Swimerella Rides to The Ball in my twist on Grimm's Fairy Tale, Cinderella. In my version, Cinderella is a mermaid, Swimerella or Seaweederella.
Last weekend I had a fabulously inspiring time attending the Society of Children's Writer's and Illustrators Western Washington conference.
As part of the conference, I took a master illustrators intensive with Scott Magoon, Art Director, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Lucy Ruth Cummins, art director with Simon and Shuster. Both are also children's book illustrators. The two directors really got across their excitement and love of children's books. Our assignment was to create an illustration from Grimm's Fairy Tales, with a twist. This was fun and also crazy to see all of the variations from my Seaweederella to an adorable fluff ball monster Little Red Riding hood, ( Ben Clanton) and Robin's nutty Rapunzel with a beard.
Working with variations on fairy tales is a fun way to expand both visual and literary ideas.
These drawings led to some new illustrations for my portfolio which are now on view at my website gallery. http://www.andreaklawson.com/gallery/illustrations/
I named my underwater Cinderella, Seaweederella, thinking that Cinderella was named for her proximity to the cinders and that Seaweederella would be all covered in ocean muck and seaweed. I had a suggestion to name her Swimerella and think it has a nice sound to it. For now, I won't say who the suggestion came from as that might sway public opinion. I'll give the person credit if wanted, later.
