What About Little Snow White?

Little Snow White by Yvonne Gilbert

Finding and sourcing Snow White illustrations is a big job - big because it must be one of the most illustrated fairy tales ever (for centuries now!) and no matter how often I look I'm always finding both newly made illustrations and much older works I've been missing all along. What I find interesting is that despite this, it's quite difficult to find more than a handful of Snow White illustrations where Snow is clearly a child, that is, not a teen or even a young teen, but a child of seven, as she was in the Grimm telling.

If you read it a little more closely you realize Snow White is called "Little Snow White" for much of the tale, right up until the end where her coffin is being carried, the apple dislodges and she wakes up. It's at this point the preifx of "Little" is dropped and, although it's not clear how much time has passed (though it's substantial) or how much she's matured she's just "Snow White" when she consents to marriage.

Walt Disney was aware Grimm's Snow White was seven years old but reportedly felt audiences would find that too hard to take so he made a conscious decision to shift the focus instead chose a young woman of fourteen for his first feature heroine (note that she very subtly ages during her time in the coffin to look a bit closer to eighteen when the prince finds her again and swoops her off to get married).

Of all the illustrations I've seen (which numbers in the many hundreds) Trina Schart Hyman's Snow White remains possibly my favorite of all versions everywhere but even her youngest Snow is closer to pre-teen than child. Yvonne Gilbert's lovely drawing at the head of the post clearly shows Snow as a child but unfortunately it's a stand alone piece.

Snow White by Charles Santore

The only picture book example I could find of Snow White as an obviously-young girl for most of the story, as per the Grimm text, is by Charles Santore, published in 1996. Although it's a beautiful, beautiful book (you can see all the illustrations from the book HERE to remind you), it's the only example I've found of a real child in the role instead of a pre-teen or teen and I think it's well overdue that we see another Snow White picture book with a child heroine.

Thinking about a seven year old going through Snow's experiences gives you a whole different way of looking at the tale, and at seven year old girls too. If I knew someone with a daughter approaching seven years old, a "Snow White as child" book is something I'd want her to have, both for herself and to read with her daughter. Growing girls are tricky creatures and mothers of girls, however well meaning, almost always have a tough run of it somewhere along the line. Various cultures around the world would suggest that age seven is a key developmental milestone, a time where all things are about to change for the child (and her parents) and mark the first of her steps toward womanhood. Looking back on my girlhood, I completely understand this not-yet-woman-but-knows-I-will-be-one-someday phase. Looking around me at seven year old girls with this in mind is daunting but also makes me protective of them too. If I had a girl I know I'd want a heads-up from Little Snow White's story. I think all girls, and their mothers, deserve that.

Snow White by Charles Santore

Source for Yvonne Gilbert's illustration HERE.

*Yvonne Gilbert has done a lot of fairy tale illustration. You may be familiar with her gorgeous and highly recommended award winning book "The Wild Swans" among other lovely works which you can see on her portfolio HERE.

Courage In Fairy Tales

 Below is a random comment I found on searching for recent web posts mentioning Baba Yaga. I loved it so much I had to share (warning: coarse language ahead so I inserted stars where necessary):

My current Russian fairytale reading is starting to significantly piss me off, largely because of heroines and their descriptions. The reason these girls are ‘likeable’ (i.e. why their evil stepmothers/sisters hate them) is because they’re prettier and more skilful and kinder and more obedient etc. etc. etc. And… no. Because the best and most likeable things about these girls (who do some pretty awesome sh*t) is that they are brave, determined and loyal to a f***ing fault.

There’s a reason that East of the Sun is my favourite, because however stockholm syndrome-y, however much it blames her lack of obedience and however much she wins by… cleaning, I will never not love the recurring motif. “Are you afraid?” “No.” Of course she afraid, she’s being taken to the castle of a polar bear in the arctic or is about to ride the North wind, but she’s not about to tell anyone that or let it stop her. Courage is what I took away from Baba Yaga, East of the Sun, Jack Frost and The Little Scarlet Flower, not being submissive (though that was definitely an aspect).

Which is why fairytales are better when you look at what their characters do and not what we’re told about them. (Emphasis by InkGypsy)

 See why I had to share?

Having been largely absent online the past year I'm out of the loop with regard to how Tumblr accounts really work so the best I can do with credit is to send you to the page I found HERE. Clicking on atticus-finches sends you to an eclectic blog in which, if you like art and art history, you should find some fun little posts

The beautiful art dolls and sculpture are by the amazing Forest Rogers whose blog and gallery have me in complete awe. Find yourself a few free minutes to go browse HERE - you can thank me later after you pick your jaw up off the ground. :)

Time Again for Once Upon A Time...

New episodes start again tonight on ABC... in case you'd forgotten... ;)

Image source HERE.

Musings on Maleficent & Green Skin'd Witches

Ever since the first rumor linking Angelina Jolie and the movie Maleficent there have been mock-ups of Ms. Jolie's face in "costume" for the leading role. Now that there's finally a director attached (as announced less than a couple of days ago), no doubt we'll see many more takes on Ms. Jolie as evil-fairy since she remains confirmed for the title role. The fan effort at the head of the post is my favorite version from the pickings at the moment.

I'm actually really looking forward to this movie. Reading Fairest of All: A Tale of the Wicked Queen by Serena Valentino a couple of years ago I was pleasantly surprised to see that Disney was OK with Snow White's Evil Queen getting re-envisioned so thoroughly and so (chillingly) believably. (It's a wonderful, well written and beautiful book - highly recommended!) I also know Ms. Valentino had been considering the angle she would take if she were asked to re-write Disney's Sleeping Beauty from Maleficent's point of view, back when Fairest of All was published, and am curious as to her ideas. I wish she was a consultant for the story development but with Linda Woolverton (who wrote the screenplay for Disney's Beauty & the Beast and co-wrote on The Lion King) at the script's helm it's unlikely. I do know that if real complexities are being written into the role (which is supposed to be the whole point of the movie) that Angelina Jolie without doubt has the acting chops to pull it off and is probably about the right age now to be believable too.

But will they turn her green?

I find it interesting that in the majority of mock-up pictures Ms. Jolie is given the Wicked treatment. If you look at Disney's Sleeping Beauty Maleficent does have a greenness about her skin but I never really thought of her as "green" like the Oz movie's Wicked Witch of the West or Elphaba in Wicked. Instead I assumed she was somewhat pasty from avoiding sunshine (and all other good things), from messing around with vile substances and potions and that perhaps she had a sense of decay about her as well (I guess zombies are often portrayed as green too but I don't think Maleficent is in the zombie category). I also always thought of Maleficent as a sorcerous fairy rather than a witch as well so why did she get green around the gills* for the Disney animated feature?

Considering Baum never described the Wicked Witch of the West as green and the illustrations for his story never suggested it either, where did this association of witch/evil woman = green come from? Wasn't green always considered a fairy color, no matter which side they were on? Was the decision to make the WWof theW green-skinned based in anything historical to do with witches at all or was it a make-the-most-of-technicolor decision like the changing Baum's silver slippers to ruby was?

Luckily the internet hive mind has some interesting and plausible ideas on this.

From this Wizard of Oz forum HERE:

Regarding your question on Oz message board about origin of green-skinned witches -- I am pretty sure that there are none prior to the 1939 WofO movie. And the reason the movie had one probably has more to do with showing off the capabilities of the technicolor process than with any precedent in folklore. I'd make a guess that there might have been some influence from the discovery (late in the 18th century, with popularity all through the 19th century in dyes for wallpaper, paint, and fabrics) of copper arsenate as a bright green color that was cheap and easy to manufacture. The dye was poisonous, based as it was on arsenic and in a lot of 19th (and early 20th) century fiction you can find references to arsenic green or even just bright green as a poisonous color. There might be a further association of green with poisons and with magic-working because the drink absinthe (notorious in late 19th/early 20th century culture as a poisonous-but-intoxicating-and-poetically-inspiring drink -- the poisonous and the inspirational elements of its reputation seem to have been a good deal exaggerated) usually had enough chlorophyll in its manufacture to come out green in color, and absinthe was nicknamed "la fee verte" (the green fairy -- should have an acute accent-mark on the first e).

And a couple of other ideas that repeat all over the web (with these excerpts being the best summaries that seemed to make at least a good amount of sense - source HERE):

1) The stereotype of the green-faced witch with the crooked nose stems from the so-called "burning times" or the Inquisition. Women were persecuted and beaten severely and tortured to "confess" to witchcraft before being burned, hanged or beheaded. These women were paraded through the town before execution and looked frightful due to the beatings and torture. Their faces were horrible shades of green from the bruises, their noses and teeth were usually broken, among other things. This is the last sight people saw of the accused and "convicted" witch before her death.Pretty messed up, eh?
2) The "green" witch has some roots in Celtic Mythology. Sometimes, witches were depicted with green skin or red hair. Both green and red are colors associated in Celtic tradition with fairies. There has always been a connection between fairies and witches, both being thought of as being not quite of this world. An old description in Britain for a fairy or a human being who was thought to have psychic abilities was "greensleeve" or "green jacket". The association of green with the otherworld was so strong that at one time it was considered unlucky to wear green because it might incur the wrath of the fairies who considered it their own color. 

My two cents (which probably has nothing to do with influencing anything at Disney - or MGM - BUT does tap into fairy tales and myths at large and does pre-date Sleeping Beauty by a number of years) is to mention C.S. Lewis' Lady of the Green Kirtle/ Green Witch/Emerald Witch/Queen of Underland from his Narnia stories with "poison colored skin" (in The Silver Chair) also transforms to a giant snake/dragon-like creature. Considering the source, you know the use of green for this formidable and evil woman is most likely to have been based in mythic traditions. But then maybe he saw The Wizard of Oz too!

The only clear thing seems to be that once MGM released The Wizard of Oz with Dorothy's green-skinned nemesis, green witches began to appear everywhere and anyone green-skinned from then on was almost always equated with "bad". I'm guessing that had at least an unconscious effect on Maleficent's skin color for Disney's Sleeping Beauty and I have to wonder: will a live-action movie be able to pull off a green-skinned Maleficent/Angelina Jolie, will they go for more human tones or will they try something completely different?

(Amazing what one picture will get me thinking!)
__________________________________________________________________________________

*Or did she? This blogger HERE did quite a bit of research trying to determine the real color of Maleficent's skin according to Disney but it turns out if wasn't easy to do.

To confuse the issue a little further, there was a (very!) limited line of cosmetics released by Mac and Disney called Venomous Villains this year in which Maleficent had a whole cosmetic line of her own. See HERE for pictures of all the products and descriptions, along with directions on how the stores should display them, which is fun to look at when you think about it being put on an actual human (including, of course, Ms. Jolie). See HERE for an excellent description of the colors used (about half way down the page for Maleficent). Why am I even bothering telling you this? Because, and here's the quote:

Jennifer Balbier, the vice president of product development for M.A.C Cosmetics, said about the line: "Disney gave us the colors used when these characters were drawn throughout their history."

I pity the make-up designer their job if they have to include all the Disneyland and product data on Maleficent's "official colors" for their final decision.

"The Zen of Oz" Illustrations by Cathy Pavia

As promised, here are Cathy Pavia's illustrations for the book The Zen of Oz: Ten Spiritual Lessons from Over the Rainbow by Joey Green. I was so pleased to find these, especially as it was completely by chance (I don't usually research Wizard of Oz material). This book is not new - just new to me. I had heard of it but it was published during a trend of the Zen of "insert character/famous story/person here" so it barely blipped my radar. I obviously didn't see the illustrations back then though, so I'm sharing in case you, like me, heard the tile and let it slide on by without taking a look.

I'm showing the images in extra large size so you can better see the gorgeous details as I really don't like the current image viewer blogger uses. You can see them full size if you right-click (or control-click) and choose "view image".

There is this fascinating tidbit of information in a review on Amazon, from someone who visited Baum's great-grandson and had a discussion about The Wizard of Oz and specifically this book The Zen of Oz:

On one of my recent journeys through the Land of Oz, the Ozarks, I visited with my friend Roger S. Baum, the great-grandson of L. Frank Baum-the author of the "Wizard of Oz". I asked him what he thought about the theory of his great-grandfather being a Zen Master. He admitted he really didn't know. That he hadn't read "The Zen of Oz". That it has been his experience that such things were only done by people that saw an opportunity to make money off Great Grandfather's work. After I explained the gist of Joey Green's premise I did notice a slow smile take over Roger's face. He was intrigued. Though he would not corroborate Joey's claims he did state that Great Grandfather would probably not turn over in his grave if he knew about "The Zen of Oz". The one caveat Roger then mentioned was that first and foremost the Oz Series is a collection of fantasies for the young at heart. Meant to be taken with sincerity but not too seriously. The rest of our conversation was private.  

I have not read this book and this is not my review of the content - just an appreciation of the artwork which is done in Japanese print block style so beautifully and a sharing of an extra dimension I found to Baum's work and thinking. 

In case you're interested, here's the official book blurb:

Does The Wizard of Oz touch a spiritual chord in each one of us because it has a certain Zen to it? Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, is clearly a Zen Master. She sets Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road to spiritual enlightenment. When Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion let go of their conscious yearning and free their minds to function spontaneously and inharmony with the cosmos, brains, heart, and courage flow easily and effortlessly. Ultimately, Dorothy attains satori, the Zen experience of "awakening." She finds her true Self, her higher consciousness, her ultimate Oneness with the cosmos--and her home.

The Amazon link for the book is HERE.

I really liked the cultural variation on such familiar scenes. It really did add to the whole experience and made me think about the story in a fresh way for the first time in quite a while. Always a good thing!

Cathy Pavia's portfolio and website are HERE.

Illustrations by Rosie Lauren Smith

East of Sun West of Moon

These beautiful illustrations you see here are by Rosie Lauren Smith, yet another artist I found through deviantArt this year. I then realized I had also seen her work in New Fairy Tales Magazine as well.

Fairy Ouroboros

Into the Woods 

Mabon 

The Fire Boy (for New Fairy Tales Magazine) 

The Red Bird (for New Fairy Tales Magazine)

The Snow Children (for New Fairy Tales Magazine)

Troll Princess (older work done in the style of John Bauer)

My favorite would have to be the East of Sun West of Moon illustration. Beautiful.

Rosie Lauren Smith has a lovely blog HERE and her deviantArt gallery is HERE.

New Fairy Tales Magazine - which is always recommended, despite being on hiatus during 2011 - can still be found HERE. Ms. Sith's illustrations are featured in Issue 6 (current issue as of this writing) for the story The River of the Fire of Life by Francesca Forrest.

Chinese Goldilocks'

"Ingvard the Terrible"

There's an artist I recently discovered whose style I just love. He is "Ingvard the Terrible! (Illustrator-Warrior-Dude)", also known as Sean Ashby.

 He's interested in creating different-and usually-funny takes on the familiar, which I love and appreciate greatly. Among them is this Chinese Goldilocks-using-pandas idea. Although it LOOKS like a book, don't get your hopes up just yet. He'd love to illustrate the story in this vein but needs a writer savvy in Chinese history who also knows how to sell it to a publisher first. This image is actually a composited version of his illustration in a live background - just for fun. I really hope someone gets him the gig!

His wonderful blog is HERE and includes this awesome link list of books for boys.

This also recently appeared on my illustration radar and as it's the same concept, done entirely differently, I thought I'd include it here.

Billy Nuñez

I gather the artist, Billy Nuñez, is a student and this was done for an assignment. While I'm definitely drawn to it, it sort of feels like the first draft of a great idea. Personally I'd like to see a little more tension in the scene so it tells more of a story (including the "what if" factor), even if it were only to add some "waft" from steaming rice or special pancakes and a slightly more dynamic pose for the girl (that is, a stronger pose suggestive of thought and possible action). I like where it's going though and I'd love to see a reworked version. Mr. Nuñez's gallery is HERE.

On the subject of Goldilocks and pandas, there is also a fairly new ebook called The Three Pandas by Valerie Mih: an "interactive animated tickle book for the iPad".

Here's the blurb:

A modern take on "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" features a charming style of animation and a lovable family of pandas.  

The Panda Family takes a break from its breakfast of bamboo leaf porridge to take a walk in the bamboo forest. While they're gone, a young girl named Mei Mei walks through the familiar home-intrusion routine that most children will recognize. She finds Baby Panda's porridge to her liking, deems his chair most comfortable (but not before breaking it) and ends up in his cozy bed. What could have been a lazy retread with pandas and a distinct Chinese influence is instead made fresh with the app's animations, which combine photo collages, a live-action actress portraying Mei Mei (in a red dress and black Mary Janes) and movement for the pandas when the reader "tickles" each of them, as the app advises. The app can be experienced in English and Chinese (in both the text and optional narration), and a portion of the proceeds from each app sale goes to Pandas International, which has partnered with the publisher. Except for two letters that are exchanged at the end bringing the pandas and Mei Mei back together for a happy ending, the story is not much different from what readers expect from a "Goldilocks" story. 

But the design is clever, and the visuals (along with the unfailingly adorable pandas themselves) make it worth a look. (iPad storybook app. 2-7)

It looks cute and nicely done overall, though I haven't seen it in person. Appears perfect for little kids to enjoy and learn from.


Here's one more illustration by Cathy Pavia, this time with Goldilocks having "goldy" locks. It's not my favorite of her work - I like her The Zen of Oz illustrations a lot (check for a blog post showing those soon) - but I thought I'd include it since we're on the topic and it's sort of surprising there aren't many more panda variations on Goldilocks.

Cathy Pavia

"Tangled Ever After" Official Preview (& My Unofficial "Tangled" the Movie Review)

WARNING: Opinion ahead.*

We're in the run-up to Disney's Beauty & the Beast 3D and the Tangled sequel, Tangled Ever After. This time next week (January 13, 2012) the Beauty & the Beast remastered-and-tweaked feature will be in playing theaters with Tangled Ever After showing at the start.

I feel a little odd posting this video, I must admit. There's really nothing left to relate it to Rapunzel.. we could always stretch the idea and say the gigantic train is supposed to remind us that she was stuck with crazy-long enchanted hair until recently but... yeah.

There's a second video here - (warning: quality is not great) - and in between shots of the hosts we see glimpses of the mayhem to come.

Reminds me of Louis the Chef trying to make delicacies out of Sebastian in Disney's The Little Mermaid.

I didn't ever blog what I thought of Tangled and I'm probably not ever going to write a proper review (or recommend it to anyone who likes fairy tales or a well told story, although it's very pretty, the horse was inspired and the "Art Of" book is great) but one of the disappointments for me was that this pair...

... seem very different from this pair...

... which is a real pity since I was hoping for the far more layered characters promised on the initial Rapunzel-slash-Tangled (yes, I wrote it that way on purpose) teaser poster. Any layering they had in Tangled seems totally absent in Ever After but unfortunately I'm no longer surprised at that.

It IS nice to see Maximus again (who was the whole reason I actually made it through the feature), though it appears his crafty savviness, which stayed almost completely intact through the movie, has now drunk whatever Kool Aid is being served at the castle. Sigh.

By the way, did you ever see this? The Japanese poster for Tangled also promised great fairy tale things. Somehow, after all my disappointments, I still want to see "that" movie (as long as Maximus stays in it).

Oh - and I read a rumor there is a plan for a 3rd Tangled movie (this short one being the 2nd). All I can think of is a toddler with max-locks having multiple mishaps being babysat by a horse and a chameleon. I just have one thing to say: "Nooooooooooo!"

*I don't mean any disrespect to the people who worked hard on the film or those who loved the movie. I just... didn't like it. I thought it had much more potential, considering the story source. The art is beautiful - no question about it (although the distractingly huge size of Rapunzel's eyes obviously left no room in her head for much in the way of brain matter) - and the techniques developed, and ultimately used for the film, were incredible (really and truly amazing stuff!). I simply find all those achievements hard to appreciate in the middle of a mangled mess of storytelling. Sorry. 

Theater: The Stinky Cheese Man And Other Fairly Stupid Tales

This isn't a brand new production but I thought it was worth a mention since it's playing to lucky Connecticut audiences, starting January 29th.

  In “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales,” Jack must use his wits to save himself from the terrible Giant, but a host of familiar fairytale characters keep messing up his plans---and then there's that annoying Stinky Cheese Man! Very different from the traditional fairy tale, characters slide in and out of familiar stories. Cinderella rebuffs Rumpelstiltskin, and Goldilocks meets the Three Elephants. Nothing is quite the same as the audience remembers it. Recommended for ages 4 to 10, the show is produced by the Griffin Theatre Company, based on the book by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith.


If you're not familiar with the Caldecott Honor book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales do yourself a favor and go get a copy right now! Highly recommended and so much fun to read no matter what age you are.

Theater: "How To Survive A Fairy Tale"

How To Survive A Fairy Tale Poster design by Eamonn Donnelly 

Note: Please excuse any weird layout and formatting issues. I'm having difficulties getting the fonts, their colors and the image anchors to stick.

If you were dropped into the middle of a fairy tale, how would you survive? What if you had never been allowed to read them?

Inspired by Neil Gaiman's Instructions, Lifeline Theater's Jim Grote (Click, Clack Moo: Cows That Type, Dooby Dooby Moo and Duck for President created with composer/lyricist George Howe) has written a new non-musical family play that I hope will not only have a long run but become popular and be performed by other theaters everywhere.

 

“How to Survive a Fairy Tale” is about a kid named Jack whose parents are a princess and a frog. Because their fairy tale did not turn out as it should have, they shield Jack from fairy tales. Although well-read — the family library contains tomes on all manner of subjects — Jack knows nothing about fairy tales. In his home they are verboten.

One night Jack’s parents go out and a book that Jack has never seen before beckons to him from the bookshelf. As Jack reaches for the book it bonks him on the head, sending him into a deep sleep. He awakens in a forest in the middle of the “Red Riding Hood” saga. The play evolves into a madcap romp through fractured versions of “The Three Bears,” “Three Billy Goats Gruff” & “Hansel and Gretel.” Jack learns a survival tip or two in each fairy tale, & in the end those tips allow him to solve his parents’ dilemma.

 "It (Gaiman's "Instructions") just kind of got the wheels going in my head,” Grote said. He thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting if you had a kid who had no knowledge of fairy tales and was suddenly thrust into that world and how would he deal with it?”

You can read the rest of the article HERE and see the main website for the play HERE.

There's a nice blog entry HERE by the artist who did the poster for "How To Survive A Fairy Tale" in which he talks about being inspired by Bill Willingham's Fables graphic novels and by Arthur Rackham's color palettes. I really like the Fables nod and hope teachers, parents and students will see the poster and make the connection that fairy tales are not just for kids. 

So many "fairy tale theater" productions have this (awful) amateur feel to them (argh!) and add to the idea that fairy tales shouldn't be taken seriously by thinking adults. The notion that any fairy tale not playing on Broadway (or in a Disney World/Land) or staged by a world class opera or ballet company just isn't worth seeing (or spending your hard-earned money on) is both incorrect and sad.

Hopefully, both the production of How To Survive A Fairy Tale, the presentation via the Fables-esque poster, the acknowledged inspiration of Neil Gaiman's Instructions (I wonder if Mr. Gaiman is aware of this?) and the reportedly smart and layered writing of the show gives people a reason to reconsider this.

There is a short preview clip at the bottom of the website page HERE (that I wish had much better production value for many reasons!) in which you can see the tone the play takes - one that's clearly aimed at younger children but doesn't (appear to) talk down to them. It's a hard balance to achieve and is the reason successful family plays and musicals, such as Once Upon A Mattress remain rare but popular. While How To Survive A Fairy Tale isn't really in that league, especially as it was written with a specifically very audience in mind, I do wish Lifeline the best with what promises to be a great play.

Now if only I could go see it!

In the meantime, I'll have to go re-read Instructions again... and again...

How To Survive A Fairy Tale, performed by Lifeline Theater, opens at their Rogers Park venue in Chicago IL on January 7th and runs through February 26th. Visit their website HERE for booking information and more.