Cheshire Countryside

Where I am, it is chucking it down, and I believe it's the same for much of the UK. So for all in need of a jolly holiday, here we have a little something inspired by my home county...

Andersen's Duckling

The Blob Programme

Seven in One Blow!

Among many things, 2012 marks the bicentenary of the first publication of Kinder- und Hausmärchen, better known in English as Grimms' Fairy Tales. An initial reaction may be "are they that young?", as a good number of the tales have become so firmly rooted in collective Western culture that you'd think they'd have been published even earlier. In fact, if you were to ask anybody in Western society to list a couple of fairy tales, I'd be surprised if there weren't any recorded by Grimm in at least some variant.

One of two terrible giants awakens, unsure as to who has been throwing stones at him.

The subject of this post, The Brave Little Tailor, is one of Grimms' better known tales, despite having experienced decreasing popularity in the English-speaking world (as with many great fairy tales, alas!). It probably helped in some way that it inspired a 1938 Mickey Mouse cartoon of the same name, which easily ranks amongst the best of the Disney shorts. The tale concerns a young tailor who kills seven pesky flies and goes crying: "Seven in one blow!" Being mistaken for a great killer of giants, the tailor must use his wits to stop himself falling victim to a string of giants and other dangerous beings.

Glam Elephant

A little something (or rather big something), sort of inspired by the animal ballet ("Dance of the Hours") in Fantasia. Also - 50th post!

Old European Legends

These past two days, I rendered some drawings based on some old European legends. The pictures may perhaps be a bit bleak compared to some of my other works, but I think they characterise the dark nature of the stories that they are illustrating.

Reynard the Fox: A medieval cycle from a shared European heritage (though mainly French and Flemish) satirising the epic poetry and romances of the day. In practically all of the episodes, numerous animals fall victim to the eponymous anti-hero's tricks.

The Golem of Prague: From Jewish folklore comes a mythical clay being created by Rabbi Lowe to protect his people from the pogroms facing them in the sixteenth century Prague. References to the character feature prominently in the Czech capital.

The Pied Piper of Hamelin: The most well known of the stories portrayed, concerning a mysterious minstrel who uses his magic flute to abduct the children of Hamelin (Hameln in German) after his deed of similarly removing the town's rats is left unrewarded by the town's mayor.

Easter Rain

Here's another little Easter gift for you all. This picture is based on the French legend of the Easter bells. While the Easter Bunny has become the celebration's mascot all over the world, rabbits still do not bring Easter eggs in the French tradition. Instead, the eggs are brought by flying bells. According to legend, all the bells in France leave their towers on Maundy Thursday to go on a pilgrimage to Rome. The sound of bells therefore cannot be heard for three days. On Easter Morning, the bells return, and their music can once more be heard. As they fly over France, they drop goodies for all the children to find. Thus begins the search...

Happy Easter!

More Magic Flute

Bluebeard

A quick take on a Bluebeard, the old French tale of a young maiden who marries an ugly nobleman with an even uglier secret. Classified as a fairy tale but quite frankly a forerunner of the horror story (it makes even the darkest versions of Little Red Riding Hood and Snow White look about as scary as The Very Hungry Caterpillar), I hope to have captured the grim nature of the yarn.