Artists and illustrators use tricks which tell the viewer where to look. Since humans tend to naturally follow the gaze of others, one focusing trick is to create eye lines all pointing to the focus of the work.
In the Norman Rockwell image below, the viewer’s eye is drawn straight to the dog. Notice how Rockwell does this. Almost every single character is looking at the dog, except for one guy who is looking at us and pointing to the dog. The characters looking at the dog also form a circle arond the dog, placing the dog at centre of that circle, though not at the mathematical circle of the artwork. (Compositionally, that wouldn’t look good.)
Rockwell has also utilised various examples of ‘pointing’. A boy’s violin case also seems to point towards the dog. An artist uses his paintbrush. Even the postie is holding something that seems to point to the dog. (I can’t work out exactly what it is, but that doesn’t matter.)
Norman Rockwell Road Block – Issue of The Saturday Evening PostFur die moderne hausfrau from ‘Stern’, 1965The Schoolgirls’ Own Annual 1930The Schoolgirls’ Own Annual 1930 “all for a good cause”W. Clackens for ‘Lillie’ by Harris Merton Lyon in McClures Magazine 1909Robert Fawcett (1903 – 1967)Robert Fawcett (1903 – 1967)Barbara Shermund 1947 (Esquire Magazine)Japanese fairytale deerChildren’s Bible Storiesillustration from Minn of the Mississippi, written and illustrated by Holling Clancy Holling (Houghton Mifflin, 1951)Antonio Lupatelli (1930 – 2018) (pseudonym Tony Wolf).Louis Wain Annual 1914. Published by John F Shaw & CoVáclav Sivko, Illustration from Modern Tales and Fables, 1967 1967When Charlie’s longed-for brother is born with a serious heart condition, Charlie’s world is turned upside down. Upset and afraid, Charlie flees the hospital and makes for the ancient forest on the edge of town. There Charlie finds a boy floating face-down in the stream, injured, but alive. But when Charlie sets off back to the hospital to fetch help, it seems the forest has changed. It’s become a place as strange and wild as the boy dressed in deerskins. For Charlie has unwittingly fled into the Stone Age, with no way to help the boy or return to the present day. Or is there … ?
What follows is a wild, big-hearted adventure as Charlie and the Stone Age boy set out together to find what they have lost – their courage, their hope, their family and their way home.Fritz Baumgarten (1883 ~ 1966) ‘Easter Egg Hunt’Amos Sewell (American, 1901-1983) Backyard Dog Show 1950Alice Bolingbroke Woodward (English, 1862-1951) from The Peter Pan Picture Book based on the play by JM Barrie, 1907The Village Club, from ‘The Jungle Book’, by Rudyard Kipling by Charles Maurice Detmold 1903Weird Tales v03n04 (1924-04)illustration by James Bama for Countdown For Cindy by Eloise Engle, book coverHenry Lerolle – The Organ Rehearsal 1888John Patience – The Little MermaidCrime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky by Fritz Eichenberg 1938 wood engravingA Walk In The City by Rosemary and Richard Dawson 1950Milo Winter (1888-1956) The Ugly DucklingIvan GantschevMabel Lucie Attwell 1910 eye lineMarc-Simont-illustration-for-The-Happy-Day-by-Ruth-Krauss-1949-accent-colourfrom In Fairyland A Series of Pictures from the Elf-World, by Richard Doyle, 1870DER ROTE VOGEL FELIX (1975) Marie Sarraz canonChristmas card by Vojtech Kubasta (1914-1992)John Patience – The Snow QueenArgosy All Story Weekly September 11, 1926 Vintage Pulp MagazineJoseph Clark – A Christmas Dole Ute Simon – The Snow Queen. The dogs are looking at the main characters. Garth Williams from The Tall Book of Make Believe, 1963Ute Simon – The Snow QueenPruett Carter (1891-1955)Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978) – Homecoming Marine (1945) eye lineN.C. Wyeth from The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Published by Scribner’s 1940 eye lineIllustration by Louis Darling (1916 – 1970) for Henry and the Paper Route, 1957. Part of the Henry Huggins series by Beverly ClearyThe Nonsense Verse Of Edward Lear Illustrated By John Vernon Lord 1984 Dorothy Lathrop, American (1891-1980) The Fairy Circus 1931 The Lark by George Henry oil on canvas, 1926
CONTEMPORARY FICTION SET IN AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND (2023)
On paper, things look fine. Sam Dennon recently inherited significant wealth from his uncle. As a respected architect, Sam spends his days thinking about the family needs and rich lives of his clients. But privately? Even his enduring love of amateur astronomy is on the wane. Sam has built a sustainable-architecture display home for himself but hasn’t yet moved into it, preferring to sleep in his cocoon of a campervan. Although they never announced it publicly, Sam’s wife and business partner ended their marriage years ago due to lack of intimacy, leaving Sam with the sense he is irreparably broken.
Now his beloved uncle has died. An intensifying fear manifests as health anxiety, with night terrors from a half-remembered early childhood event. To assuage the loneliness, Sam embarks on a Personal Happiness Project:
