Lovely at Wonderground Gallery: Part 2

The queen.

In order to stay inspired as an artist, I find that it is best for me to constantly have multiple ideas and projects brewing. Every once in a while, though, I will have one project that I am just dying to work on. It brews and builds and eventually becomes an all consuming monster that absolutely has to get out or it will wreck me.

Enter this familiar face/hairdo/dress combo.

Ever since I worked on the Maleficent piece for the Sleeping Beauty Blu-Ray (which I realize I've never posted about….more on that later) I've been intrigued by creating fully sculptural paper pieces. They are so much more labor intensive and harder to plan than my usual relief fare, but part of what I find inspiring about creating any artwork is what I don't know...and subsequently learn in the process. And these pieces involve lots of learning. And failing. And learning some more. Sometimes (aka a lot of times) tears.

I learned A LOT while working on this piece, and I considered starting over from scratch quite often. In fact, as I went to photograph her to get final approval from Disney, I very nearly scrapped her altogether. It took my much more sane, balanced husband saying "What?! What are you talking about?!" to draw me back from the edge. I suppose the closer a project is to you, the harder it is to see clearly with objective eyes. Elsa means a lot to me - I wanted to be able to do her justice.

This piece is titled "One with the Wind and Sky", and it is my love note to her. It is my love note to Frozen - to the people who let me be a part of this wonderful film and for the two years that I was allowed to help craft it.  To Idina for lending her perfect voice, and for all of it for making pretty much all of my dreams come true. Geeze - we are in danger of having more Frozen gush sessions than mermaid posts around here.

This post is several weeks late - I had initially intended on posting her the day that she would debut at the Wonderground Gallery in Downtown Disneyland, but unfortunately a stomach flu put a wrench in all of my grand-master plans. I'm on the mend, though, and thought that she would be worth posting anyway. Thank you to everyone who has already made the trip to see her in Disneyland, and for all of your kind words of support. Happy Holidays to all!