might i have a bit of earth?
inspired by frances hodgson burnett’s the secret garden.
“might i have a bit of earth?”
faerie tale feet gouache & ink painting inspired by frances hodgson burnett’s the secret garden.
“of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen.”
i knew my faerie tale feet series needed a secret garden piece. and it’d been stewing around in my mind for years. until i finally re-read it. and re-read it again. and read the annotated version (seen above next to my childhood copy!) and of course it still turned out differently than i had envisioned it. which means there is always room for a garden to grow. again.
upon my re-read, you see the brilliance more clearly. the kids don’t seem as annoying. and the connections and foreshadowing that were impossible to see without 20/20 vision are evident and blissfully woven through frances hodgson burnett’s tale.
burnett never wrote anything that was rejected by a publisher. and while her own health and family life suffered for her frenetic writing habits, we are left with this gift of literature.
she teaches us the mystical power of nature and growth to revive the soul, cure depression, give hope, and teach our hearts to live, even amidst the painful losses and memories.
i appreciate the unconscious references to jane eyre & wuthering heights (we are what we read, no?), and i still find the funniest bit to be when mary and colin are pretending that he’s still sick and feeble and is ordering the house staff around from his wheelchair. :)
“as long as you have a garden, you have a future, and as long as you have a future you are alive.”
~in the garden, by frances hodgson burnett.
have a look at my painting process below and then i’ll share all the story symbolism i included in this piece and some favourite quotes from the book, too!
the book: here is my well-worn 30+ yr old copy of THE SECRET GARDEN! (which i re-read nearly as often as i did MANDY by julie (andrews!) edwards.
the icons: after numerous re-reads and reference-gathering, i decide on the story icons that shall tell our tale the best in our background pattern. so i trace the best legible silhouettes out of my sketchbook.
the pattern drawing: after deciding on my composition and layout, i’ll photocopy my story icons at various %s to get them to scale. and i’ll retrace those to fill in our pattern.
creating the pattern: so here i am, by hand, of course (because doing things the hard way is the only way i know how), retracing those story icons copied from my sketchbook to fill in our background pattern drawing.
transfer the drawing: when our pattern and drawing are complete, i’ll use a bit of graphite paper. placing it in between the drawing and my illustration board, i’ll re-trace every line again so that i’ll get grey lines down on my illustration board (like a coloring book) so i know where to paint inside the lines. :)
background colour first! my first painting step is to paint the WHOLE background color in one sitting. (i’m painting with gouache, so best to use it when it’s wet for consistent colour coverage.) painting around every iconic story shape typically takes between 5-7 hours depending on the complexity and icon size!
background paint: so here’s my background (pink! mixed from those four tubes of gouache you see in the bottom left-hand corner there!) painted around all those story icons. i don’t usually plan ahead (ever), so this is kind of the jumping off point for our colour scheme.
story icons: and then one by one, we mix a new paint colour for each shape, filling them in as we go.
so the teapots get their own colour. the fox gets his own colour, etc. etc…
& we keep painting: so many new colours of gouache mixed for each and every shape! and sometime more than one colour per story icon. :)
nearly there! the background pattern has been filled in. and now we paint the dirt and the grass and the rose tree… and of course our faerie tale feet!
finis! so here’s the NEAR-FinaL painting! shoes and earth ready to be stepped into. (but i still need to remove that edge tape. it’ll look so much better soon!)
included story iconography:
mrs. medlock’s bonnet (with purple silk flowers!)
the robin
the garden key
captain, dickon’s fox cub. (he’s surrounded by 7 different animals at any given time!)
ben weatherstaff’s spade and shovel (also the tools dickon brings to mary)
soot, dickon’s crow
the jumprope, a gift from martha’s mother
seed packets (with a variety of the 19+ flowers mentioned as being in the garden!)
ivory elephants (mary begins her story in india)
tea pot (the garden picnics)
gold pen (uncle archibald craven’s gift to mary)
basket (susan sowerby’s means of fattening up the kids)
and of course there’s mary’s shoes (pretending to be a prim & proper little lady when not in the secret garden) and a rose bush ready to be planted (definite significance for colin’s family)
i think that’s it, but let me know if you find more! ;D
the original painting is available! contact me for faerie tale feet pieces still available for collecting! :)
bonus memorable quotes from the book and our author:
“it seemed almost like being shut out of the world in some fairy place. the few books she had read and liked had been fairy-story books, and she had read of secret gardens in some of the stories.”
“don’t let us make it tidy,” said mary anxiously. “it wouldn’t seem like a secret garden if it was tidy.”
“is there anything you want?” as if a sudden thought had struck him. “do you want toys, books, dolls?”
”might i,” quavered mary, “might i have a bit of earth?”“you are real, aren’t you?” he said. “i have such real dreams very often. you might be one of them.”
“i should not mind fresh air in a secret garden.”
“i’ve seen the spring now and i’m going to see the summer. i’m going to see everything grow here. i’m going to grow here myself.”
of course there must be lots of Magic in the world,” he said wisely one day, “but people don’t know what it is like or how to make it. perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen.”
“i will try to find the key,” he said. “i will try to open the door. i must— though i don’t know why.”
“Magic is the bringing about of unbelievable things through an obstinate faith that nothing is too good to be true.” ~FHB
“as long as you have a garden you have a future, and as long as you have a future you are alive.” ~FHB