

had set so that I could safely indulge in a bit of reading. I suddenly thought - “How about seeing the whole story from the humble rat’s point of view instead of that of Cinderella?”

The Brothers McLeod had expressed in book form many things I’d been
yearning to try put couldn’t really find a way to do so
The result - I signed up that very evening for an online children’s book
illustration course but not before I had dashed off to teach my awaiting
pupil - my head bubbling with creative ideas and possibilities.
This article is about one such idea and possibility - that of a new take on
Cinderella - that I have acted upon and I hope you will enjoy its telling…
Cinderella was read to me by my teacher from the edition by Ladybird -
full of amazing colour illustrations by the incredible Eric Winter.
Those images remain emblazoned on my memory and it was through a
wish to conjure up those distant memories of awe and enchantment that
I was drawn (excuse the pun) to try and illustrate it again myself. But as I
began I seemed to be pulled towards the role of the rat as the coachman.
Illustrating him was more interesting to me as I love rats and find their
antics and postures endlessly comical and endearing. So I banished the
idea of Cinderella as my main player from my mind and instead turned
to the lowly pumpkin patch rat.

Rat warm-up doodles -
trying to get those
tapering noses for
effect.
Their back views remind
me of packets of icing
sugar slumped to one
side…

I imagined him living a humble life amongst the bulbous pumpkins -
scratching a living somehow by getting scraps from Cinderella’s kitchen
at night…
Then I thought how wonderful it must have been for him when he was
tapped by the fairy god-mother’s magic wand and metamorphosed into a
gallant coachman - resplendent in a velvet and brocade uniform. I
wanted to see it all from his viewpoint.
This was the storyline I wanted to take. I got to work on sourcing rat
images and then drew them freehand to try to understand their gestures
and expressions.
Then came the thrilling search for old coachmen’s costumes. I scanned
many books and websites and finally cobbled together a composite from
various jackets and waistcoats that I had seen. The final drawing took a
long but absorbing time and when I had completed it I felt real
satisfaction. I wanted my first scene to be one with Cinderella coming
out of the palace with the full moon behind her. Then in the middle
distance there would be the outline of a carriage…continued overleaf…

My painstaking yet potterly drawing of a coachman’s outfit.
I reveled in taking ages over this - two days - and enjoyed
observing the tailoring and imagining the skill and focus of its
creator all those years ago.
I chose to have the velvet jacket in
orange as the pumpkins were that
colour. The green waistcoat was
echoing the colour of the pumpkin
leaves and stems…
Watercolour jacket for the rat coachman

…but it was in the foreground that I would really go to town.
I would have the rat leaning eagerly forward to see his uniform in more
detail as another rat held it up for him. All around them would be
massive and oddly shaped pumpkins and the whole scene would be one
of anticipation and magic.
I spent time in Adobe Photoshop copying and pasting images and my
rough sketches to create a very basic composite which I printed off.

Then came a few attempts at drawing and painting that composite scene
in pen and ink, washing vague glazes over it for effect and mood.

 I

I wanted an ethereal look with different areas of interest to tell the story…

to continue reading the rest of this article (5 more pages) please purchase either the PDF or the sumptuous softcover via the links given at the beginning of this post - enjoy and thanks!

Alison

Next Week More Extracts from “Pottering About”