EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 9 © 2014 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

7 a different feather—girls, one in particular, the film star Brigitte Bardot. My first encounter with her was when she was featured in a newspaper that was being used to dry up a wet kitchen floor. I rescued her immediately. From then on she became my inspiration. The holidays passed by fairly quickly and before I knew it I was on my way to art school for my very first term there. As I arrived at the front entrance I was totally unprepared for the living tableau that greeted me. There, milling around on the college lawns and chattering loudly were dozens of girls! After five years of attending only boy’s schools, this was what had been lamentably lacking in my education. One new girl later wrote that her first day was, “like arriving in heaven”. I know how she felt. Not only was the attendance free, thanks to a government grant, the materials were also free! Against the background of French cigarettes and turpentine along with Sydney Bechet’s music, my painting and drawing flourished as never before. My work in those days attracted both praise and criticism. One teacher told me that I could draw like an angel but needed to develop an individual style rather than a series of pastiches based on famous artist’s works. Sadly that criticism stayed with me throughout my art school years. Up until the age of eighteen my favourite artists were the French impressionists, Toulouse Lautrec and Degas in particular. Their influence was clearly RIGHT: Dinosaurs, flying saucers and lost civilizations. Pennington’s art defined science fiction iconography throughout the '70s. Poul Anderson’s ‘Satan’s World’, Corgi 1973.