University Campus Suffolk

#4

I’ve been looking into different pieces of literature to see where the Fae appear, apart from in the obvious placing of Fairy tales (for which I’ve bought a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, and am waiting on getting a hold of my copy of Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales, as well as three of Cicely M Barker’s Illustrated Flower Fairy poetry books).

I’ve bought a copy of “Myth & Magic: The Art of John Howe”, who is the designer for the Hobbit films, and has done art based on various other mythical stories, and has included features of the Fae in a lot of his work. So this has been a useful resource for me to start flicking through.

However, the main piece of literature I have taken into account currently isn’t anything contemporary or modern, but belongs to our great British play-write, Shakespeare. I’ve been looking at “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, because if there isn’t a good base for Faerie Folklore anywhere else, then this play pretty much sums them up, albeit in a slightly comedic fashion.

The Fae characters within the play are:

Oberon (Fairy King)

Titania (Fairy Queen)

Robin Goodfellow, The Puck

Peaseblossom

Cobweb

Moth

Mustardseed

And others who are unnamed.

The specific copy that I looked through (Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch & John Dover Wilson (eds.), 1968, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), had some particularly good explanations for the faerie-lore in the story, as well as the history behind the characters.

“Be it remembered that fairies dominate the play; and how constantly and intimately fairies were associated with weddings by our Elizabethan ancestors, their general favours invoked, their possible malign caprices prayed against.”

-Quiller-Couch & Dover Wilson

“Oberon is the name of the King of Faery in ‘Huon of Bordaeux’; Spencer also refers to him in ‘The Faerie Queen’, where he is made out to be the father of Gloriana (Henry VIII). Titania seems to be Shakespeare’s own name for the Fairy Queen. He found it in the original Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ – it does not occur in Golding’s translation – where it is used as a title for Diana. No one has apparently observed hitherto that Shaskespeare may have run some risk in giving one of Diana’s titles to his Fairy Queen, seeing that Diana and Fairy Queen are names commonly bestowed on Queen Elizabeth herself. Robin Goodfellow is a name; Puck is strictly speaking a title for a class of mischievous or malicious spites, and it is noticeable that Robin is never addressed simply as ‘Puck’ in the text, though ‘my gentle Puck’ and ‘sweet ‘Puck’ occur. The names ‘Puck’ and ‘Robin’ occur indiscriminately in the Quarto speech-headings and S.D.S”

-Quiller-Couch & Dover Wilson, p. 102-103

Titania has been referenced in many works since the play was written, and she is now an immensely popular character as the portrayal of the Fairy Queen. She is regal and kind, but also has authority and striking beauty – something that is the root of much jealousy throughout the play.

Referencing the classics is key for this, as they show the true portrayal of what the Fae were before Hollywood got their hands on the stories and turned them into bright and colourful stories where truth and love always triumph. The originals were not always like this.

Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid” did not have a happy ending. Grimm’s prince in “Rapunzel” was blinded viciously. Not everything is sunshine and daisies.

It’s this dark side of the storytelling that is intriguing me more now, and is what I’m going to be focusing more on, rather than ‘pretty’ Disney stories.

#3

Just wanted to say something quick about the digital manipulation of my sketchbook pages.

I’ve been experimenting and playing with techniques that I’ve used in the past (not necessarily for university work, but I’ve used them all the same) to colour some of my drawings that I have done in my sketchbooks.

I have only done a couple so far, but I have a few more pages scanned for me to work into in the next few days.

I’m basically importing the images into SAI after scanning them, playing with the layer settings and then colouring over the top of the original image. I’ve only done two in monotone colours so far, but that should change in the near future.

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#2

So, getting right down to it, I’ve been doing some quick drawings and paintings in my sketchbooks, starting to plan out and research just what I want to look into with this work of mine. A thing I haven’t really done before that I’m doing this time is keeping my sketchbooks as purely creative mediums, rather than as a place to write in as well as draw. While I am making some brief notes next to some of my drawings, I am keeping a separate journal to make more detailed notes and to use as a kind of diary, and at the moment, I’m finding this to be a much more useful way of composing my work. I’m actually getting somewhere with it!

This post is primarily a way to show what I’ve been doing in my sketchbooks so far, both my treasured Moleskin which I’ve been painting in as well as drawing, and my neat little recycled paper sketchbook which has given me a really good platform on which I can make quick sketches that I can use as plans for future work, or to work into on my laptop.

Most of my work so far has been at a rather small scale because it’s basically all sketchbook work right now, but if that isn’t a good place to start then I don’t know what is. You’ve got to have a starting point, right?

Anyway, I’ve been working with descriptions of specific types of faeries that I’ve found in books and online and creating my own perceptions of the creatures that have been described over the ages. Although this has resulted in a couple of sketchbook pages being covered in what are basically just pictures of seals… but they are actually faeries! Just seal faeries. It looks better than it sounds, I promise.

I’ve left my rough notes on the pictures for convenience sake in some hope of explaining myself better. It just boils down to whether you can read my handwriting or not.

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#01

My work has previously encompassed the idea of other worlds, alternative, parallel worlds, if you will, to our own. Asking ‘what if’ questions and deliberately changing familiar scenes into unfamiliar, semi-futuristic ones.

I focused last semester on a project suitably titled “The Future of Yesterday”, using themes such as Steampunk along with Sci-Fi and fantasy to change the city of London into an entirely different world, giving it the retro feel of the early 1900s, but then craftily adding flying cars and floating pathways. Needless to say, it was a bizarre world to behold.

Much like my focus now, I created concept images for the project using my laptop and graphics tablet, giving myself a rough base to create some larger scale paintings from. This became a series of five paintings that were very kindly put on display for a week in May (2012) by Frank’s Bar in Norwich, so I think I can call this project a success!

Over the Summer I stumbled upon the book “Faeries” by Brian Froud and Alan Lee (2010, Abrahams: New York), which at the time I bought because I have a personal interest in Folklore and the like, but it got me thinking about my own practice as well. I have this fixation on other worlds and how they are created – be that through stories, or in this case, art.

I’ve started to look at the idea of Escapism, now using Folklore and the concept of the Fae to create the almost surreal worlds within my work. I am looking into the telling of stories within artworks, how artists use well known stories and characters in their pieces, and how these often mischievous little creatures have invaded our own worlds from when we were children – they did for me at least.

I’ve borrowed some books from family members that we read to me as a child that are purely made up of poetry and pictures about the Flower Fairies, all done by Cicely M Barker, whose work I fell in love with when I was little, and still adore today, despite being over 15 years older than when they were first read to me.

I am, however, also going to look into the darker side of the stories as well. The kidnapping faeries that prey on unsuspecting travellers, using them for their tricky plans and then leaving them lost in the middle of dark forests with no hope of ever finding their way home.

There’s so many different avenues that I can explore with this while I create my work (and other world). I don’t think I’ve ever been so interested in doing research before!

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