Garth Williams - Techniques

Techniques

Williams described his approach to illustrating books in a 1980 interview. His initial reading of the material usually would suggest thirty or forty potential pictures. "'To compose the pictures is very hard...I look for all the action in the story; then I arrange forms and color. I always try to imagine what the author is seeing. Of course, I have to narrow down my ideas to the number of drawings I'm allowed, which might be as few as ten per book. I make a list of illustrations. When I see a picture, I write down the idea and a page number while I read the manuscript.'"

Garth Williams drew few straight lines. He used charcoal and graphite pencils, from fine to very soft, to illustrate the Little House books. The "youngest" book in the series, Little House in the Big Woods, is nearly lamplit in its coziness, almost an echo of the small-animal sensibilities of The Fur Family or his deeply colored Little Golden Books. He used pen and ink for The Cricket in Times Square and the Rescuers books for Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. The Giant Golden Book of Elves and Fairies uses much colored pencil Golden Books and Little Golden Books oil pastels, ink washes and watercolors. The Rabbits' Wedding (1958) contains some of the clearest reproduced examples of his ability to convey hair, hide, grass and fur textures and uses only a few delicate colors.