Little Ida Is SO Emo

A normal person, confronted with the task of illustrating Little Ida's Flowers, would surely fill a page with brightly-colored, dancing flowers. I however, am no normal person, and I don't trust my imagination to be able to shake the influence of Disney's Fantasia in attempting such a thing. Surely, this little b&w girl is nothing new or original to anyone who has ever, say, shopped at Hot Topic; but I had fun drawing her anyway.

Why do my flowers look so sad today?

Furthermore, I've noticed a pattern. This must be some element of old Danish folklore: in two out of four stories, a character attempts to revive someone (or something) dead by having them "sleep" a night in someone else's bed. Little Claus tried it with his grandmother, and here, Ida tries it with her flowers. (Spoiler alert: neither of them met with any success; both of their subjects remained dead.)

The Princess And The Pea

A more familiar story, The Princess and the Pea; and a more successful drawing. And yes, it's been illustrated many times before.

A real princess

Sneak Peek, or Why I'm In Love With Watercolors

Little Claus and Big Claus

Playing a bit with watercolors. Not particularly inspired by the demented tale of Little Claus and Big Claus, but here is Little Claus' dead grandmother nonetheless.

Driving To Town With My Grandmother

LAUNCH

Inspired by blogs like One Drawing For Every Page Of Moby Dick, the fanciful art of May Ann Licudine (and others), and my current preoccupation with fairy tales; I hereby announce a project I am undertaking for 2010 in an effort to stay motivated and be productive (and fun isn't bad either). I endeavor to create an illustration for each of Hans Christian Andersen's stories - some 156 in number - hopefully by the end of the year.
To what extent the illustrations will be fully finished pieces of art is as of yet uncertain. It is likely that the degrees of "finishedness" will vary greatly, from crude pencil sketches/doodles (I am rather fond of what Matt Kish is doing with found paper lately) to full color illustrations. Who knows? Some may graduate into actual paintings once my *studio* is fully functional.

As for now, I present my first interpretation; one for Andersen's The Tinderbox.

Eyes As Big As Teacups

Note: For those interested, my source is the translation by Erik Christian Haugaard; not necessarily the same as linked above.

Creativity Continues To Elude Me...

I started working on an owl drawing, but digital media does little for me these days. I'll probably never finish it. As much as I loathe the mess (especially in the confines of my tiny home), I still long for the physicality of a tangible medium. I'm not ready to haul the paint out again any time soon, but I have been doing a bit with some gel pens (circa 2000 - I'm amazed any of them still write), but I doubt I'll be able to elevate something best left to junior high girls' notebooks to the status of high art.

Ponyo

Nothing but good mail today! No bills: just a lovely postcard from Taiwan. A welcome, pleasant surprise after waking up to ants biting me in my bed at midnight. I think they're seeking revenge after my attempts to boil them out of their mulch-pile home by invading mine.
Again, I've neglected this blog for some time and I think all the things I have to say should probably be broken up into more than one post. Right now I'll stick with my brief (and likely incomplete) review of Ponyo, as we went to see it over the weekend and I still find myself somewhat preoccupied with it. I don't like to review things, really. Maybe it's because I think my opinions are somehow invalid because I don't like to think about things (especially movies) too deeply. I've looked at art from a scholarly perspective long enough to be totally cynical and I think I've looped back around to a rather "that's a purty picture" mindset. But, this particular movie is still on my mind, so here goes.
For the most part, the story was sort of predictable and unoriginal, borrowing heavily from Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid. Not that that's a problem, mind you, but we left the theatre with Rebecca kvetching about the plot, or lack thereof, and anticipating that the story would be somehow more developed in the Japanese dialogue version (unfortunately, only one theatre in the area was showing the movie at all, and it was dubbed. Boo. But kudos to Liam Neeson - he was really very entertaining.) Rebecca may be right about that, and we'll see when the DVD comes out, but frankly, I don't care. I don't watch Miyazaki movies for the stories. I find that they're usually just a tenuous framework to build a lush, magical world filled with endearing characters around - and THAT is why I love his films. They leave me yearning to make my little world somehow more magical in the simple and decidedly Japanese way that his worlds always are, and in that aspect, Ponyo did not disappoint. I was a little surprised to see the slight deviation in style towards washy, looser backgrounds (rather than the very tight ones in Howl's Moving Castle or Spirited Away - did he do this in Totoro? I'll have to check.) And the chicken feet - and hands - were a bit weird. But really, what could be more magical than a little house on a hill by the sea? It also left me with quite a hankering for ramen and ham. So now you see why I don't write reviews. All in all, it's worth seeing. Especially after sitting through Transformers 2. Ugh.
I think I'll have that ramen now.