A Digital Gladstone Project

Drawing Blood, Drawing Poison, Drawing Fire is a collaborative project between artist Simon Grennan, Gladstone's Library and Aura Libraries, the public library network in Flintshire. Launching very soon, the project will result in a digitally animated art gallery, updating and re-imagining some of the Victorian era's sharpest political cartoons.

Ahead of the launch, a series of seventeen questions were answered by Simon. Hosted on the Gladstone's Library blog, we'll be releasing an answer a week until the project launches. You can find all the answers by clicking below (please note that only answers that have been released will be linked):

1. How did this project get started?

2. What inspired the title of the project?

3. Who is involved in the project?

4. What do you want this project to achieve?

5. Where did you get the original cartoons from?

6. Who drew the Victorian cartoons?

7. Who would have been enjoying these cartoons when they were first printed?

8. Did Victorians find these sorts of political cartoons funny?

9. What made you choose these drawings?

10. Who can we see in the original drawings?

11. Why are the new drawings so colourful?

12. Why did you choose to animate these drawings?

13. Were there any surprises during the animation process?

14. What should we look for when we watch the animations?

15. Who is the woman in the hat in some of the images?

16. What happens next?

17. How can we get involved? 

Looking for more information? Read on! 

Aura Leisure and Libraries excitedly announced their participation in a new digital project with Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden in 2021. Funded by the Arts Council and led by artist Simon Grennan, ‘Drawing Blood’ created a new online exhibition of twenty new, original animated artworks. Hosted by Gladstone’s Library, the online exhibition was also available at Contemporary Art Space Chester and at Aura libraries in North Wales, including Broughton, Buckley, Mold, Deeside, Holywell, Connah’s Quay and Flint.

The new artworks were inspired by a book Grennan found in the Gladstone’s Library collections. Dating from 1878, Gladstone from Judy’s Point of View collects cartoons satirising one of the hot topics of the period – liberal political opinion. As one of the major Liberal politicians, William Ewart Gladstone is often in the firing line of Judy’s cartoonists. In the tradition of political artists everywhere their pens puncture any political pomposity, drawing Gladstone (and others) not as respected statesman but as wobbly juggler, unstable acrobat, indecisive whirligig, pram-pushing lady, and many more.

An expert in nineteenth-century cartoons and art, who has published several books on the work of Judy cartoonist Marie Duval, Grennan knows well the quality and humour of the artworks. In his redrawing and reimagining the work of Judy’s Victorian cartoonists, Grennan helps us all to get to know the work of some of the most skilled, but not well known, artists of the period. Digital technology means that not only do more people experience the new artworks online, but the drawings themselves come alive in the way that the Victorian originals (already full of life!) never could.

The exhibition was supported by a series of online drawing workshops, inspired by the exhibition, where anyone can learn to start drawing cartoons. Anyone could have a go, whether they have lots of experience in drawing, or none at all. That classes explored what we can learn about these Victorian cartoonists, and the way they used class, gender, sexuality, and colonialism to humorously critique their politicians - and how can we bring this to our own drawing, and our own time?

Who's who in the Drawing Blood team:

Simon Grennan is part of the international visual arts studio Grennan & Sperandio, producer of over 40 comics and books and hundreds of public projects. He is Leading Research Fellow at the University of Chester. www.kartoonkings and https://chester.academia.edu/SimonGrennan 

Aura Leisure and Libraries Limited aims to improve the quality of life for customers through the provision of popular culture and leisure opportunities that improve mental health and physical well-being. https://aura.wales/about/aura-wales-homepage

Contemporary Art Space Chester is a range of pop-up and permanent exhibition spaces in and around the University of Chester and the city of Chester, including the Foyer Gallery at Creative Campus Kingsway and the Forum Shopping Centre Gallery in the heart of the city. https://www.cascgallery.co.uk