This piece was one of two images I did for
Yay! LA (Magazine), and their series
Yay! LED (Legends Everyday), an online showcase of several very talented artists wrapped around the themes of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Comic Books, and other Various Media (Movies/Video Games). My first selection was Alice in Wonderland, and it was a project I had started many years ago with a simple sketch that just never came to fruition. The initial drawing consisted of the tree with the rabbit hole, and Alice descending down the hall into Wonderland. I decided it was time to blow the dust off this project, and make it tangible, but first I needed to decide which direction I was going to take with it since it had been some time since it's inception. I knew that I wanted to capture the main points of Alice's story, in best the way possible that related visually to her journey. It had been some time since I had read Lewis Carroll's novel, and having seen so many adaptations of the story, I could no longer discern fact from fiction (ironically). I reread Carroll's classic, and annotated it as I progressed through, giving me a clearer vision of what I wanted to portray. My intention was to capture the 'essence' of Carroll's tale by creating an illustrated narrative, and connecting the images together, one preceding to the next, in order to mimic the flow of Alice's perils. The image itself is not large, but it is extremely detailed, which can only be revealed upon close inspection. One of my favorite things to do with narrative illustration is to included small details that the viewer has to 'work' for in order to truly appreciate. In closing I'd like to say that this piece challenged me in many ways I haven't been before as an artist, and I think I learned quite a bit about my process, and how to tackle a piece differently. The image is entirely digital, developed (painstakingly) in Painter, and Photoshop.
Shortly after completely the original piece, I decided as a separate image, the Roses themselves were detailed enough to stand on their own, and have included them here for closer examination.
UPDATE 3/26/18:
To purchase either image, please visit my etsy store here:
Alice in Wonderland
Painting the Roses Red