Cinderella Progress

I haven't posted yet about the latest drawings that I'm working on. But I've really gotten into Instagram in the last few months and I'm showing a bunch of progress photos over there if you are interested.

I'm drawing Cinderella! This is funny to me because I don't much like the Cinderella story for lots of reasons. But a friend suggested it to me when I was asking for ideas. And now I notice that a new Cinderella movie is coming out! Ug. I hate to seem like I'm jumping on a bandwagon.

Here's what is different about my Cinderella illustrations. First, everyone in the story is an elephant. And second, in this world the bigger you are the more beautiful it is. This is very meaningful to me because I'm a big tall person and as a child and teenager I always felt like an ungainly giant. The beauty standard for women in our culture is to be slim, not too tall, feminine, and of course pretty. Weren't the animated Disney step-sisters tall gangly ugly girls? And in the trailer of the new movie, Cinderella is certainly very thin and beautiful- something most girls and women I know will struggle with and never quite achieve. So in my version, it's ok to be big and tall, and that's why the shoe doesn't fit- it's too big for everyone but Cinderella!

I'm using stamps, drawing, collaged patterns, and paint on these illustrations, similar to what I did for Rosie Sings. I'm starting to feel pretty good about this combination of techniques. Most of the time I don't know what I'm doing, but in a good way.

I printed a couple of versions of this drawing out on my favorite paper, BFK Rives. Then I took the version I didn't like and cut away the floor area to make a stencil. I laid it over the other drawing and used that long rubber stamp to make a purple floor. It's a little loud, but I will tone it down with paint. Do you see how I stamped right over the stencil even in the places that no floor should be showing?

Then when I took the stencil away it looked like this.

I'm working on four drawings at the same time so it's a little slow. Here's a photo from the other day when I did a bunch of stamping.

Today I got to add some paint. This is the most exciting part for me! I like to see it coming together and visualize the painting all done. I think all of the different elements are going to work together!