This is a sketch I did in the garden a couple of weeks ago in the glorious sun. I found a story online a while ago and it was flapping around in my head. It was called 'Little Swallow'; it is set in China and the main character is called Little Swallow. She is fond of all birds-having been named after a bird herself. One day, Chairman Mao announces that the Sparrows in China must be obliterated as they are a nuisance, fattening themselves on rice from the fields that is to feed the people. And so a sparrow killing spree commences..... Because the Sparrow population decreases the people are then plagued with an influx of mosquitoes and grasshoppers-the insects having not been eaten themselves by the sparrows, and rice crops get ravaged anyhow. I like the story but after reading the first page my personal feeling was that it would make sense to eat some of the sparrows-kill two birds with one stone (excuse the pun),thus keeping the population under control as well as providing a protein-based snack. Well anyway-that's where this image came from.
Vectorised in illustrator (so I play with it lots)
I also liked the idea of the girl 'Little Sparrow' being eaten by mistake or something......or transforming into a bird herself and then getting eaten by her own father, yes I like that idea. It is just an ink sketch at the moment, I quite like the sinister look she has acquired due to me making her eyeless with way too much hair. I have cut it out in photoshop and then I vectorised it in illustrator to give me more freedom but that's about it so far. I have collected some feather images and patterns which I'd like to collage beneath the outline in some way.
Hi, I was searching for "The Man with the horse's head" for the same reasons, the pictures.
ReplyDeleteI also owned and lost the same book and am still searching for it. Other details is that it includes Edmund Dulac artwork and contains the story of The Tinderbox.