Meet the Wicked Witch--Oz pages 31-32

Hello lovelies! Here are some of my favourite illustrations. We finally meet the Wicked Witch of the West. I adore Margaret Hamilton and her terrifying portrayal of the witch in the film (and I can do a mean impression of her saying “I’ll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!” ) but the witch in the book is a very different sort of witch.

First off, she is a witch that has little power of her own. She exploits the power of animals to get what she wants (as you will see in the illustrations after these). There is very little physical description her. We know the Wicked Witch of the West had but one eye, yet that was as powerful as a telescope. The original illustrator WW Denslow portrayed her with 3 hair braids sticking out in all directions and a very tall, narrow pointy pat and wearing spats on her feet and carrying an umbrella—the umbrella is the only bit mentioned in the text. He also puts an eye patch to give her the one eye effect. I have chosen something different which you will see below. We also know that when Toto bites her the Witch did not bleed where she was bitten, for she was so wicked that the blood in her had dried up many years before.

The story below has some classic lines in it.

The soldier with the green whiskers led them through the streets of the Emerald City until they reached the room where the Guardian of the Gates lived. This officer unlocked their spectacles to put them back in his great box, and then he politely opened the gate for our friends.

"Which road leads to the Wicked Witch of the West?" asked Dorothy.

"There is no road," answered the Guardian of the Gates. "No one ever wishes to go that way."

"How, then, are we to find her?" inquired the girl.

"That will be easy," replied the man, "for when she knows you are in the country of the Winkies she will find you and make you all her slaves."

"Perhaps not," said the Scarecrow, "for we mean to destroy her."

"Oh, that is different," said the Guardian of the Gates. "No one has ever destroyed her before, so I naturally thought she would make slaves of you, as she has of the rest. But take care; for she is wicked and fierce  and may not allow you to destroy her. Keep to the West, where the sun sets, and you cannot fail to find her."

My illustration—it almost wasn’t this. There is a line bellow that is so interesting, it almost was something else. But I had a very vivid dream that told me to make it this and how to make the witch. You are going to love the witch. I decided to copy the version of the Emerald City on a hill. Same shapes, but more sinister. My favourite graphic novel illustrator Gabriel Rodriguez does this all the time in Locke and Key and this is my little homage to that where you have two similar pictures with the same shape, but one is sensible, and one is sinister. I also painted the background red with streaks of black to look like the sky was on fire. Ignore my knee in the left corner--I was trying to keep the page flat enough for a photo. 

 They thanked him and bade him good-bye, and turned toward the West, walking over fields of soft grass dotted here and there with daisies and buttercups. Dorothy still wore the pretty silk dress she had put on in the palace, but now, to her surprise, she found it was no longer green, but pure white. The ribbon around Toto's neck had also lost its green colour and was as white as Dorothy's dress.

This was almost the illustration. I have always loved the detail of the green dress and ribbon having “lost their colour” instead of realising that they had been white all along and only appeared green with the green tinted spectacles. But I am glad I had the vivid dream that told me to leave this and make the witch’s castle instead.  

The Emerald City was soon left far behind. As they advanced the ground became rougher and hillier, for there were no farms nor houses in this country of the West, and the ground was untilled.

In the afternoon the sun shone hot in their faces, for there were no trees to offer them shade; so that before night Dorothy and Toto and the Lion were tired, and lay down upon the grass and fell asleep, with the Woodman and the Scarecrow keeping watch.

Now the Wicked Witch of the West had but one eye, yet that was as powerful as a telescope, and could see everywhere. So, as she sat in the door of her castle, she happened to look around and saw Dorothy lying asleep, with her friends all about her.

They were a long distance off, but the Wicked Witch was angry to find them in her country; so she blew upon a silver whistle that hung around her neck.

Here is my witch. I kept the same buckets of blood background as the page to the left. In my dream I could see her so clearly—bony and skeletal, dried out like dust on the inside from Toto’s bite. I could see her gleaming skull in my dream with one fleshy eye. I woke up and immediately searched for clip art to make that happen. A bit of computer magic later and Boom! I had my witch. I decided on a skull with no lower jaw as skulls with a lower jaw all looked like they were smiling. And I definitely didn’t want that. I found some old Victorian pen and ink anatomy drawings of the body and used the spine and clavicle for her body then made a dress to go on top to reveal the bones and then a hat. I am very proud of the effect as it is startling and not at all what you would expect.

Here they are side by side.

Stay tuned for the next bit where you find out what happened when she blew the silver whistle. Tomorrow is definitely not film territory.