A Turnip from 2011

It's the Circle of Life?

Here's a little something from around February or March of last year: a few little studies in gouache and pencil on The Enormous Turnip. I actually meant to post it here quite some time ago, but it got lost amongst all sorts of new things that I kept churning out. I have included the entire page I was working on in addition to the main highlights as separate images.

I will naturally admit that I didn't get very far with the whole thing, but I did have a clear vision of the story in my head and where I would have gone with it. As with many other fairy tales and fables, The Enormous Turnip is so flexible that it can be easily adapted and changed without losing much of the plot and significance of the original, standardised version. The original story is Russian in origin, but most contemporary illustrated versions don't tend to envision it as such. I too decided against the Russian peasant setting, and instead envisioned the story as taking place in a Victorian walled garden somewhere in late-19th/early-20th century rural England. I think I even drew a fuller picture of the old man, in which he was definitely wearing clothes typical of the era.


Looking back on what I created, I like the old gardener very much, but I will admit to having mixed feelings actual turnip that I drew, mainly as it lacks depth and ultimately looks like a vegetable version of the rising sun at the beginning of The Lion King.