James Weston Lewis
About Author
Born in Bath, James moved to Oxfordshire when he was 5 where he grew up in a small village. He did an Art Foundation degree at Oxford Brookes University and then moved to Bristol to study Illustration at the University of the West of England, where he specialised in Print. James now lives in Lewisham in South London, and works as an Illustrator and Printmaker.
Interview
THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON: 350TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT FIRE OF 1666
PUBLISHED BY WAYLAND
MAY 2016
This September marks the 350th anniversary of the Great Fire of London in 1666 and this sumptuous visual retelling of the events explores what happened during those three terrible days when the fire raged. The Great Fire of London began on Sunday, 2 September and burned until Wednesday, 5 September 1666. As it raged, the fire destroyed the medieval City of London as well as St Pauls and the homes of 70,000 people.
We spoke to author Emma Adams and to illustrator James Weston Lewis and asked about the research and techniques that led to the creation of this beautiful retelling of the Great Fire of London:
Q: How did this book come about and how did you find yourselves collaborating on it?
James: I was contacted by Debbie Foy at Hachette Children's books, who asked me to come in to discuss taking part. This is my first children's book, so it was a really nice opportunity to work on a larger project, and especially one as visually epic as The Great Fire.
Emma: At that point it was only a seed of an idea but when Debbie showed me James's artwork I was really excited - illustrations can completely set the tone of a book, and James captured the power of the Great Fire so well.
Q: How did you go about researching the fire and London at that time - was there anything you hadn't known about before?
Emma: I learnt a lot, and was reminded of a lot that I'd forgotten. It was one of those situations where you read anything and everything, and absorb as much of it as you can, but then have to figure out which bits are the most important bits, and that is a constant battle. The subject matter is important and so are James's illustrations, so keeping a balance between the two was one of the main objectives.
Aside from Pepys's diary, which is an incredible slice of history in itself, I spent a number of blissful afternoons in various libraries, leafing through all of their material, to research the subject. My local libraries are Hackney Central and Dalston Junction, so a big 'thank you' to them.
There were short descriptions that stayed with me when I was collating notes - one that mentioned how enormous amounts of ash fell from the sky, and another that spoke about how the fire burned so brightly at night that it looked like day. Visual descriptions like that definitely sparked both mine and James's imaginations and helped inform the book.
James: Some of the research was a bit tricky, as I had to look for paintings and drawings of pre-fire london and many of the images I could find were made after the fire, and some were very contradictory about the architecture and clothing. However, the Museum of London was a really great resource, and I was able to find some paintings and maps of the pre-fire city online that were really useful.
Luckily there are several portraits of some of the more famous people such as Charles II and Samuel Pepys, although I had to take a bit of creative license with Thomas Farriner the baker, and the Mayor of London, as no portraits seem to exist for them.
Q: How sure are we about the general facts surrounding the fire or are there still gaps in our knowledge?
Emma: There are definitely still gaps in our knowledge. Some of the devastation caused by the fire is evident - we know which buildings were destroyed, and we know how far the fire spread and how long it took to get it under control. We also know so many seemingly incidental details. But there are plenty of grey areas, as well as plenty of 'What-ifs?' and I think that's part of what makes this - and many other historical events - so fascinating.
Q: You've kept the text spare - did that make it harder to write and did you need to leave out any facts you'd have liked to include?
Emma: Yes! I mean, keeping the text spare can make it feel harder to write. But that doesn't mean details have to be left out. I naturally write in a wordy way - it's something I'm continually fighting against - so it's a blessing to work with editors who I can trust to rein me in.
Q: What do you feel was the most lasting impact from the fire on London?
Emma: I would say the architecture. It's hard to imagine St Paul's looking any way other than how it looks now, and if the Great Fire hadn't started then who's to say how it - or so much of London's landscape - would look now?
Q: How did you decide what to illustrate in the book?
James: We started with a rough version of the text, and a basic idea of what was needed on each spread, and then I went away and came up with sketches that we could discuss, and take back to Debbie at Hachette, before developing them into more finished ideas.
Q: Can you explain what techniques you have used to create the illustrations?
James: I worked in printmaking for a long time, and so a lot of the process I use to make images comes from Lino and Woodcut printmaking. However, there wasn't enough time to make everything that way for a project as big as this, but I tried to plan the images in the same way as I would a linocut. I would then draw out the image in pencil, then scan it inn to the computer and colour it up digitally using planes of colour on photoshop, rather than blocks of wood or lino sheets.
I tackled some of the bigger, impactful spreads first so that I could try to lock down the visual style of the book so the style for the book developed as I made the images. I had never worked digitally as much as this before, so it was really interesting to try and develop a way of working that used the aspects of relief printmaking that I love, like cutting linework into blocks of colour, or using gradients and a restricted palette, with the flexibility that working on the computer allows.
I wanted to try and keep a similar pallete throughout the book so it all felt like a part of the same thing, and the oranges and blues were fantastic for the drama of flames erupting into the night.
Q: Each of the spreads is very different visually, did you plan it that way?
James: Some of the spreads changed quite a few times as went along, to make sure we were keeping it interesting. I think we all wanted to make sure the images weren't repeating themselves, and I like to try to find interesting angles to view an image from in order to keep the pages dynamic.
Q: What were the major challenges in illustrating London on fire?
James: I think one of the most challenging things for me was finding a way to get the drama of the billowing flames and smoke across, without obscuring everything else in the image. With so much going on in some of the 'London on Fire' images, it was also sometimes a bit tricky to find the right space to contain the text so it could be read clearly amongst all the nighttime smoke and flames.
I ended up trying out quite a few different ways of depicting the smoke, and I went back to re-work some of the images once I had settled on a style I was happy with.
Q: Why did you decide to have one spread of just flames, and another of mainly smoke?
James: The smoke spread was a part of the book from the beginning, to show how clogged the air became with smoke and ash, and the flames was an idea that came in later. I think it was a nice way of showing how totally overwhelmed by fire some areas of the city became.
It took a bit of time to try out different ways of depicting the smoke and flames. The spread of St Pauls on fire was where I really found the heavy billowing smoke that I'd been looking for.
Q: Do you have a favourite spread from the book?
James: I think my favourite is the first double page spread of the fire spreading from the bakery, I was happy with how the orange and yellow light from the flames worked against the blues of the dark buildings on this spread, and it sort of became the blueprint for how I'd approach the lighting in the rest of the book.
Q: How long were you working on the book? Do you see London differently now?
James: I think I began the cover in July and worked fairly steadily on it until we finished at the start of December, so around five months in total.
I had only been in London for around nine months when I began working on the book, so I think my knowledge of London geography is now inextricably linked with how the fire spread and which areas were burned down.
Q: Where do you do your work and what are you working on now?
James: I'm based in a studio in Dalston with a couple of other illustrators and some animation directors. I'm currently working on a few projects, including some new work for the Great Fire of London Activity book which will be coming out in September.
The Great Fire of London: Anniversary Edition of the Great Fire of 1666
