:P

Played endlessly with the colors but in the end, I settled on something pretty conservative and straightforward. Gotta move on.

Preview

Here's the preview for the second image. I tried to expand on the formula of the first and go a bit farther with action and detail and such. It's about a merchant whose two greedy brothers were turned into dogs by a fairy ...

I think I'll keep in the theme of animals who used to be humans ...

Working less and less from photo reference, my work is taking on an exaggerated, cartoonish look, but it's more alive. I know no other way to get the kind of 'extreme' angles I am into these days.

Final

Here's the final for the first Arabian Nights piece.

Below is the official artists' 'statement' I wrote last night for the Happily Never After show. I'm posting that here so other members of the group show can read it and so anyone visiting my blog gets a heads up ... it will be in mid June.

What makes a ‘Fairy Tale’? We all know one when we see it. They are stories, usually brought to us in the form of an illustrated book or lavishly animated film that we may remember as our first true moment of escapism; the first moment a childish dream was given form. And yet, fantasy never felt so familiar, did it? Whether as moral indoctrination, or simply as a means to entertain, the Fairy Tale is something both shared by and bestowed upon us by a previous generation, at the core of which lies an inherited system of symbols, meanings, and values.

Some might even say that Fairy Tales are most people’s first experience of modern mythology. Morality could never be more clear, evil so hideously obvious or goodness so modestly endearing. Sympathies lie with downtrodden heirs and valiant heroes, the distressed damsel, a charming prince … and so on.

In a world where the validity of convention and tradition remain dubious at best, we turn to different kinds of stories, those of forgotten eras, cultures, and in so doing we uncover ‘tales’ that the principle distributors of social convention find too obscure, too strange, or too morally ambivalent, to popularize in films and on the sides of lunchboxes.

In Happily Never After, these ‘forgotten fairy tales’ are explored by works from an eclectic group of illustrators. Employing a diversity of media, styles, and approaches, ranging from commercial sensibilities to retro forms both novel and haunting, the exhibit offers pieces that explore not only the gamut of forgotten myths and stories, but of styles and mediums. Whimsical photographed sculptures tell their tale beside the moody, antiquated textures that tell another. Through each individual exploration, these tales of morality and amusement, mythologies telling an era’s fears as well as their hopes, find rejuvenated voice in Happily Never After.