Der Teufel

A little something I did in gouache. I always worry that my painting style seems like a knock-off of Mary Blair. Suffice to say, I doubt Mary Blair would create something like this demon...

Jack's Giant Adversary

Another stab at  Jack and the Beanstalk. This time it's the story's villain, a monster of a man with an appetite for young English males.

Bacchus, God of Wine

Aliens

I know, I know; I haven't posted in a week. Needless to say, I should be posting a good few more things here at quite a rapid rate, so you shouldn't be too disappointed.

Kleine Hütte im Wald

Ballet Casting Error

Jack Chopping Down the Beanstalk

JACK AND THE BEANSTALK
"Jack jumped down from the beanstalk and got hold of an axe, for he could see the giant climbing down."

The Moomins: Tribute to Tove

Represented are my renditions of two characters created by a new favourite illustrator of mine - Tove Jansson. Yes, I'll admit it, this is fan-art, something I tend to avoid, but leave me be.

©Puffin Books

Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was born into a well-to-do Swedish-speaking family in Helsinki, Finland (then part of the Russian Empire). An artist and writer, she is best remembered for a series of Moomin chapter books and comic strips. Set in a fictional forested area of Finland called Moomin Valley (what else?), the series follow the Moomin family - Moominmamma, Moominpappa and their son Moomintroll - in addition to a host of other characters such as the gentle Snork Maiden, the vagabond Snufkin and a range of obsessive-compulsive creatures called the Hemulens. It was on this series that she developed a truly distinctive, dreamlike pen-and-ink style.

Andersen's Emperor

The Emperor's New Clothes

Another Andersen-related piece today after the other day's mermaid. This time I've had a stab at drawing a picture of a scene from The Emperor's New Clothes, which first appeared in 1837 alongside The Little Mermaid in a small booklet. A delightfully satirical fable, its moral rings just as true in today's society and political landscape as it did nearly two-hundred years ago. The scene depicted is the moment where the emperor finally tries on clothes made of a material that "has a wonderful way of becoming invisible to anyone who is unfit for office or unusually stupid". Of course, the whole notion of magic material is a load of nonsense, merely the invention of two swindlers posing as reputable tailors. Daunted by the prospect of being declared incompetent, however, the emperor and his court imagine that the clothes do exist...

Not everybody's got a laughing place...

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an Athenian...

Around a week ago, I drew a picture of the Cyclops from Homer's Odyssey. I posted it on here, but chances are that I'm the only one who even saw it live. I really didn't like what I'd drawn, so I decided to scrap the post to avoid showing the world. Last night, I tackled the Cyclops again, this time having in mind the work of artists from the Golden Age of Hollywood Animation, in particular Ward Kimball, the Disney animator who drew some of the broader, looser characters in some of the classic Disney feature films, such as Jiminy Cricket, Bacchus in Fantasia's "Pastoral Symphony", the Mad Hatter and March Hare, the crows in Dumbo and Cinderella's mice friends.

Although I think that my cyclops is a bit too broad fit perfectly into an apt illustration of Homer's epic, I have to say that I prefer this attempt compared to the first attempt last week.

Andersen's Mermaid

The Little Mermaid

Of all the fairy tales, I would say that my favourites tend to be those of Hans Christian Andersen. Forget the usual Ladybird retellings or antiquated public-domain translations found online; I would urge anybody to get a fresh, modern translation of the original stories, my favourite being the Penguin Classics edition (translated by Tiina Nunnally), followed closely by Naomi Lewis' translation (mainly as her translations have been the basis for a number of picture books and illustrated editions, my favourite being the one illustrated by Joel Stewart). A good English rendering of Andersen's stories lets Andersen's unique, arguably revolutionary, way with words shine through, and will appeal to both children and adults.

Mosko-Cat

Icarus the Dog

Prince Ivan and the Firebird

Another one from last year. I did truly mean to post this back a while ago, but I didn't get round to even scanning it in. This picture illustrates a scene from the most famous of the Russian Firebird stories (the full title of the tale in question is Prince Ivan, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf, though many English-language editions are just called The Firebird). In the scene, Prince Ivan, youngest son of a great tsar, catches one of the Firebird's tail feathers, famed for shining brightly like golden stars.

Some of the feather's outline (created using brown drawing ink and a dip pen) wasn't quite picked up during the scanning, but I have to say that it does perhaps give the feather more of a radiant, mystical feel to it.

Arabian Nights Potpourri

Here are two images inspired by tales from the Arabian Nights. The first (see above) is a drawing of the Arabian Nights story Ali-Baba and the Forty Thieves I created last summer (the end of July, I think). The moment depicted in the pen-and-ink/ink wash picture is when Ali-Baba first enters the Cave of the Forty Thieves. The second (see below) is a pen-and-ink/watercolour picture of Aladdin and the Genie of the Lamp, which I created last month.

Ballet

The Clever Prince

This is a drawing for a short story idea I came up with about a melancholy yet studious prince. I have yet to fully write the story down, and I doubt that it would ever get published unless I were suddenly to become a highly successful children's author with a stellar list of titles, so this shall be its outlet for the time being.

Pinocchio/Peter Pan

I'm going to treat you to some studies I made at the end of January on two relatively similar stories - J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan and Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio. I say that they're similar because they are original fantasy stories heavily influenced by the genre of fairy tale; they deal with themes of childhood, growing up and responsibility; also, just as importantly, they were immortalised and popularised in Disney animation. I grew up with the Disney versions (Pinocchio is probably my favourite Disney film), yet I only read the original texts as an adult.

Tinkerbell is dying - Peter asks what can save her.

Peter Pan in flight

The drawings I've made here are illustrations of the original stories, rooted in Europe rather than American pop-culture. I've tried to detach myself from Disney's imagination-grabbing imagery, though I think I failed when it came to Pinocchio's hat and hair. They were really made as forms of experimentation using . My take on the Blue Fairy was to practice making line-drawings in coloured ink turned out (as opposed to the standard, permanent black Indian ink), while with the drawings of Peter Pan, I was practising my hand at drawing action shots of human figures.

Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy