Book Review: Landscape Modelling

A little earlier in the week the copy of Landscape Modelling by Barry Norman I ordered arrived in the mail. Like a lot of books I've bought recently it has been on my list for a long time, and finally one came up for sale online at a decent price.

It's a clean copy, and there isn't any indication inside of who the previous owner was or where this book may have resided before coming to Canada. All I can say is it was published by Wild Swan Publications of England in 1986. If you're doing any comparative reading you might want to dig up your copies of John Olson's 1983 book, Building an HO Model Railroad with Personality, and Malcom Furlow's 1984 book. HO Narrow Gauge Railroad You Can Build. Both were published by Kalmbach in the US. Even though Olson's and Furlow's book cover all aspects of model railway construction, it's interesting to compare their scenery modelling techniques to Norman's given that all three books were all published in the same era. 

The entire book is an enchanting mixture of prototype photos, model photos,
and expertly drawn line illustrations.

I liked this book right from the get-go. Bob Barlow, the editor of Model Railway Journal, has this to say in the Foreword which sets the tone for the pages to come:

"However, there's far more to this slim volume [JDL: it's only 66 pages] than useful modeller's hints and wrinkles; there is a deeper dimension which speaks of success out of failure, of observation blending with a determination to get things right, and, above all, of love for the subject - in this case, our own British landscape. Looking around and loving what you see is a taller order than taking it for granted as most of us do, especially when those surroundings are conventionally 'ugly' like so many urban landscapes today. But somewhere, even in the grimmest of city wastes, beauty exists. And if you're out there studying the landscape closely enough - in order to build an accurate model, for example - you will assuredly find it. Not just once, but dozens of times: images that will linger and give inner pleasure for many, many years. I find it comforting that this hobby of ours - which most will concede is a fairly insignificant part of whatever great scheme exists - can lead us to great insights into our relationship with our own small planet."

Inside is a thoughtful account of how to go about creating a landscape for a model railway. It discusses both design and implementation aspects, and the author's layout, 'Petherick', provides examples. It's well written, clear, and the modelling techniques are effective and easy to understand. All the photos are black-and-white, but that hardly seems to matter given the excellence of the text.

This book is also great for just dipping into and browsing. Well, all Wild Swan publications are, but this one especially so for me because I'm a sucker for well done line drawings, and there are a lot in this book. The layout of the book is excellent too. Inspired page layout is a rarity these days, so it's even more impressive to me when I just stumble across it.

Out on the back porch with my 'tree box' getting a start on the community garden trees,
and looking through my just arrived copy of Landscape Modelling.

The book showed up at an interesting time. I had started work on making trees for the community garden layout, and I had just heard of David Hockney's passing, so I was a bit preoccupied with thinking about landscapes.

Hockney was a favourite artist. I never pay much attention to the passing of media figures, but this one hit home. As silly as it sounds, he seemed like an indomitable presence who would live forever. His work was varied, but I especially appreciated his thoughts that direct observation and wrestling with the problems of depiction were key things to deal with in art, as it should be for railway modellers. Here is Sam Hamper's tribute to Hockney where he goes into that and many other things about his life:

At around the 7:23 mark Hockney makes an interesting observation about trees in a discussion about perspective, well, maybe it's an obvious observation, but I thought it was good he said it out loud:

"Any cameraman will tell you it's not so easy to film the tallness of trees for instance because you have to look up to see the tallness. It's the tallness that would give you the majesty of the tree isn't it? The majestic nature."

Which is why I think it's important to model trees to their correct scale height and volume, otherwise it's conventional toy train lollipop trees all the way down that are completely without majesty. 

There are a lot of Hockney videos at YouTube, but I'll simply point out this short one of Hockney painting a tree dominated scene in Yorkshire:

The ways of the YouTube recommendation algorithm are a mystery to me. As I was looking for Hockney videos it recommended some from a channel called Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't ! The videos at that channel are serious, hilarious, and scathing, but in line with Barlow's comment that "... somewhere, even in the grimmest of city wastes, beauty exists" have a look at this poignant one of a tour of an abandoned Southern Pacific station in West Oakland, California (Warning: This is serious stuff):