Pea is for Princess.
inspired by “the princess & the pea.”
"Pea is for Princess."
inspired by "the princess and the pea" by hans christian andersen.
what i love about this fairy tale is that in the original, the prince has set out to find a TRUE princess. and the queen concocts this crazy test-- a tiny pea underneath 20 mattresses and 20 quilts to prove the gal's "delicacy." if she's sensitive enough to feel the pea, she Must be a true princess.
in all the visual retellings (liza minnelli in faerie tale theatre, or broadway’s once upon a mattress, for example), she's a total tomboy. and still the only one who passes the delicacy test! i love it. because princesses come in all shapes and sizes, all personalities, and can come into the castle in the midst of any kind of storm!
have a peek at my process below and then i'll tell you a few more story details beneath all the pictures. :)
i have vivid memories of this storybook as a kid, and was very pleased to get my hands on a copy. i love the silly animals and the subtle colors over the drawings. it's a classic for a reason. and i always let myself collect as many versions of the story i'm working on as i can find for inspiration. and really, it's just a great excuse to expand my fairy tale shelves!
my nerdtastic*bff (er, cousin-in-law) once again came to the rescue and let me take some reference photos of her climbing a ladder (braver than vertigo-me!) to get the movement right for my final sketch. i also used her beautiful kitty mertz to style our own curious kitty.
here's in-progress of early thumbnails and sketches, compiling my notes, and editing what i want to keep in the picture. (things that got left out: feathers flying out and down around the mattresses. and i put the mouse with a (the?!) pea in the windowsill instead of squishing him between mattress layers.
here's the final drawing to final scale- 11 x 14" about to be transferred down on to watercolour paper.
once i'd transferred my image (re-traced it down to the watercolour paper using transfer paper in-between the drawing and the final paper), i got to start my favourite bit: painting! you'll also see a little sheen in the puddles around the princess' boots. i used some masking fluid for raindrops in the windows, the kitty whiskers, and said puddle so that after all my painting, i'd have clean white-of-the-paper patches in those spots!
layers and layers of colors for each mattress pattern. patience waiting for the wet, thin gouache layers to soak in before adding more shapes or stripes was my challenge! otherwise all those edges would run. :/
once i'd painted all the mattresses, i painted the background wall, the stormy night outside the window, and the rug under the kitty....
and hours and hours and hours later (some of which were equally stormy!), here is our final painting! lots of layers of colours. lots of details. lots of peering through my magnifying lamp and controlling teeny tiny brush strokes!
and here was the final stack of books and media i referenced for creating this faerie tale feet piece. the original tale, in various translations, lots of illustrated children's books, more fairy tale collections, and even the original broadway cast recording of "once upon a mattress" starring a very young carol burnett in 1959!
about the story research for this painting:
the faerie tale classic theatre episode (starring liza minnelli!) was a perpetual childhood favourite (right after "the twelve dancing princesses.") and the broadway show "once upon a mattress" is fantastically quirky and silly and lyrically very funny and sweet.
and i even found some versions of hans christian andersen's theme in other cultures' folk tales- "the most sensitive woman" is an italian fairy tale which features a pulled hair, a wrinkled linen sheet, and then a jasmine blossom bruising a true princess' foot. and from india, "the three delicate wives of king virtue-banner," in which a lotus-petal, moonbeams, and then the most delicate was the one who bruised from just hearing the pestles grinding grain.
all that to say, i hope you get a better night's sleep than these ladies. and can rest well knowing your princess status, and without having to pass such a test. i hope the king lets you in when it's storming outside and you've been wandering the moors. i hope the pea is still in the museum and hasn't been stolen. and if a bewildered, curious kitty does have to watch you climb a ladder to reach the top of an unruly pile of mattresses, i hope you're not scared of heights. or allergic to tiny green vegetables.
original painting has SOLD, but you can contact me for a list of available faerie tale feet pieces.