man-cub takes to the jungle.
inspired by mowgli.
“man-cub takes to the jungle.”
faerie tale feet piece inspired by rudyard kipling's the jungle book and other mowgli stories.
the first male character painted in the faerie tale feet series was mowgli from rudyard kipling’s the jungle book and all of his published mowgli stories. featuring all of our favourite jungle friends, plus a few you may not know unless you read the book & didn’t just watch the delightful jazz romp disney produced. : )
mowgli hangs from a rope indicative of indian temple carvings- the ruins of which bagheera, baloo, & kaa saved him from the monkeys’ kidnapping.
have a look at the painting process below and then i'll let you know what story icons are hanging out in the background.
after reading all of kipling’s mowgli stories and “the jungle book” and taking copious notes, i get to start sketching icons to use for the background pattern. here you’re seeing my experimental sketches for sahi the porcupine, bagheera, and hathi the wild elephant.
once i’ve decided on my icon sketches to use, i start tracing them to fill in the background pattern until it’s full.
i transfer the final pattern to illustration board (retracing over it with transfer paper in-between the tracing paper and the board), and start to fill in the background with gouache.
you can see the background filling in as i paint around all the icons…. the one part of the process that takes upwards of 5 to 7 hours in one sitting to get that one solid color down while it’s wet and mobile and will be nice & flat and consistent.
once the background is done, i paint in each icon its own colour of gouache. baloo is the blue bear you see, and i painted hathi the wild elephant a bright pink, sticking with traditional indian art colour schemes.
the background is almost done…
the rope i put mowgli hanging from is actually temple bells– integral to his adventures. but in real life, probably not the most comfy to hang by your ankles from. but that’s why it’s art!
included story iconography:
mang the bat
the elephants
bagheera
sahi the porcupine (my fave line from the book: “sahi is full of stories half heard & very badly told”)
the red flower (fire)
shere khan (represented by a tiger mask like farmers wear on the back of their heads in the fields to scare off real tigers)
mother wolf
baloo
the monkey-folk….
all here to give you the sense of jungle adventure and to cheer mowgli on as he decides between the jungle he knows and perhaps where he ends up. “but that is a story for grown-ups,” as kipling concludes.
original gouache painting (11×11″) framed to 19″ square is available for $475 + $40 for safe US shipping. contact me.