Meet the Tin Woodman--Oz pages 11 and 12

Hello lovelies! Today is one of my favourite parts of the story of the Wizard of Oz, but it is really true. The Tin Woodman is my favourite character. In 1918, he gets his own book and it is a cracker.

 His backstory has fascinated me so much and it is expanded on greatly in The Tin Woodman of Oz. Wait until you read it.

So how did I make the art? I wanted to have him chopping down a tree in a forest, so I chose some Eric Carle tissue paper that reminded me of a cross between falling leaves and the dappled light you see in the woods through the branches. I thought long and hard about how I wanted to portray him in such a small space on the page. There are so many illustrations where he is made of complicated machinery, like a robot or one with a kettle for a head which is not textually accurate but really cool. I decided to model him after illustrations of The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. I used some shiny silver wrapping paper that I saved from a present to be his tin body. I wanted him to be at an awkward angle as if he really had rusted in a strange position which was fairly easy to do considering his size compared to the tree. He perspective is a bit off, but I am really proud of how it looks. I especially like his lantern jaw and his joints which all have which all have a rivet on them courtesy of my hole puncher.

The second page I painted a metallic grey and made the library pocket black. I brushed the pages of the story with a wash of iridescent silver before laminating and then bound them up with some silver ribbon I had left over from making Christmas ornaments with the Quakers back in England. It is a good thing I save everything, no mater how small.

 I was particularly proud of my idea to make the oilcan be dripping drops of oil shaped like upside down hearts since a heart is what he wants most in the world.

 Here they are together:

So what is his back story?

"I was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest and sold the wood for a living. When I grew up, I too became a woodchopper, and after my father died, I took care of my old mother as long as she lived. Then I made up my mind that instead of living alone I would marry, so that I might not become lonely.

"There was one of the Munchkin girls who was so beautiful that I soon grew to love her with all my heart. She, on her part, promised to marry me as soon as I could earn enough money to build a better house for her; so I set to work harder than ever. But the girl lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she wished the girl to remain with her and do the cooking and the housework. So the old woman went to the Wicked Witch of the East and promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. Thereupon the Wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my left leg.

"This at first seemed a great misfortune, for I knew a one-legged man could not do very well as a wood-chopper. So I went to a tinsmith and had him make me a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well, once I was used to it. But my action angered the Wicked Witch of the East, for she had promised the old woman I should not marry the pretty Munchkin girl. When I began chopping again, my axe slipped and cut off my right leg. Again I went to the tinsmith, and again he made me a leg out of tin. After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; but, nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first I thought that was the end of me. But the tinsmith happened to come along, and he made me a new head out of tin.

"I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into two halves. Once more the tinsmith came to my help and made me a body of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of joints, so that I could move around as well as ever. But, alas! I had now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the Munchkin girl, and did not care whether I married her or not. I suppose she is still living with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her.

"My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There was only one danger--that my joints would rust; but I kept an oil-can in my cottage and took care to oil myself whenever I needed it. However, there came a day when I forgot to do this, and, being caught in a rainstorm, before I thought of the danger my joints had rusted, and I was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. It was a terrible thing to undergo, but during the year I stood there I had time to think that the greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart. While I was in love I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her."

Don’t you just love it? It is so fascinating but tricky to illustrate I only know of one illustrator who has attempted it. Take a look at this illustration by Robert Ingpen.

And what became of his Munchkin sweetheart Nimmie Amee? Well, that is the plot of The Tin Woodman of Oz. He meets another man made of tin—a soldier named Captain Fy-ter who also courted Nimmie Amee and suffered the same fate as the Tin Woodman. Together they seek out the tinsmith who turned them to tin and discover that their body parts were used to create a hybrid person (a la Frankenstein’s monster) named Chopfyt. There is also a very surreal scene where the Tin Woodman talks to his own head in a cabinet since it was Captain Fy-ter’s head that was used to make Chopfyt. They go and seek Chopfyt out to find their discarded body parts and discover he is who ended up marrying Nimmie Amee! So she got the best of both of them. Nimmie Amee says she releases them from any social contract they had because she is married to her ideal husband. Isn’t that fantastic?

Stay tuned next as I work on the Cowardly Lion and his back story.