Illustration Friday: Myth

Another nixie! I didn't really mean to go back to drawing fish-ladies but I've been reading Philippa Gregory's Cousins' War books featuring the family of Jacquetta of Luxembourg -  rumoured to be descended from the water fairy Melusina. Hence this week's Illustration Friday topic, myth, making me think of her.

Melusina tends to be depicted with two tails, rather than the single traditional mermaidy one, so I decided they could well be a bit foot-shaped at the end...  She was probably also the inspiration for the original Starbuck's logo.

Final Nixie

The third and final nixie, having a bit of a sit down after being defeated by the slippery glass mountain.

Radio 4 informed me this morning that Philip Pullman has produced a book retelling the Grimms' fairy tales, and Amazon tells me that one of them is called 'The Nixie of the Millpond'. I might have to go and investigate...

Another Nixie

I've abandoned Illustration Friday for one week only as I got a bit focused on the Nixie from last week and decided to do a couple more illustrations for other parts of the story. Cunningly, this will also count as one of my projects for the course I'm currently doing.

So, here's that Nixie again, about to encounter the brush mountain.

Illustration Friday: Water

This week's topic is water.

When I was small, the most terrifying thing in my tiny world was a picture of a water nixie in a book of fairy tales. So terrifyin,g in fact, that I had to paperclip the pages together so I wouldn't accidentally see it.

In a possible attempt to appease my inner child, I decided to use this week's IF to create a slightly less horrifying water nixie.

And, brace yourselves, here is the original nightmare-inspiring illustration. I think it may have been the shoes that I found particularly alarming.