Look What You Can Do Thanks to Graphics Fairy!

A little while ago, I posted on The Graphics Fairy. I decided to post again, to show the possibilities of the site. As I mentioned in my last post, the site is not dedicated to fairy tales, but it didn't take me long to find a delightfully awkward image from "Beauty and the Beast" on the site.

That wasn't enough, though, because I also wanted to show how, with just a little time and imagination, a seemingly non-fairy tale related image from The Graphics Fairy can be made to tie into a fairy tale. Initially, I cherry picked the fairy tale, "Godfather Death," so the skull image from The Graphics Fairy does not seem so random.

This site is used by students, so I challenged myself to come up with art that at first seems unconnected to any famous fairy tale, to show that thinking and synthesizing images and ideas can lead to creative choices and new thinking. (OK, that is such a teachery thing to say, but what can I do? It's who I am!)

I picked "Sleeping Beauty," as written by Perrault. Most people see the story as a "prince rescues damsel" story, but in fact, the story is riddled with death. The original curse promises death. The sleep makes Beauty dead to the world. Then, in this version, Beauty is taken into potential early (well, kind of) death because her mother in law wishes to eat her and her children (yes, there are children).

Death! Everywhere! So here's the skull and what I did to it as a potential "Sleeping Beauty" illustration. First, I put a nice, delicate pink frame around it using the matte application in Picnik. After all, "Sleeping Beauty" is associated with pretty roses and youthful prettiness.

Then, I used the focal black and white application to give it that, weird, streaky look -- like a dream skull.

Finally, I used a sticker from Picnik to jazz up the right corner. To remind readers that death and beauty and life and ugliness coexist.

It didn't take long, and it's not that great, given the fact that I am no good at anything art related. But I don't have to be.