a royal nap.
inspired by the sleeping beauty.
"a royal nap."
faerie tale feet piece inspired perrault’s french fairy tale, “la belle au bois dormant” (transl. “the beauty of the sleeping forest”), but you probably know her as “the sleeping beauty.”
it’s a tale of a king and queen who wish for a child, a frog prophesies to the queen (while she’s bathing in a pond, i guess) that they’ll have their wish within the year, the king invites the twelve fairies of the kingdom to the banquet, accidentally snubbing the thirteenth, so she curses the child to prick her finger on a spindle on or around her fifteenth birthday. the good fairy who hadn’t bestowed her gift yet can’t reverse the curse, but changes “death” to “the sleep of a hundred years, to be awakened by a valiant prince.” so despite the king’s destruction of all the spinning wheels in the kingdom, briar rose finds one when her parents are out of town, and inevitably pricks herself becase she doesn’t know what it is or how it works. the good fairy is summoned (by a dwarf with seven-league boots, so he can get to her faster), and she arrives by her fiery dragon chariot to put the rest of the kingdom to sleep so briar rose won’t be alone when she wakes up. rumors of the overgrown kingdom stir, and a hundred years later, a brave prince is granted passage through the deathly briars as the hundred years have expired and it’s time for our beauty to awaken. he finds her in a fine bed of gold and silver, and awakens her with the right kind of kiss. despite her old-fashioned clothes, she’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, they fall in love, get married, and per tradition, live happily ever after.
have a look at the painting process below!
sleeping beauty has been illustrated beautifully for centuries… so i started sketching, too.
set up a “shadow box” to get the shadow lines how i wanted across her “napping” form.
here’s the final pieced-together drawing for “a royal nap.” first faerie tale feet piece that wasn’t square!
laying in light layers {again, new for faerie tale feet– i used to only do them in solid, opaque, vibrant gouache.}
added “briar rose”s to the yellow wallpaper and starting to fill in the stained glass window with the story icons…
lots of bright layers for the window…
window’s done! on to the feet and spinning wheel shadows and detail…
ta da! thankfully, after posting on social media, a wise sage of a faerie tale friend pointed out the spindle was missing. kinda integral to the plot. so it got added before framing at least…
the final limited edition print. hey look! the spindle made it! huzzah!
original painting has SOLD, but you can contact me for a list of available faerie tale feet pieces.