Juxtapoz – Issue 208, Winter 2019 Review

As a class, we were asked to find a copy of Hi-Fructose, an art based magazine which my tutor has recently found interest in, and review it, seeing whether it would be a potential source of information, inspiration and so on within the future. I did look for a copy within WHSmith and the Travelling Man in Newcastle but was not able to find it in either, I did look online but I had found that the shipping of the magazine would cost more than the actual piece.

So, I thought instead of Hi-Fructose, I would go back to WHSmith and purchase the newest copy of Juxtapoz, another art based magazine which my tutor has in the past spoken highly of. I have reviewed another issue in the past, and I did not really think too highly of it, but I feel that was more based on the artists involved, as they weren’t necessarily my cup of tea, but I did find artists called Icy and Sot in an advertisement for their exhibition, and I have since followed them on social media from reading the magazine, as they would create pieces with deeper meanings, connecting to worldly issues, either with politics, the economy or the environment.

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So, from this good discovery, I decided to give Juxtapoz another chance, and the copy that I had picked up was, in fact, a 25 years celebratory issue and had come with a booklet called ‘Vans Vision Walks Volume #2’ which the company had made in collaboration with the brand Vans and consists of a lot of urban styled photography taken by multiple artists.

When reading through the magazine, I actually found an interview with Icy and Sot, called ‘Censorship and the Streets’ and is found in a category called ‘On the Outside’ in the contents page if you want to purchase the issue and read more about the artists for yourself.

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If you would like to read my previous review of Juxtapoz: issue 202 back in 2017, click here.

So, what is the magazine?

Juxtapoz is an art based magazine which has run for 25 years now, (since 1994), and includes interviews with hundreds of artists over the year, of different backgrounds and multiple styles, some of which I shall be discussing within this blog post. The magazine also includes advertisements for many clothing companies, breweries, hairdressers and so on, but they will also include advertisements for art exhibitions, which is how I had initially discovered Icy and Sot. I do however believe all of these advertisements are American based, which makes sense because so is the company, but its a bit annoying when you would be interested in going to the exhibition but it turns out it is in Denver or Arizona or so on.

As the magazine has a variety of artwork it includes, such as street art, sculptural work, photography, paintings or illustrations, etc, the magazine can appeal to a wide audience of artists or art enthusiasts. The magazine has the ability to inspire people, bring new artists to light, or highlight older more well-known artists with a fresh perspective. So overall, it is a way to keep up to date with current styles and trends within the industry, but in more areas than one, looking at contemporary art as a whole, as opposed to just specifically looking into illustration, street art, fine art and so on.

What does it contain?

It’s featured artists in this specific issue are Andy Warhol, one of the key icons and artists of the pop art movement within the ’60s. Kaws, whose work I have come to notice more regularly within pop culture, especially with his identifiable character, who I believe I had seen set up at a birthday party for Travis Scott, arranged by his girlfriend Kylie Jenner. There is also a featured artist named Swoon, who works with mixed media, creating huge installations, stop-motion animations and so on, and there is an artist named Jason Revok, who I believe is a street artist and I would say that he primarily works with patterns and a lot of colour. Another few notable mentions are James Jarvis, Louise Bonnet, Haroshi and Muzae Sesay.

The artists

There was not a lot of work that I had found appealed to me, or would inspire my work in the future. That is not to say that the work within the magazine was not good, some of it can be amazing to the right audience and reader, but personally, for me, it was not my cup of tea.

Mando Marie

Like how I discovered the artists Icy and Sot, I had also discovered another artist through the advertised exhibitions within the Juxtapoz magazine, this one being of the work by Mando Marie.

I believe she is a street artist, working with a lot of stencils and a flat and minimal colour palette, but what had drawn me to her work was the style, as her figures have a vintage illustration style to them, possibly 50’s as they remind me of the illustrations within Enid Blyton’s book of the magic faraway tree, by Dorothy M. Wheeler. As I had read this book when I was younger, there is a sense of familiarity with Marie’s style which I do enjoy.

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I do like the simplicity of the designs and do wish that I was able to see the work first hand, as I do believe I would make the effort to go if it were more local, but as it was in Canada, I do think the travel would be a little of a stretch. If I were to take inspiration from this artist, it would be within her technique, as I would like to create larger scaled work someday, ones that I have not worked on digitally, so I believe using stencils would be the way forward, but I would need to gain more experience with spray paint, as I have not used the medium before and would like to create clean designs.

If you would like to see more from this artist, her Instagram is @seeyouthroughit (as shown below) and she also has a Tumblr site at www.seeyouthroughit.com.

View this post on Instagram

@station16gallery #seeyouthroughit #mandomarie

A post shared by Mando Marie (@seeyouthroughit) on Dec 8, 2018 at 10:07am PST

Swoon

Swoon is one of the featured artists within the magazine, and she is described to be a therapeutic artist, referring to her work “as a balm” (Farr, 2019) as to heal the audience or recipients of her art.

She is a mixed media artist, working with materials from paper to large scale linoleum block printing, with room installations to street art. What had drawn me to her work was the piece called ‘The Canyon’ which was a huge room installation piece of a woman which seemed to be rising out of the ground through waves, and her dress seemed to be made from the imagery of sea creatures. There is a sense of collage to her work and I enjoy how the character is in greyscale, almost having a hand-drawn effect to her, but how the flat pastel colours of the fluid elements or animals included compliment the grey tones and make the design look very soft and appealing to the eye. I also feel the colour palettes make her work more feminine, but the papercut style complements the tones well.

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Like with the previous artist, I would like to work at a larger scale with my work in the future, but looking at Swoons work, she does encourage me to try new mediums. I relate to this artist with her content as I do enjoy drawing women myself, so it is nice to see where else and what more I could do with that type of imagery.

If you would like to know more about this artist, her Instagram is @swoonhq, (as shown below) and she also has a website at www.heliotropefoundation.org, which is a non-profit organisation that the artist runs along with a team, to help communities that have been affected by natural disasters.

View this post on Instagram

Q&A ~ @amyeisenhoweromholt: “Do you ever feel insecure?” Me: YES. All the time. There’s a part of me which is determined to see myself as less than, to feel like an outsider, stepped on and left behind, and it takes very little to instigate that part. No matter where you’re at in your career you’re always dealing with rejections, even amidst success. Last year I did the largest show of my career and I was pretty proud of it. It was a really meaningful experience and got a lot of wonderful response from individuals. In the larger press and art world press though, it was basically ignored which got me feeling a little insecure. Then an online article came out which brought up an important criticism about the undiscussed role of white privilege in my community based work. It was a necessary subject to broach, one I had been working out how best to discuss when along comes a writer who wades in without comprehending whole show, or even doing the most minimal fact checking. They claimed that post disaster rebuilding projects which have taken the dedicated work of 8 years were the caprice of a few weeks and represented some kind of shallow voluntourism. Many people read the piece and believed its analysis without much question about its accuracy. I was surprised at the extent to which I felt shaken by this. Because the piece held a seed of important truth – there are some glaring, and often undiscussed privileges in my position as a white woman from the United States participating in projects within cultures that are not my own – it opened the door for the rest of the piece, which was largely just un-fact-checked internet bullying, to seep into my consciousness when I might have otherwise ignored it. (I challenged the piece which is down for fact checking). But all of these other insecurities got pulled up. “Maybe I won’t get past the hurdle of entrenched sexism in the art world, maybe my naivety around issues of privilege makes my work more destructive than constructive, maybe I’m at that age where women’s contributions get cast aside.” And on and on, reminding me that there’s no relationship between success and inner security, and self worth is my own to find.

A post shared by Swoon Studio (@swoonhq) on Aug 7, 2018 at 10:56am PDT

Overall Opinion

Although I was able to discover these two amazing artists, I still do not hold a high opinion of Juxtapoz, at least for myself and my own preferences of artwork. I do feel this magazine could be a good source of inspiration and current knowledge of the industry for some people, especially if you are more interested in more modern/contemporary work, but as of yet, I have not found an issue of Juxtapoz that I was really excited about or would highly recommend. That’s not to say that there isn’t one out there that could fit my interests more, but with the two that I have read, issue’s number 202 and 208, neither really feel up my alley, so I do not feel encouraged as to purchase them again.

Bibliography

Bogojev, S. (2019). Icy and Sot – Censorship on the Streets. Juxtapoz, (208), pp.66 – 68.

Farr, K. (2019). Swoon – The Catalyst. Juxtapoz, (208), pp.86 – 93.

Farr, K. (2019). Swoon – The Catalyst. Juxtapoz, (208), p.87.

Heliotrope foundation. (2016). [online] Available at: http://www.heliotropefoundation.org/ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2019].

Russell, M. (2017). Juxtapoz Review 18th November 2017,. [Blog] Melissa Russell’s Blog. Available at: https://melissagrussell.blogspot.com/2017/11/juxtapoz-review-18th-november-2017.html [Accessed 21 Feb. 2019].

List of Figures.

Figure 1 – Juxtapoz. (2019) Winter 2019, (208).

Figure 2 – Bogojev, S. (2019). Icy and Sot – Censorship on the Streets. Juxtapoz, (208), pp.66 – 67.

Figure 3 – Marie, M. (2018). Instagram. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BrIsUPLluFS/ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2019].

Figure 4 – Farr, K. (2019). Swoon – The Catalyst. Juxtapoz, (208), pp.86 – 87.

Figure 5 – Station 16 (2019). Mando Marie. Juxtapoz, (208), p.55.

Figure 6 – Swoon (2018). Instagram. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BmL9QQTDDr6/ [Accessed 21 Feb. 2019].

Imagine FX – Issue 171 March 2019 Review

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I initially set out to purchase this magazine as an artist named Audra Auclair, who’s work I admire so much and have followed for years now, had her art on the cover and I believed it would contain an interview with the artist inside, however, after purchasing the magazine, I had found the artist had discussed more of her process, showing more of a step by step guide as to how she creates her work.

I had also found that the magazine included another artist that I follow called Loish, or otherwise known as Lois Van Baarle, who has shown and discussed her sketches which I recognise to be from the recent inktober challenge which I myself had taken part in.

So, what is the magazine?

ImagineFX is a digital art based magazine which includes interviews, process guides, reviews and so on, which help look into the current trends within digital art, but also help the reader to potentially discover new artists, learn new techniques and find out more information about the products that are newly released which could help artists throughout their process.

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The magazine has been running since 2006, so I would say it is a more new age magazine, focusing on the new technologies and movements within the digital arts industry. I would say the art featured does cater more to the fantasy/sci-fi realm of work, so the audience who this may be directed to is potentially game or concept designers, but I would recommend this magazine to any artist working digitally or wanting to try it out.

Although the majority of the magazine is digital oriented, there is a good section that is traditionally based, for instance, there is a workshop on figure drawing within this specific issue, discussing how to work with tonal value in order to create a 3D figure.

What does it contain?

This magazine’s featured artists are Audra Auclair, who works both traditionally and digitally, but creates beautiful and strong female characters, which in this case she has combined with sci-fi elements to form a whole new being. This issue also features Loish who I had mentioned previously, who typically works mostly digital, but in this case, has shown her sketches and inked work which she had created for inktober. The final artist that is featured is Goro Fujita, who I had not heard about previously, who works with virtual reality creating his own world, but he has a more painterly style as opposed to realistic which is what I am used to when I think of VR, but I feel his work would appeal to younger audiences, as I feel they would give the child a sense of being inside of a real-life children’s book.

Other than the featured artists, the magazine also has an ‘FX Posé’ and ‘fresh paint’ section in which they showcase new artists, showing their work and a little information about themselves. I do like the addition of this to the magazine because it allows the artist to get their name out there, if they have been working on their craft for a while but may have not gotten recognition or enough publicity with their work, having it shown within this magazine, which is directed at the right type of audience of other artists who work in the same genre, or clients who are potentially looking for new artists, is good publicity for those artists. If you are an artist yourself and feel your work is of standard, you can also apply to be featured within this section, by tagging the magazine on Twitter or Instagram which will help in getting your work noticed. So, with a little more development in my own work, this is something that I will think about in future illustrations, especially for once I have left college as I want to keep the ball rolling with my work and progression, I don’t just want to stop and not have an idea of where to go once I’ve left the comforts of education.

The Illustrators

Audra Auclair

This is an artist that I have been following on social media for at least 5 years, I am in love with her work and style, and have purchased three of her prints and one of her books in the past. She is one of my favourite artists and she works at a level that I aspire to be at. I have learnt so much from her over the years as I have used her work as inspiration in countless projects, and I would say that she is one of the reasons in why I love drawing women, how my skills have progressed with drawing them over the years and how I still aspire to grow, now more so with anatomy.

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Auclair’s style is a mixture of semi-realistic female characters, with surrealistic twists, including elements of fantasy/sci-fi and in the cover for the magazine, she has created a female figure with cyborg elements, such as head equipment, the body is formed of separate panels, but in the figures hip, you can see all of the mechanics within the character. I feel there is always a lot of thought that goes into this artists work, but Audra Auclair does have a good understanding of anatomy which she has developed over the years, so it does allow her to create these intricate and in-depth characters.

This artist is not afraid to work with colour and she often uses it to help in communicating a message or tone throughout her work. A common colour she uses is pink, but I believe she does have a good sense of colour theory, so she has a good sense of which colours would work well in a specific piece and how to best apply them within her pieces as to highlight key elements or communicate a specific message.

Audra Auclair has come to work a lot more traditionally over the years, using gouache, oil paints, watercolour, pencils, ink, posca markers etc, but in this magazine, she discusses her process when working digitally, I believe whilst working in Procreate on an Ipad, and she talks the reader through her design, almost teaching them from step to step. One day, maybe in one of my upcoming projects, I would like to follow her workshop to create my own work. I do not have Procreate, but I do feel this guide could also be applied to any software, or I know that I could work in a similar fashion to her through photoshop, so I would like to try to do so in the future, to see if I could potentially learn even more from her.

If you would like to follow the process yourself, I would highly recommend purchasing the magazine. If you would like to see more of the artists work, I have shown an Instagram post of hers below, but you can find her at AudraAuclairor she does have a website at www.audraauclair.com

View this post on Instagram

The morning sun was casting a pink filter over the studio. I have been dying to work on my oil paintings but I have 2 demanding projects that have been keeping me busy. One is Oniberri, the other is secret but I am super excited about all of it. Oniberri merch should be dropping in late Jan-Feb. The secret project will be dropping in January! Also there is a corner of a wood panel peeking out on the bottom, it is huge and I am hoping to use it to apply for a competition later next year! I haven’t really shown in my city before so I’m hoping that’ll help give me some traction locally. I love showing in other countries but I would like to establish myself locally more.💖💕 #art #artstudio #myart #painting #oilpainting #myart #illustration #artistsoninstagram #artstagram #instaartist #audraauclair #artist #surrealism #surrealart #canadianart #yyj #yyjart #yyjartist

A post shared by 🌿🌸Audra Auclair🌸🌿 (@audraauclair) on Dec 2, 2018 at 10:49am PST

Zelda Devon

Moving on to the next artist which I had not known so much about, and who I had found through the magazines FX Pose section, her name is Zelda Devon and she is a fulltime illustrator, who creates beautiful narrative based illustrations, which I feel have quite a vintage style to them, as they remind me of old carnival posters, with slightly burnt out tones, maybe thinking along the lines of Bioshock: Infinite, as I believe the game is set in the future with advanced technology, but still has western settings, architecture and posters/art.

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I love this artists style as it is more painterly and loose, so her characters do show a sense of movement within the frame. I feel her colouring method and mark making techniques are expressive and I feel she does have a good idea of colour theory so her work does flow nicely and it is appealing to the eye.

I believe I have worked with similar techniques to this artist in my own work, but I have not been able to get my own to a high standard that I have come to expect within my work. So, with this artist as inspiration, I would like to experiment with these methods further, as I have now seen that this artist has been able to use these techniques and methods to a professional standard, so I do have more confidence that I may be able to do so as well with more practice and development.

Again, I have shown an Instagram post from the artist below, but if you would like to see more of her work, you can find her at ZeldaDevon.Art and she also has a website at zeldadevon.com

View this post on Instagram

Steampunk Mama

A post shared by Zelda Devon (@zeldadevon.art) on Jan 29, 2019 at 7:23pm PST

Overall Opinion

In comparison to other art based magazines that I have read in the past, such as Juxtapoz, I do feel this one suits my own personal interests and work more and I was surprised that it is more informative, in the sense that it does have workshops that you can follow along with (if you have the programs/materials) and can learn from in the long run. So as well as having interviews with current well-established artists that you can take inspiration from, the magazine also introduces you to new artists, ones you may not have heard of before but will potentially take more inspiration from in the future.

Once I feel I have improved my work and skill enough, I do feel I will come back to this magazine and potentially try to get my work noticed by them on social media, as having your work within the magazine would be such an amazing opportunity as you would be getting more publicity from artists with similar interests and/or work processes, and you could potentially get noticed by more clients. I feel if you were to get into the magazine, it could be the first stepping stone of many, one day potentially managing to get in Audra Auclair’s spot, designing a cover and discussing my own process of its creation to the readers.

If you are an artist, working traditionally or digitally, or if you have an interest in fantasy or Sci-Fi themes, I would definitely recommend ImagineFx, as I do feel it has the power to inspire and inform their readers, and I do feel you can also learn a new technique or two from it, whether digital or traditional.

Bibliography

Auclair, A. (2019). [online] Available at: https://www.audraauclair.com/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

ImagineFX. (2019) March, (117).

Auclair, A. (2019). Render a Surreal Sci-Fi Character. ImagineFX, (171), pp.62-67.

Carter, D. (2019). Create surreal characters with ImagineFX. [Blog] ImagineFX. Available at: https://www.creativebloq.com/news/create-surreal-characters-with-imaginefx [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

Devon, Z. (2019). [online] Available at: http://zeldadevon.com/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

List of Figures.

Figure 1 – ImagineFX. (2019) March, (117).

Figure 2 – Jones, P. (2019). Create Depth Using Value. ImagineFX, (171), pp.86-87.

Figure 3 – Auclair, A. (2019). Render a Surreal Sci-Fi Character. ImagineFX, (171), pp.64-65.

Figure 4 – Auclair, A. (2018). Instagram. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq5UW2Cl6Vq/ [Accessed 29 Jan. 2019].

Figure 5 – ImagineFX. (2019) March, (117), pp.18.

Figure 6 – Devon, Z. (2019). Instagram. [image] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/BtPlVVuBAJw/ [Accessed 31 Jan. 2019].

Norweigan Wood – Review

For the Penguin Student Design Awards, I have been reading two books, one for the children fiction category and one for the adult’s fiction. The one I am about to review (or attempt to) is called Norweigan Wood by Haruki Murakami, and it is the adult fiction book.

Just a bit of pre-warning, I don’t know how to review books properly, as I don’t know how to give my opinion and explain what the story is about without giving away too much information or potential spoilers. Technically, I don’t know why I keep writing these reviews, but hey ho, here we go! POTENTIAL SPOILERS WARNING AHEAD!

Norweigan Wood is a story about a character named Toru Watanabe, who looks back on his younger/student days in Tokyo in the late 1960s. I believe the story is based on romance, but as opposed to a typical ‘boy meets girl’ scenario, the story does go more into depth with the complexities of relationships and life itself, discussing emotions and struggles between the characters etc. The story does contain some very sexual moments, but this was not my take away from the book as I feel it was more about the main characters daily life, his struggles, his connections between characters and things like that, as opposed to it just being an erotic novel, it had more of a storyline which by the end, I did feel quite invested in.

My initial thought about this book, as it is fictional, I had thought it was going to have more fictional themes, like fantasy or sci-fi, or anything along those lines, so whilst reading through the book, I could feel myself making assumptions of the direction I thought it could take. At one point, I did think that the girl he was interested in was going to turn out be a robot, but this was not the case and I do kind of feel bad for thinking so. Instead, the book was based on reality, set in the real world with characters you would think were real at some point, a world without robots, at least not ones that were mentioned? or any fantasy creatures, or ghosts or aliens or anything or the sort.

At the end of the story, there was a section which had explained that although the author Haruki Murakami has made more fantasy inspired books in his time, parts of this story were autobiographical in a way, as the author would be taking inspiration from his own days as a student. But although this story had some fans of his previous work questioning the more realistic themes of this one, he had explained that it was a challenge for himself, as real life is so complex but does have a simplicity to it, it has so many emotions and integrating parts to it, so I would imagine that it would be hard to make all of those elements seem simple, like ‘yes this book is based on the realities of life’ to the reader. So, in comparison to writing one of his other books, Murakami had found Norweigan Wood was the most challenging.

As I had mentioned, I did end up becoming quite emotionally invested in this book, with the characters day to day life, the emotions, experiences, thought process etc, so when I had finished, like with Howls Moving Castle, you can read my review of that here, I felt lost, it couldn’t end like that! I wanted to know more, what else happened to the character after the story finished, I did feel frustrated that I couldn’t follow him on his journey through life anymore.

I would recommend this book to a friend. If they don’t like the idea of the sexual themes and moments within the story, I would just tell them that I felt the actual story was worth the read. I feel the author has done an amazing job at capturing the reality and complexities of life, and he was able to explain them in such a way that was easy, readable and understandable. In a way that sucks you in and makes you feel emotionally invested to the characters journey.

Howls Moving Castle – Review

SPOILER WARNING! Possibly? If you have not read the story or have not seen the movie, there could potentially be spoilers within this blog. There may not be, but the warning is there just in case!

After finishing this book I have found that I have personal issues with letting go. I loved this story so much that I just wanted it to keep going, I wanted to know what else happened, even if it was just following the characters day to day life. This book had me well and truly hooked, and I’m sad that it is over and I can’t read onwards.

I had also come across this issue when watching Bohemian Rhapsody, I have become so drawn in by the people and the story, that I want to find out more about Queen and the members, especially Freddie, I just want to know more of their story, I want to know everything! I went to see the movie on Halloween, and since, I have been watching old interviews or documentaries, or interviews from the cast of Bohemian Rhapsody, etc, pretty much on a daily basis, it’s becoming a problem. If you haven’t seen the movie, I would definitely recommend!

Anyways, moving away from my tangent and getting back to the review at hand, I loved this story. I was going to try explaining the story, but I could not find the words to do so, to do it justice, or not give away too much of the story, so quoting from the book’s blurb by Diana Wynne Jones:

“In the land of Ingary, where seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist. Sophie Hatter attracts the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste, who puts a curse on her. Determined to make the best of things, Sophie Travels to the one place where she might get help – the moving castle which hovers on the nearby hills.

But the castle belongs to the dreaded Wizard Howl whose appetite, they say, is satisfied only by the hearts of young girls” (Diana Wynne Jones, 2009)

The book managed to suck me in, not with the battles between Howl and the Witch or Sophie and the Witch, but more within the simplicities of the everyday happenings within Sophie’s life, because there was always something new happening, whether it was her conversations with Michael, Calcifer or even her disputes with Howl, there would always be a new interest within that day, whether Sophie was (SPOILERS?) jumping from place to place with seven-league boots, accidentally growing Howls suit too long, getting lost around Kingsbury, the list just goes on and it is what I believe made the book so much fun to read, the battling with the Witch was just a bonus.

The book is different from Studio Ghiblis adaptation, although I did personally enjoy the book more, as I felt I learnt more about the characters than the movie had given, I do believe they are both amazing in their own rights.

DEFINITE SPOILERS AHEAD!

There have been changes made in the process of turning the story into a movie, some more obvious than others such as:

Studio Ghibli have definitely added their overall aesthetic to the movie, such as
- the appearance of the characters and the castle. In the book, I believe Michael is supposed to be older, whereas, in the movie, Markl seems quite young, but does disguise himself as an older wizard a lot.
- the castle is a lot more creature looking within the movie, with elements that could suggest eyes, a mouth and possibly wings, whereas the author had described a more typical castle, which is blockier with turrets and chimneys etc.
- the Witches henchmen have a more blob-like appearance, they do not have faces so it is quite creepy.
The theme of war is more present within the movie. According to an interview at the end of the book, the author had said that this was Miyazaki’s influence as he “crammed the story full of flying machines and war scenes” which was based on a brief mention of war from the king in the story. This explains why:
- Howl is more part of the war. He is more heroic in this adaptation, as he did seem quite cowardly within the book, not really wanting to work with the king.
- Although the witch is still a threat in the movie and does still kind of do what she had intended within the book, I believe the King is more of a threat that the characters worry about, as the king wants Howl so that he will turn into a beast and fight in his war.
There was also a change with where the black door led. In the movie, it was to a memory of Howls childhood, whereas in the book, the door led to Howls family’s home in modern-day Wales, which REALLY took me by surprise. From the movie, I was not expecting it at all, and actually enjoyed discovering more about Howls life and his family.
Sophie’s magic in the book was not really present in the movie? She had the ability to talk to objects to give them power, for instance, her cane had a protection charm which had kept her safe and helped her in defeating the witch.
The girls family wasn’t really a big part, although you briefly met Lettie within the bake shop, it did not really go into depth, talking about how she had two sisters, Lettie and Martha, who were both sent to do different apprenticeships, one in a bakery, the other being trained in magic, but they swapped places, so that Martha was the one in the Bakery, and she was actually in love with Michael.
The scarecrow was waaaay more friendly in the movie, whereas, in the book, he terrified the characters, and even made Sophie’s old heart shiver.
As I have mentioned, the Witch was not as much of a threat, but Howl was not being chased or running away from a curse sent by the Witch that would potentially catch up with him. The Witch actually seems more weak within the movie, so it makes sense when Sophie takes pity on her and takes her in, not due to better judgment.

These are just some of the many changes from the book to Studio Ghiblis adaptation of it, but I am in no way saying that one is better than the other, because although you may have more information from the book, Studio Ghibli has given such a beautiful visualisation of the characters and scenery etc, for instance, you are actually able to see Sophie’s age changing throughout, and see what howl can see, whereas, in the book, you just find out that he has known about her curse the whole time.

If you have not read the book or have not seen the movie or both, after reading all of my spoiler warnings, I definitely would recommend doing both. If you have read the book but not watched the movie, do it! If you have seen the movie but have not read the book, do it! Both are so amazing in their own right so I would not recommend one above the other, you should just watch and read both!

Bibliography

Howls Moving Castle. (2004). [Film] Directed by H. Miyazaki. Japan: Studio Ghibli.

Jones, D. W. (2009) Howls Moving Castle. London: HarperCollins. Blurb.

Jones, D. W. (2009) Howls Moving Castle. London: HarperCollins. Anime and Author.

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – Review

As a personal project, I wanted to illustrate the story of ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ by C. S. Lewis, as on screen it was a childhood favourite, and I always had the chronicles of Narnia in my cupboard but never actually read it (or don’t recall ever reading it, it did seem to be bigger when I was little so probably scared me). But as I had never read it, I wanted to see if there were any differences from book to the screen adaptation like there is in many book adaptations nowadays, and I planned to illustrate the original story as opposed to the imagery I already knew from the movies or the very dated BBC version.

When actually reading the book, I was surprised but not in a good way. The story is very brief in its descriptions and I was disappointed in the lack of detail that was given, because since I didn’t want to work with the imagery I already knew, I was leaning on the details to give me a better vision of the scenery or characters so that I could interpret them in my own way.

In this case, for once, I had felt the movie and even the BBC program adaptation of the story was more detailed than the book and did give better visuals.

It was, however, an easy read, so would be better suited to a younger reader, so I could possibly be overanalysing it due to my age and level of reading.

When I think about other adventure/fantasy books that I have read, I like to compare this book against J. R. R. Tolkiens Lord of the Ring series, as where C. S. Lewis has next to no detail, on the other side of the spectrum Tolkien almost goes too much into detail in his descriptions, to the point where I did get a bit bored when reading. In C. S. Lewis’s case, it was an easy read but I feel the visuals it gave were basic and it almost seemed too fast-paced in a way.

With this book, I will try to take as much from the descriptions as possible, but I will probably illustrate more from my imagination or create a mood board to help me flesh out the visuals to my ideas.

In conclusion, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ is probably better suited to a younger reader, but I still feel it definitely lacks in detail and the movie, for once, was better than the book.