#fairy tale art
Look, father, the butterflies are following us!
Casual reminder to read my webcomic, Namesake.
It’s 2xweek (at this time, normally 3xweek) and already 33 chapters in! It’s a fairy tale fantasy webcomic about Namesakes - people who can travel to other worlds thanks to a power that chooses it’s recipients by their name. There’s rules - Alices go to Wonderland, Wendies to Neverland, and so on, and so forth. Emma discovers she is a Namesake when she travels to Oz, which is a surprise to everyone since she is not a Dorothy. She eventually discovers she is a Skeleton Key, a namesake that can travel anywhere and forge vorpal, and is tied to the well-being of the universe. Along with her sister, a writer who can alter reality, and her friends, she goes on a quest to fight giant eldritch bugs and find the power of the muses who created the universe.
{Read the beginning} {Twitter} {Patreon} {Instagram}
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My first book is on kickstarter. The project was fully funded on the first day. Now We’re working toward some stretch goals to add more art and content to the book. You can view all the details here.
“…A cackleberry is a wondrous thing. Strange, to be sure, but wondrous just the same. They are friends of rot, re-claimers of damp wood and molding stone. Thin tendrils pale as waterlogged fingers push up from carpets of matted leaves and rise from the forest floor. A swelling, a blooming, a beginning. A cackleberry is a rare occurrence. Some liken them to mushrooms, or puffballs, while others think them more similar to flower buds. Either way, they are said to hold the dreams of the forest. This particular cackleberry grew in the shadow of an oak snag. It glowed softly, pulsing to the rhythm of decaying oak roots. Held tight within its shell was a small girl. She had spent a thousand days cloaked in black dirt and cradled by oak roots. She had swum through places beneath the forest floor, friend to the mycelium that threaded the dirt like stars. Then she had been drawn above. Now her world split open. Something wondrous was about to happen.”
This is the story of a girl, who finds herself in an unknown wood. A girl who dares to look for the choice not offered. The story follows Oona as she journeys through the Scraggle Wood looking for a way to fulfill her heart’s desire. It is, of course, a fairy tale, though a bit of an odd one.
To see more art and writing and even pre-order the book visit
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A recent painting! She isn’t based on a specific character or story, but I imagine she’s a deity who wears the waning moon as a crown.
Water color and silver leaf
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[a commissioned digital painting created for @k_trattner on twitter based on their novel a modern retelling of Tam Lin a fairy ballad originating from the Scottish Borders]
instagram:@winterofherdiscontent
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‘Rusalka’ by Konstantin Vasiljev.
Rusalka is a female water spirit in Slavic mythology and folklore. According to Vladimir Propp, the original “rusalka” was an appellation used by Pagan Slavic tribes, who linked them with fertility and did not consider rusalkas evil before the nineteenth century. They came out of the water in the spring to transfer life-giving moisture to the fields and thus helped nurture the crops.
In nineteenth century versions, a rusalka is an unquiet, dangerous being who is no longer alive, associated with the unclean spirit. According to Dmitry Zelenin, young women, who either committed suicide by drowning due to an unhappy marriage (they might have been jilted by their lovers or abused and harassed by their much older husbands) or who were violently drowned against their will (especially after becoming pregnant with unwanted children), must live out their designated time on earth as rusalkas. However, the initial Slavic lore suggests that not all rusalkas occurrences were linked with death from water.
It is accounted by most stories that the soul of a young woman who had died in or near a river or a lake would come back to haunt that waterway. This undead rusalka is not invariably malevolent, and would be allowed to die in peace if her death is avenged. Her main purpose is, however, to lure young men, seduced by either her looks or her voice, into the depths of said waterways where she would entangle their feet with her long red hair and submerge them. Her body would instantly become very slippery and not allow the victim to cling on to her body in order to reach the surface. She would then wait until the victim had drowned, or, on some occasions, tickle them to death, as she laughed. It is also believed, by a few accounts, that rusalkas can change their appearance to match the tastes of men they are about to seduce, although a rusalka is generally considered to represent universal beauty, therefore is highly feared yet respected in Slavic culture.
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Hansel and Gretel are lost in the forest but will soon find a path to a Gingerbread House.
Scott Keenan
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