The Witch's Treat Truck
A block print illustration and a question about fractured fairy tales
Hi friends,
I considered skipping my newsletter this week because I’ve been busier than usual. Birthdays, birthday cake baking and decorating, a submission deadline, and family visiting from Minnesota have kept things a little nuttier than usual. But I’ve been sending this newsletter out consistently every week for over a year, and I decided that I’m not going to let a little overwhelm stop me now. Especially once I realized I had the perfect topic for today!
Also, as I type this, my sister and her kids are still sleeping.
You may remember me talking about my love of block printing a few weeks back. In that newsletter I mentioned that I was working on block print illustration. That project was for the “How to Fix Your Art” prompt from the School for Visual Storytelling. It was my first time submitting something, and I really like how my project turned out.
This was the prompt: It was a food truck like no other, and her customers loved it.
The idea behind “How to Fix Your Art” is to create an illustration based on the prompt that tells a visual story. How participants interpret the prompt is completely up to them. They can submit the finished illustration, and the folks at SVS Learn will give you feedback on the submissions during a monthly live stream.
Here’s the illustration I submitted:
I’ve been working on a Hansel and Gretel project for a while, so it seemed natural for me to use that as my starting spot for this illustration. I created the basic image with a hand-carved linoleum block, which I printed and scanned into Procreate, then painted digitally. Here’s the scan of the original block print:
It was a lot of work, and I spent too much time sitting, hunched over my desk with carving tools in hand. But I love the result. And I love that I dared to do this and to submit my work for public critique!
What did the SVS Learn folks have to say? They said that they liked the “scratch board look” of the art and that I should lean into that more. They recognized the Hansel and Gretel theme, but suggested that I go further with the story telling to make it more clear. So, I decided to take their advice and make one small change to the digital painting. Here’s the revised version:
It’s a relatively subtle change, but I’m hoping it makes an impact. Do you see what I did? What do you think?
One of my daughters says it might be a little too horrifying. But is it really more horrifying than the traditional Hansel and Gretel? Which brings another question to mind: Should modern retellings of these types of fairy tales always be less dark than their traditional counterparts? I’d love to hear your thoughts on that question as well as this illustration!
On the subject of fairy tales, here are of few of my favorite picture book retellings and mash-ups:
The Great Gran Plan by Elli Woollard, illustrated by Steven Lenton
The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka, illustrated by Lane Smith (this one is a long time family favorite, and it is NOT sugar-coated)
Goldilocks and Just One Bear by Leigh Hodgkinson
And, of course, two of my own books:
Hensel and Gretel: Ninja Chicks, by Corey Rosen Schwartz and Rebecca J. Gomez, illustrated by Dan Santat
Federico and the Wolf by Rebecca J. Gomez, illustrated by Elisa Chavarri
My brain! I don’t see it. I need them side by side. Regardless, excellent work!