Archive for September 27, 2010
Short Reports: Owen Freeman vs. Mary Poppins
Meg here! We’ll be starting up next month’s round of posts October 11th, but in the meantime I’ll be trying to post throughout the next couple of weeks with some Short Reports. Please enjoy!
“Jane and Michael and Mary Poppins spread the crumbs in a circle on the ground, and presently, one by one at first, and then in twos and threes, the birds came down from St. Paul’s.”
My mother read us the the Mary Poppins books when we were young, and ever since I’ve always had a fascination with the very real but still fantastical settings where the story takes place. Also, the original pen and ink illustrations by the incomparable Mary Shepard (daughter of E. H. Shepard) in the books stayed with me much longer than the glimpses I saw of the Disney movie.
This scene is from the “Bird Woman” chapter of the first book by P.L. Travers where the children and Mary Poppins take the bus through the city to see the bird woman at St. Paul’s Cathedral. I especially like re-reading this chapter because it is an largely unchanged place where the story and the actual city intersect.
My name is Owen Freeman, I’m an illustrator from Los Angeles currently working in London. You can see more work at my portfolio.
