Books, By Their Covers: Through the Looking Glass

For the fifth instalment in my series 'Books, By Their Covers', I focused the illustration on one of my all-time favourites, Through The Looking Glass - And What Alice Found There by Lewis Carroll.

I've always favoured it over the original book, as it pushes the dream-like nonsense yet further, as Alice struggles to make sense of the strange occurrences. 

For this piece, I focused on one scene, where Alice first attempts to get through the Looking Glass on the mantlepiece to see what lies beyond. I chose colour to illustrate the stark change that she experiences once she gets through, where common objects come to life and everything makes no sense whatsoever.

I tried to give Alice a victorian clothing style, as well as choosing similar aged furniture and decoration. Im particularly proud of the little Chess Bishop, which once crossed over to Wonderland, turns into an angry living piece.

I kept the title and text very clean and simple, as I find that if you have a very complex or bright and busy illustration, you don't need fancy typography as it will just conflict with the imagery. Keeping it simple makes reading easier and keeps the focus on the illustration, which is telling the story.