Sea Turtle

A gouache and watercolor style drawing composed from my imagination. Drawn in Photoshop.

This piece appeared in issue 5 of the Maker’s Movement Magazine.

“Sea Turtle” is a rendering of my home as I feel exists in fairy tale magic. In fairy tales, unlike the more narratively familiar and internally consistent fantasy magic, there are no rules; this is the point of magic, and possibly the capriciousness of fairies. In fairy tale magic, things simply happen. If a woman riding a horse casts down her comb behind her, it turns into a forest not because it is an enchanted comb or the woman throwing it is a witch or there are fairies around, but because placing a forest behind them is how the characters must escape their pursuers. Events occur because they are visually, thematically, and narratively satisfying, not because they make any sense or are explained by a consistent system of magic or because they follow logically from what is previously known. In fairy tale magic, the reader already believes in magic. In drawing a world of fairy tale magic, animals are characters, the tongues of dragons must be collected, drawings cast magic spells, animals and people are friends, dresses fit in walnut shells, and visual and poetic logic overrides formal logic. And my home is on top of an island growing from a titanic sea turtle.