Alice's Forbidden Forrest, the story

It was very late
And Alice was gοing to bed.
She had a very tiring day
Trying to get away
From that bizarre Wonderland.
She creates in her mind eveyday
She was glad that all was done,
and had found herself back.
But tonight, her spirit, restless as it was, could not settle
Into a nice night’s sleep.

She moved around and changed sides.
She even counted ships in her sleep.
But nothing seemed to work.
She opened her eyes and looked at the time,
It was past twelve and still couldn’t sleep.

Then a sound was on the air, unsimilar to any other night sound she ever heard before,
She headed down the stairs and heard that sound again:
“Who’s there?”
No one answered, but a light wind instead whispered in her ear:
“Come with me”
“Come with me”

She wasn’t sure what to do
For her mummy every night strictly says:
“Stay in bed. Bad people and sneaky monsters come out at night, waiting to take you away”
“Come with me” the soft wind whispered once again in her ear.
She was not sure, but she was one curious little child. A very curious one indeed.

Quietly she followed the soft wind and went out the back door.
She looked at the tall grass and the old house, but nothing seemed to be there.
She lay in the grass and stared at the starry sky.

A firefly was playing “catch me if you can “ round her head,
Cheerfully, challenging.
She tried to catch it but she was too slow to even touch it.
She whipped and wishd she could fly like it.
Strangely enough the firefly stopped.

But as it stopped, all around Alice started growing taller. Or was she getting smaller?
She found herself surrounded by a grass jungle, lost.
She looked around, nothing seemed the same but the starry sky.

Then a new sensation filled her heart,
As she discovered on her back
A lovely pair of butterfly wings.

Alice walked around, jumped up and down playing with her new pair of wings.
Along her game she heard the sound once again.

She climbed a rock to find where it came from
Instead she saw, at the opposite side, there was a huge sitting frog.
“My, my, what a beautiful butterfly you are my little one.
I’m old and I’ve got fuzzy eyes. Come closer so I can see your beauty better”

Alice sat on her rock and took a long look at this peculiar frog.
“Nanny said frogs eat the little hasty butterflies who believe their fluttering words. I’d rather stay here where I am. Or better still, I shall leave you and keep enjoying my game with my lovely new wings”
“Lovely new wings erh did you say? My, my, you must be a new fairy child, and not a common butterfly. My apologies, my young fairy lady. As I said, I am old and my eyes are playing tricks with me. You have you’re whole life yet to come.
But be aware! Fairy children, pure as you, should be very careful. For since you go to the forest, you shall never to return home!”
Alice said a “thank you” for the old frog’s advice, but felt afraid and went as far away she could.

She continued to hop up ‘n down,
On rocks and ground
Flying round, feeling so proud

But soon enough she go tired and sat to rest.
As she rested, that sound reached her ears once again.

Her curiosity, growing bigger and bigger made her forget
The words and advice given to her before .
She stood outside the forest.
Her wings trembled to go in there but she was s curious indeed
She bravely entered the forbidden forest.

It was so different and dark.
All trees grew taller, covering every single star.

After she climbed a root, she was in a mushroom forest.
There were big and small, fancy and dull

As she walked through them, a little voice called up to her.
“Where are you off to little fairy child? A pretty creature like yourself should not wander in such a place like this.”

Alice looked up. A big spider was sitting on a mushroom head,
Looking down at her
With a big smile that filled her whole head.

“I am only following a sound..”
“Aaah...the sound...” she said with a smile now bigger than her face.
“I cannot hear it myself
But many children like yourself
Passed by searching for this sound.
If you want to find the source of the sound you should go this way,”
“Why should I trust you? You re a spider and spiders are not creatures to be trusted. Nanny said so.”
“Oh, you hurt me deeply now. I am merely an old-crooked spider with no teeth. I can only taste the lovely flesh of the little lost flies, not children like yourself. You are not for me. I have no reason to lie to you. I have no interest. I only tried to help you purely out of good will.
But you look like a good kid- I like you and I’ll give you a wise piece of advice. Go back while you still can. Hihihihiii...” the spider laughed hysterically.

Alice terrified ran away, but she did not see where she was heading to.
She found herself lost, wandering between
haunted trees and weathered roots.
She could not stop feeling as if she was being watched.
She looked around but there was nothing she could see.
She stopped.
She was cold and alone.
She was scared and kept feeling she was being watched.

Ready to give up, the sound came into her ears again. Louder than ever.
Her heart patted so fast it would burst out of her chest.

She ran and ran. She climbed dangerous cliffs.
Her dress turned shabby, her wings were torn, her hands and legs bled.

She reached the top and there it was!
Finally, the Source!

Oh, how beautiful it was
A flower nothing like the others, like nothing she had seen before!
It shone as a star, it warmed as a hug, red as fire. And the sound louder than ever, made perfect sense,
With the beauty of the Source!

Alice overwhelmed, just stood there and watched.
Watched and watched. She forgot everyone and everything. She even forgot who she was.
She only saw the Source.

Days came, nights passed, but nothing made any effect
On her.
She just stared at the Flower, astonished and overwhelmed.

She never realised, as time passed, that she was turning herself into one with the other tree statues around
Who seemed to be watching, themselves, the flower.

A flame-colour bird who always watched day after day (all the lost children that passed by in searched for that sound) sang for her:
“..building its own fairy world
Step by step
The roots will take over the little child
For ever last
From what used to be its home..”

Some more experimentation..

I finally decided that for my children's book story will be Alice's Forbidden forest. I thought of having as a drawing signature the trees with the element of haunted. So, i went into experimenting with different techinques and materials, mostly inks and photocopies, to creat the element of "haunted" and clistophobia and base on this the structure of the "forbiden forrest".
I must admit that i was more pleased with the rough experimentations rather than the "final" piece i produced. The roughts reserve the more sketch-y and detailed character and the wash ups just add to the drawing while the "final" feels sort of heavy, busy and the detail pattern i wanted to have as an element is almost lost because the image is so dark. Nevertheless, this was an experiment henceforth learn from it.
I focused more on actual material experimentation rather on photosho so here i includedd just the photoshop experiments which pretty much this is what they are- and there basically are jsut colouring experimentations.

Note: for some reason my pc doesnt upload correctly the images. i tried to change it but it s beyond my understanding, since when i open the image is with its proper colours. so the images belown are not quite excactly how they really look like their colours..

Birds

After a chain of events, i was inspired and in a mood to experiment. I had a general idea that i wanted to experiment with copies and wash-ups/watercolours.
After a brief research i decided i wanted to use as main theme different kinds of birds and i would focus more on experimenting with colours rather than creating a character or a theme for my coming-up children's book. Also, i wanted to exercise a bit myself into more freestyle colouring, along with the pleasure of "playing" with my inks.
I m quite pleased with the results as they are simple, experimentation sketches that have a nice effect.

Note: the quality is not that good as my scanner's not that good and the lighting wasn't helping me to take good photos of them.

Alice's Forbidden Forrest

Artist's Book:3 different layouts

My mushrooms!

Last year's self appointed project.
At some point last year, i realised how beautiful mushrooms are in terms of shape and movement. Lucky coincendence at the same time it happened that some mushrooms grew were i was staying. As soon as i discovered them i grabed my camera and started shooting.
After i went back to my room and saw the results, i was very inspired and sketched/drew on a blank A2 i happened to have.
The result: The Mushroom Fairies: bound to their nature, they live forever in the mushrooms, unable ever to escape from them.

Note:this was first drawn roughly with pencil and then with drawing pens of .8, .5 and .3

Summer's Project: Sorry Grandma i Killed Your Cat

P.S. Sorry Grandma i Killed Your Cat is a self-appointed project i was working on during August. It was the result of previous (re)search on portraits of elderly people (i always found fascinating how wrinkles turn someone's face into a labyrinth of details and hidden stories) and the influences i had from a local animation festival during that month.
The concept of the project was to be sarcastic-funny about how younger generation is misbehaving towards elderly people.
I used the idea of the stereotypic imagery we have of elder grandmothers: neglected their biological family, they turn to their cats, the only creatures that keep them company.
P.S. Sorry Grandma i Killed Your Cat is the insensitive, cold and impersonal note left by the grandchild to inform its grandmother her loss.
The imagery of the project was focused mostly on the tragic character of the victim, the cat, who s also sort of used (by me) to show this of the grandchild to its grandmother. Interpreting it as in more simplistic/symbolism icon, its character still gives a rather dark, mortal impression. A few of the sketches i drew were to give the struggle of the cat to its last moments while ironically it can see the note left for the grandma. I played with a few surrealistic elements (tho the sketches themselves were not) and the little nameless creatures i created, which are those who tease the ones who are about to die as they are the only ones able to see them.
I named my blog after this project, because this specific one was a turnover of my drawing style and the materials i use. Since this project i find myself working more with details and the usage of black-n-white-with-another-colour contradiction.

Over the development of the project, i expanded it creating different, irrelevant to the subject characters n sketches which had the same drawing style and line. This created a link between the actual project and the work that was influence from it forming a chain of drawing-style related drawings-something i had not work before in such a scale.

Children's Book Sketch

My recent big disappointment.
I really liked this drawing up until i put colour and i spoiled it. The one thing i regret is that i didnt scan it before actually colouring it. Heh, guess colour is one of my wicknesses as i havent work with it for quite a long time.
Anw..this is just the intro page for my sketchbook for the project i am working on now, children s book, which i m still on the idea-producing stage.

Last year's photos: Personal Project:Beautiful People

A project i decided take my own just before we take a trip to london. Didnt get far for varius reasons tho i m thinkin taking it up and continue with it aside.