The Gold Coin Tree
In 2010 I made this ink drawing inspired by one I had made a few years earlier dedicated to Alice in Wonderland. The idea was to illustrate the leading and/or secondary characters of the fairy tales that fascinated me the most, all reinterpreted in a Gothic or at least modern and completely personal way.
Among the many available characters, the Fox and the Cat were definitely one of these and I liked the idea that the gold coin tree could actually exist, perhaps with a little touch of magic from the Blue Fairy.
A hypothesis that could give an alternative story to that of Pinocchio.
However, I abandoned the project shortly afterwards – it’s difficult to maintain motivation in absence of a commissioner – at least until 2017, when I decided to colour this and other designs digitally, but even then, due to other commitments and lack of motivation, I did not complete it.
Only a few days ago did I decide to complete it for personal satisfaction.
Going back to one’s old work after years isn’t easy, there’s always the temptation to re-elaborate everything or even start over, but I decided to keep the design faithful to the original making minor changes to the fox and the Blue Fairy.
At the end I changed the colour tone to make the work seem less cold.
I don’t remember how much time I spent on the original design but I believe it was no more than a day. As far as the digital colouring is concerned, adding up the work done two years ago and the current one we end up with a total of approx. 24 hours.
Below I condensed the process into a 15-minute timelapse.
Let me know what you think in the comments 😉