Assignment 1 - Final Images

Assignment 1 - Progress

Assignment 1 - Sketches

Assignment 1 - Proposal

I chose The Little Mermaid, By Hans Christian Andersen. This story happens to be a bit lengthy, so I'm pretty sure I will have to do more than just five postcards. I chose to do eight specific scenes. I plan to scan images found in different books.

1. A widowed Sea King with six beautiful daughters live under the sea. The young mermaids are allowed to go to the surface on their 15th birthday. The youngest of the mermaids is the most anxious to go to the surface.  The day finally comes for The Little Mermaid to turn fifteen. She is adorned by her grandmother with white lilies in her hair and eight oysters attached to her tail. The oysters symbolize status within the kingdom. There happens to be a storm the night the Mermaid goes to surface. There is a boat celebrating a young Prince's birthday. It is destroyed and the Prince almost drowns before the Mermaid decided she would save him.

2. She then carefully takes him to the shore and leaves when she sees other humans approaching. She has fallen in love with Prince and is making sure he is taking care of from afar, hidden within the foam of the ocean.

3. She then talks to her grandmother about what happens when humans die. Her grandmother tells her they have souls and they proceed to live for eternity. The Mermaid asks about her own kind and is told that mermaids live for 300 years and then become sea foam thus ceasing to exist. They do not have souls and that is why they can not cry, leaving pain to be more powerful. She tells her grandmother she wants to obtain a soul, but her grandmother tells her the only way she can get one is to have a human fall in love with her. The Little Mermaid then seeks out the Sea Witch to tell her she wants to become a human.

The Sea Witch tells her she will turn her human only if she gives up her voice. She also tells her that becoming a human will be painful and will feel like a sword is cutting her in two. She will also give her the gift of dance so that all humans will be amazed by her dance, but every step she takes will be as though she is stepping on knives. She tells her after she becomes human she may never again return to the ocean as a mermaid. Finally, she tells her that should the Prince marry someone other than her she will immediately die of a broken heart and turn to foam. The Little Mermaid agrees and the Sea Witch cuts off her tongue to take her voice.

4. The Mermaid then swims to the surface to be on land and turn human. She lies there naked and is found by the Prince.

5. The Prince is taken by her since she resembles the girl who saved him and takes her to his kingdom and allows her to live there. The Mermaid is in love with him but he loves her only as a child. To communicate she dances for him and others at gatherings but is always in pain and bleeds.

6. The Prince then tells the Mermaid his parents want him to meet a maiden nearby so that he may marry her. He sees the sad expression on her face and tells her that if he had to pick someone to marry he would pick her. The Mermaid is then happy and waves farewell to the Prince as he leaves. Upon returning he tells the Mermaid he has found the girl who saved him from the water and is going to marry her. The Mermaid is deeply saddened.

7. On the night of the Prince's wedding the Mermaid goes to the shore to die. She is met there by her five sisters who no longer have any hair on their heads. They tell her that they have made a deal with the Sea Witch with their hair in exchange for allowing The Little Mermaid to turn into a mermaid again, but first she must take a knife given to them by the Sea Witch and plunge it into the Prince's heart before the sun rises. He must die so that she may live.

8. The Mermaid can not kill the Prince and throws the knife into the sea as the sun begins to rise. The water becomes red where the knife fell and the Mermaid throws herself in the sea as well. She thought she would turn into foam but heard whispering voices instead. These voices were The Daughters of the Air and they told The Little Mermaid because she had tried so hard to obtain a soul and suffered so much for one she was allowed to have one. The Mermaid is overjoyed with obtaining a soul and cried as she was lifted away.

Exercise 1