marie had really seen all those things.
inspired by the nutcracker.
marie had really seen all those things.
faerie tale feet piece inspired by e.t.a. hoffman’s “nutcracker and mouse king”
for ballet or Christmas or theatre enthusiasts, the
icons in the background tell the nutcracker story.
have a look at the painting process below, and then i'll tell you all the hidden story icons in the background!
hey look! it’s my old pointe shoes! i was never a graceful ballerina, but i love the art form. and those pretty pink fantasia hippos and i have much in common. :)
sketch and sketch and sketch… since i’ve been obsessed with the ballet from a very young age, my dancing library is rather extensive. so i had lots of reference material to sketch from while looking for that perfect foot position for this faerie tale feet painting!
after all my story research, i sketch in my sketchbook for the best icons to tell highlights from the tale. and for whatever reason, i made these icon sketches TINY. so the background pattern got really complicated…
after tracing all the icons to fill in the tracing paper, i re-transferred the background pattern onto the illustration board with graphite paper.
again- why are they so tiny?! ;D i started with filling in the background around all the icons with a sturdy, true holiday green shade of gouache i mixed up. (pro tip: never use green gouache straight out of the tube! for whatever reason, it’s all terrible. it will streak. so use those kindergarten color theory lessons and make your own with blue & yellow gouache!)
yes, painting around all of those teeny tiny story icons took ForEvER. and i cannot answer for how i kept those snowflakes so neat. it just kinda happened!
one icon at a time, the background starts to fill in with even more colours! as you may be able to tell from this photo, i’ll mix up one colour per icon. so i mixed a sky blue for all those angels and painted them all in. and then i mixed up the warm grey for the mouse king heads and painted all those….
and lots and lots of color mixing and painting later we’re starting to fill everything in…! i’ll save painting the character’s feet for last.
and the top right corner of the final gouache piece, seen here by the very-late-at-nite drafting table lamp…!
perfect for your budding ballerina or favourite dance teacher, this painting features dancing feet en pointe to celebrate the adventure of a magical fantasy winter wonderland.
included story iconography:
the 7 heads of the mouse king
the silver swans
the marzipan shepherdess
the soldiers’ swords
the grey cat
the cuckoo clock with owl atop
rocking horse
snowflakes
presents
candlestick
soldier
and anything else you can find!
(the keyhole in the top left corner is to symbolize when the kids were peeking through the great big door to see their presents under the great big tree; the bottom right corner is the crown marie receives when she is whisked back and becomes queen for keeps!)
p.s. yes, most ballet productions have “clara” as the lead child ballerina in the tale. in the original novella, her name is marie, the name most modern ballets give to clara’s mother.
the original painting has SOLD, but contact me for faerie tale feet pieces still available for collecting! :)