Yikes! It's the Fish Wife!

This is another one that I did quite a while ago, when I still had access to a scanner. I understand that some could interpret this image as misogynistic, but it's meant nothing more than a bit of daft fun. I recently heard the term "fishwife"; it originally meant a woman who sold fish at markets, but ultimately became a derogatory term for any coarse, shrewish woman of low background. When I heard the term, however, I couldn't help but think of an image similar to this, a sort of female version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

In fact, the whole image sums up my dislike of fish. It's not a fear, it's just that I find a lot of specific types to be quite ugly. Thus, the perfect inspiration for a creation apt for a horror/sci-fi B-movie, and a perfect thing to display in the run-up to Halloween!

La Belle et la Bête

And another piece inspired by a fairy tale! This time, it's inspired more directly by a story and its characters as opposed to being a satire incidentally using elements of a traditional tale.

In the light of Disney's Beauty and the Beast appearing on Blu-Ray and again on DVD after an extended sojourn of nearly a decade in the infamous Disney Vault, I've been thinking of both the 1991 animated film and the original story. Though I wouldn't consider it the absolute best Disney film like some people, I still do really like it. It was one of the Disney films that I watched a lot on VHS when I was younger, so it has a lot of childhood memories attached (I also saw the film at the age of four when it was originally released). It has a great score, and I'd single at least two or three of the songs out as some of cinema's best tunes. It doesn't have the best animation and art direction of a Disney film, but there are some lovely touches, especially the exterior of the castle, a French château built in the dreamy, high turreted style of Schloss Neuschwanstein. The first shot of the film, a Multiplane close-in on the said edifice through the forest, is beautiful, and the film's introduction told through the castle's stained glass windows is very effective.

Ultimately, a lot of the film's lure quite simply derives from the story's basic backbone, and the film's creators' wise thinking in keeping that intact, regardless of the addition of singing tea pots and saucy French candelabras. Underneath its fantastic exterior, the tale is essentially a story about human perception and love, touches upon primeval nerves. The story is versatile; it can be stripped to its skeleton and completely retold potentially as effectively as before, as Disney's, Cocteau's and many others' versions all have.

This little drawing, done in pen and ink, was my attempt at rendering the protagonists, be they from the standard Madame Le Prince de Beaumont narrative or a potential new version of it (I have a new idea in my head based around the Beauty and the Beast story). As with any tale already done by somebody else (read: Disney, and with this case, Jean Cocteau as well), it was somewhat difficult to come up with something that was different yet familiar. Beauty/Belle wasn't too difficult to draw anew, but every image I had of the Beast screamed either Cocteau or Disney; I therefore hope that nobody imagines this Beast as having the voice of Robby Benson or being Jean Marais in a mask. What I did try to do was to dress them as characters of the eighteenth century, for that was when the standard version of the story (the one written by Madame Le Prince de Beaumont) was penned, and it seems to me the perfect epoch to set the story. Beauty's dress was inspired by one that I saw at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (it was part of an exhibit on 18th century life in British India), and I looked at paintings of French kings for the Beast's costume.

I could really use a wish right now...

Well, it's been some time since I last updated this blog. I hate it if I've seemed like the type of person who opens a blog for a certain thing and then forgets to update it. I will admit that the post flow on this blog could be very slow for whatever reason. Needless to say, hang on in there for more Jarvworld fun!

This particular image (pen and ink) will probably seem somewhat melancholy, so let me explain its origins. For those not in the know, the lyrics at the bottom are adapted from "Airplanes" by rap artist B.O.B. What really gripped me was the chorus, sung by Hayley Williams of the band Paramore:

"Can we pretend that airplanes
In the night sky
Are like shooting stars
I could really use a wish right now (wish right now, wish right now)"

In a dark world, these lyrics may seem quite resonant, which is probably one of the reasons why the song did so well in the charts. I took that chorus (with a bit of tweaking, mainly of "airplane" to the more correct "aeroplane"), and came up with an image to compliment them. I used a child, an innocent so sensitive to the idea that horrible things go on in the world. What is seen here is not a downright depression and despair, but a type of lingering worry for the world, and the inevitable prospect of facing that magic is non-existent. The persistent use of sepia is there to give the sense that hope really is running dry, sort of like a throwback to the Kansas scenes from The Wizard of Oz.

NOTE/CONFESSION/APOLOGY: As I haven't got access to my faithful scanner at the moment,  I have used my SLR camera to photograph this picture. I feel that the reproduction quality isn't as high mainly due to my erratic photography skills. Hopefully I'll get access to a scanner of sorts (mine or someone else's), but for now let's hope my photography can improve for later attempts!