The Wart and Merlin

I 've just come across this drawing that I did at college. That's going back at least twenty five years.

This was a project set by my tutor John Vernon Lord.  John was quite a Merlin-like figure himself in many ways.

 Anyway the project involved illustrating a passage from The Sword in the Stone by TH White.

This was very much a pivotal moment for me. I discovered for the first time a kind of sophisticated literature for children and adults alike, and I discovered that I could draw the kind of pictures that suited this kind of story.

In many ways this was the drawing that started my career as a children's book illustrator.