0 The Rose Elf by Veronica Dye Johnson

Illustrator Veronica Dye Johnson, recently sent me an image of one of her latest personal works and has kindly given me permission to share it with you all, it being inspired by a fairy tale.

Have you heard of this one, The Rose Elf? It's another Hans Christian Andersen one and used to be much better known.

The tale has always struck me as being a little bit of a split personality. As you can see from the above, beautifully rendered image, it has quite the dark side to it. This is of a girl holding her lover's head, after she dug it up out of the snowy wood, where her brother had buried it (after he'd cut it off). Sounds a little soap opera-ish in many ways but it actually has a lot of tragic romance to it.

(Note: Forgive me if I get the details wrong - I'm going from memory here.)

The girl, having just found out who killed her love, secretly takes the head home and buries it in a flower pot, over which she weeps every day. Her brother, who lives in the same house (and whom she keeps it for) has no idea why she's so sad but at least he doesn't have to worry about her taking off and getting married anymore.

Rose Elf in progress

She grieves greatly, pines, dies, and is reunited with her love in heaven BUT her brother, seeing this amazing plant that she's been keeping in her bedroom, decides all that was hers is now his, and he takes it to his room and puts it beside his bed. The plant, having grown on tears of anguish and with a wish for revenge, plunges poisoned barbs into the man while he sleeps, killing him rather painfully. His body is discovered shortly after and in the horror of the scene, the flower pot is knocked onto the bed and breaks, where the skull inside is revealed and so is the brother's secret. I believe he's then buried in an unmarked grave.. (it's been a while).

But I haven't told you the weirdest part.

How does the girl find out in the first place? Because of a 'rose elf'. He lived in a rose that wouldn't open and let him in due to the cold one night, so he went seeking shelter, finding some blooms near these lovers meeting where he overhears their love, their story and their trials. He finds that sweet but then through some slip or accident, ends up in the man's pocket. He's with the lover when he's murdered, escaping by holding onto a dead leaf that's floating through the air in the ruckus, only to land back on the hat of the brother-murderer and end up back at the girl's house. He whispers in her ear what happened when she's asleep, citing that she'll know this is true by the proof of a dead leaf on her chest when she wakes. She wakes, there's a dead leaf, she goes and finds the head, you know the rest now.

Rose Elf early color test

Isn't that just the oddest juxtaposition? You have this happy little elf looking for flowers, floating around so small he's undetected on one side (and there's a whole bit about him going to find the Queen Bee to tell her what happened too) and this macabre plant growing out of a lover's skull on the other.

It just doesn't feel to me like it was constructed by the same person (and when you read it, the language is bizarrely different too). I always felt I had heard the part about the head in the pot with the plant before somewhere - that feels really familiar to me and sort of Slavic too. The Rose Elf character just sounds.. like a construct.

I haven't researched it but it's like someone edited together part of a Disney film and part of an adult epic. Perhaps I'm wrong but in a weird way, it's the plant that feels most fairy tale like to me. The elf just kind of gives me the creeps.. I presume he ends up OK though? I can't remember.

Let me go find a link for you, so you can read the proper tale... HERE.

Anyway, I can see why such a tale inspired illustrators though I don't think I've seen an image of the girl holding her lover's head quite like this before. Thanks Veronica! There's a lot of interesting stuff about this tale that it's definitely worth remembering for.

Veronica Dye Johnson is a working and published illustrator who specializes in narrative images that showcase the human figure. You can find Veronica's website HERE, see more about her process of creating the illustration HERE and follow her and her work on Twitter HERE.

Detail: The Rose Elf by Veronica Dye Johnson

0 Art: The Wild Swans by Anna & Elena Balbusso

Apparently the Once Upon A Blog... Gallery of Enchanted Arts, turned two years old yesterday! In an

effort to spread more fairy tale love and awareness through various social media sites, Tumblr was one of those spots on the web that I set-up not too long ago (well, I guess it's two years ago!). I don't mention it much but I do try to post some new fairy tale every week or more often, so if you ever need more beautiful fairy tale images, go take a look.

(Of course Pinterest remains my main image hunting and gathering spot and that rarely overlaps with any other social media at all. It's not quite daily but almost!)

In honor of milestones I thought I'd add an art post for today, especially as on Tumblr I don't tend to post all the work from one book or by one artist at once - I like to spread out the visual fun there but seeing all the images from one story is inspiring to me to, so today we're looking at one of my favorite tales The Wild Swans.

The artists for this stunning looking book are Anna and Elena Balbusso. They're Italian twin sisters and have been working as a team in art and illustration for over fifteen years, something you don't see too often (anyone else immediately thinking Snow White and Rose Red?) You can read more about their works and many awards, HERE, while their main website is HERE.

Let the illustration gorgeousness begin! (You can click on the images to see them full sized.)

Incidentally, the scene above, with Eliza, (or whatever name she goes by in the various tales), being bathed and having cursed, poison toads put in with her, that hopped onto her head and heart etc but then changed to poppies, was my favorite as a child from this story.

As much as I am fascinated - and love! - the whole boys-turning-into-swans (and back again) aspect, it's this bathing scene which was so very vivid to me. Perhaps it was the colors mentioned or perhaps the clear symbolism but finding illustrations of this scene proved quite difficult for many years. So this is the scene I storyboarded (but which no one will ever see..).

Below is the full cover of the book these illustrations are from. I wish the front illustration was available to view without the added graphics for the read-aloud book, but nonetheless, I just love it.

Detail: Art: The Wild Swans by Anna & Elena Balbusso

0 Gabriel Pacheco's "The Jungle Book"

These illustrations for The Jungle Book are amazing.

They make me want to read Kipling's stories all over again. (I just came across these and had to share.)

I found a Spanish interview with Pacheco HERE on the challenge of creating new illustrations for The Jungle Book, and have used an auto-translator to assist in reposting some of it here:

The assignment was difficult. "A complicated challenge" qualifies illustrator Gabriel Pacheco... "And, well, you put Mowgli or Jungle Book in Google ... ". And search results overflowing with colorful images of the film adaptation of Disney. "But that was precisely what attracted me to illustrate a book with a great visual weight" explains via Skype from Buenos Aires.  

After the other, they began the problems . "The text they are so well made, has such workmanship, it is difficult to rework the characters because the text has solved. Worked great deal of time with this great conflict because the images I took out were superficial. They were not a reflection of the majesty of the text. "

After much rereading, came up with the solution: "I realized that I had not noticed the astonishment of the jungle Almost us goes unnoticed, but it is incredible that a child grows into it in the book, the weight of the jungle is.. amazing, so I decided to follow that path and work on the majesty of the jungle. I know it sounds simple, but it took three months of suffering come to that conclusion. I think it was nerves, anxiety draw a book with a very aesthetic view ... It was like drawing a Peter Pan "he explains.

You can read/see the first few pages of this edition of The Jungle Book HERE (it's in Spanish).

Gabriel Pacheco (Mexico, 1973), studied scenography at the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico.  

His visual work has earned numerous awards in Spain, Italy, Mexico and Japan. He has been part of the sample Illustrators of Children's Book Fair in Bologna.  

He has been nominated Alma award three times.

You can find many, many more of Pacheco's illustrations on his website HERE, including some fairy tales you might know well, such as Beauty and the Beast.

Detail: Gabriel Pacheco's "The Jungle Book"

0 "The Crane Wife" by Patrick Ness Named Notable Book by ALA

The Crane Wife by Katrina Pallon

I will admit I know very little about Patrick Ness, not having read any of his books, but Heidi has mentioned him on SurLaLune a couple of times so I thought I'd bring you notice of his latest folklore-based novel, especially since it was just named as one of ALA's Notable Books for 2015.

(And, as a bonus today I'm adding some lovely illustrations, some of which I hadn't seen before today. Credit is under each image.)

The Crane Wife by Kat Leyh

Refreshingly, this story is based on a little-known-to-the-Western-world romantic Japanese fairy tale (one of the better known ones that's usually included in multicultural collections) and was written by a man, both of which make it notable as well.

The Crame Wife by Janey-Jane

The Crane Wife is based on the fairy tale of the same name and seems to follow key aspects of the plot (at least to a certain point), though the setting is more urban and more modern.

The Crane Wife by Eno Keo

Two critically acclaimed authors who draw on folklore and fairy tales, Eowyn Ivy (The Snow Child) and Ali Shaw (The Girl With Glass Feet), both praise the book, which, despite other mixed reviews, is more than enough for me to put it in my shopping cart straight away!

Here's the synopsis, care of Penguin Press:

A magical novel, based on a Japanese folk tale, that imagines how the life of a broken-hearted man is transformed when he rescues an injured white crane that has landed in his backyard. 

George Duncan is an American living and working in London. At forty-eight, he owns a small print shop, is divorced, and is lonelier than he realizes. All of the women with whom he has relationships eventually leave him for being too nice.  

But one night he is waked by an astonishing sound—a terrific keening, which is coming from somewhere in his garden. When he investigates he finds a great white crane, a bird taller than himself. It has been shot through the wing with an arrow. Moved more than he can say, George struggles to take out the arrow from the bird’s wing, saving its life before it flies away into the night sky. 

The Crane Wife by pageboy

The next morning, a shaken George tries to go about his daily life, retreating to the back of his store and making cuttings from discarded books—a harmless personal hobby—when a woman walks through the front door of the shop. Her name is Kumiko, and she asks George to help her with her own artwork. George is dumbstruck by her beauty and her enigmatic nature and begins to fall desperately in love with her. She seems to hold the potential to change his entire life, if he could only get her to reveal the secret of who she is and why she has brought her artwork to him. 

The Crane Wife by Gennady Spirin (retold by Odds Bodkin)

 Witty, magical, and romantic, The Crane Wife is a story of passion and sacrifice that resonates on the level of dream and myth. It is a novel that celebrates the creative imagination and the disruptive power of love.

And here's the author introducing us to his novel:

Has anyone read this? I'm very curious now!

Detail: "The Crane Wife" by Patrick Ness Named Notable Book by ALA

0 "Thorn Rose" by Errol Le Cain

Thorn Rose is the Brothers Grimm version of Sleeping Beauty (titled Little Brier-Rose) and one of my favorite illustrators, Errol Le Cain, created a stunning set of illustrations for it. Being the current hot topic fairy tale in entertainment at the moment (and that I haven't ever posted more than a couple of these illustrations), I thought I'd treat you to the set.

I decided to include most of the close-ups I found as well, so you can really see the detail in the illustrations (not just "bits" but design motifs, story touches, uses of shadow and shape and much more. It's really amazing to see how much is in these drawings and yet they're still beautiful to look at without being overwhelming.

Does it look familiar? Maybe you remember Botticelli’s Prima Vera. The branches are very much like the windows we see later, though less thorny.

Botticelli's Prima Vera

This also shows the arrival of the evil fairy at the christening. She is furious at being left out. You cant see it so clearly in this picture, but she is surrounded by autumn leaves, a nice contrast to the springtime of the “prima vera” fairies.

The thirteenth fairy's wings are like a wind-bufffeted, decaying flower turning into a storm cloud. In fact, the whole aspect of the thirteenth fairy recalls a storm. Also note the dragon staff she has as well.

Notice the evil fairy overlooking this, sitting up there on her little dragon, while the good fairy sadly looks on the destruction, toting a spindle-like wand. Also note the babyBrier Rose reaching out to the spindles as they go by below...

Can you see the little devil-fairy-imps that surround her?

Check that window design - an echo of the wall of thorns to come

As a bonus, I found a wonderful paper on Errol Le Cain's illustration as manuscript illumination by Veronica Ortenberg West-Harling and I am posting some excerpts from it below. (You can read the whole article which goes into much more depth, HERE.)

…all of these carry out a strong medievalist flavour in their choice of decoration and visual cues. First and foremost of these cues is the repeated representation of the fairyland multi-turreted castle, whether as a background illustration in the opening or closing pages in King Arthur's Sword and in Molly Whuppie (where it serves as a contrast to the Giant's house in the forest), or as the main focus of the story in Thorn Rose, Cinderella, and Twelve Dancing Princesses. This leitmotif is joined by a variety of medieval images, constructed from various sources, most notably in Thorn Rose, where the opening page weaves subtly in a picture based on late medieval French and Italian costumed ladies, in front of a tent with pennant, as seen in the Lady with the Unicorn tapestries or in paintings by Uccello, moving about in a millefleurs landscape* of the kind so often seen in such tapestries of hunting or courtly love parties. The next page fairy procession, also travelling through the forest at night in a millefleurs setting, includes a fairy riding a unicorn. 

The fifteenth-century setting continues through the castle style and courtiers' dress, and develops the Gothic theme of nature as it encroaches more and more on the palace through the growing wall of thorns, until the prince arrives, a hundred years later, correctly attired in Renaissance dress, to wake up the princess. All full-page illustrations in Sir Orfeo refer specifically to a fifteenth-century court: headdresses, caparisoned horses, knights in Crusader tabards are all present. This medieval fantasy style is used by Le Cain for the upper socialechelons of king, princesses and courtiers, often appearing seated at banquets, dressedin the appropriate brocades, furs and headgear. By contrast, a second type of medievalinspiration, used for the 'below stairs' folk, for example the castle's kitchen in Thorn Rose, or the giant's house in Molly Whuppie, comes from Flemish painting, especially Brueghel, in imitation of the peasants' costumes, activities and human types (the fat cook, the kitchen maid plucking a fowl, the round-faced children). 

Fascinating stuff! While I've been aware that one of the reasons I love Le Cain's work is because it reminds me of tapestries such as The Lady and the Unicorn series, I'd never thought about the motifs and more in such detail. The more I see, the more I see - the balance of shapes and colors, the repeated motifs, the repeated patterns and layouts echoing various pages - it's astonishing work.

I remain in awe of this illustration every time I see it.
Do I detect a Klmit influence in there as well? If so, I LOVE this version of the style.

 Notice her hair has been spun into the spiderwebs, and the stained glass shadows on her blankets.

The article, in which the author has obviously looked at the medieval motif and tapestry aspects in great detail, is very interesting and well worth the read, especially if you are interested in design or illustration. Recommended!

*Millefleurs landscape - I even like how it sounds. I'm all inspired to paint a whole wall  in this tapestry-like background! Unfortunately, I don't think our landlord would be quite as thrilled (though you never know...)

Detail: "Thorn Rose" by Errol Le Cain