Finally, my project about Fairy Tales. In this series I explore the passively perfectly thin fairy tale heroines of my youth, giving them a rebirth as strong, self-confident agents of their own destinies who have some weight on them and are unconventional, but beautiful. All the paintings were done in watercolor with some colored pencil for touch-ups, and black ink linework.

This is the final piece (so far) in the series - Snow White. I had a lot of fun with this one and really like how it came out even though I was worried it was going to be rushed. I had a LOT of trouble with the idea for this one, even more than Sleeping Beauty's piece (which is funny because they're the only two perfectly square images in the series). But eventually I settled on this idea of body image and fashion, pushing that angle through the three things the Queen tried to kill Snow White with. So, the Queen holds the corset, meant to crush Snow White's ribs, and the apple, meant to poison her. The apple I feel represents dieting, though apples are very good for you and very yummy. The corset obviously represents that too, but even more from an appearance-based standpoint and a desire to look thin in order to be attractive. Finally, Snow White pulls the poisoned comb from her hair, further dismissing the obsession with appearance that the queen is trying to push on her. I really feel this is the most successful, both content-wise and composition/color/art-wise. I think it might be my favorite, though I do love them all.

And I said this is the final one so far because I hope to do more of these. Originally I had a seventh planned, "Rumplestiltskin," so I want to at least get that one done this summer. I hope someday to rewrite the stories too, and get them published. We'll see what happens