May 23, 2014

H IS FOR HAWK - Helen Macdonald

‘In real life, goshawks resemble sparrowhawks the way leopards resemble housecats. Bigger, yes. But bulkier, bloodier, deadlier, scarier, and much, much harder to see. Birds of deep woodland, not gardens, they’re the birdwatchers’ dark grail.’

As a child Helen Macdonald was determined to become a falconer. She learned the arcane terminology and read all the classic books, including T. H. White’s tortured masterpiece, The Goshawk, which describes White’s struggle to train a hawk as a spiritual contest. The original Cape cover is shown here.

When her father dies and she is knocked sideways by grief, she becomes obsessed with the idea of training her own goshawk. She buys Mabel for £800 on a Scottish quayside and takes her home to Cambridge. Then she fills the freezer with hawk food and unplugs the phone, ready to embark on the long, strange business of trying to train this wildest of animals.

Helen Macdonald wanted something in the style of William Nicholson’s Alphabet. I instantly thought of Christopher Wormell.  I asked him to write some words about this commission.

This was a great project to work on.  Perfect!  I’ve always greatly admired the work of William Nicholson – his wood block prints, and in particular the prints he made for the Square Book of Animals and his Alphabet, were the inspiration for the first picture book I ever made.

Helen sent me some excellent images of her Goshawk as well as technical notes and diagrams of the relevant equipment, for, although much of this would not be visible – as the style we wanted was bold and simple – it was nevertheless important to make the image as correct as possible.

Nicholson worked with wood and made a single black and white image, which he would then colour with washes, applied presumably with a brush.  For my block prints I use lino, which is easier and quicker to cut, and instead of hand colouring I use using several blocks, inked up with different colours and printed one on top of another.  Often the colours I use are bright, but for this image I kept to the subdued tones typical of Nicholson’s hand coloured prints.  I also borrowed his uniquely individual hand cut type for he text.’

http://www.chriswormell.com

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