'Go Ask Alice about Mycophobia'

18"x24" calligraphy and crow quill pen and permanent calligraphy ink on Strathmore watercolor paper, 2012.

For my 2nd illustration class assignment, we had to choose a phobia to illustrate with pen and ink. I chose Mycophobia, or "fear of mushrooms" because I love mushrooms and thought there would be a lot of directions I could go with it. And since I pulled an all-nighter to complete this on time, I was very worried people might think my blood-shot eyes had more to do with mushrooms than lack of sleep!

I decided on the Alice in Wonderland idea, since I love that story and there are some trippy/scary things involving mushrooms and the rest of the plant life going on. (Also, Alice is drawn Dr. Seuss-style because I always found his artwork a little disturbing as a young child, though I love it, now!) The mushrooms are out for revenge after large Alice ate one of their own and subsequently shrank down to edible size herself... but I did include a little path she could escape through, so don't worry! I actually love the '60s look that came about in this piece, since Disney's Alice, Dr. Seuss, and of course the hippy movement were all inspirations here.

Although I originally intended to use ink washes and bleeds for shading in this piece, I am strongly considering using Photoshop to add color and shading (so you can see Alice better and so it's not just one extremely trippy eye strain), instead, since I would hate to mess this up after all the careful time and effort spent on it. The annoying thing is that since I originally intended to use wet media for this peice I chose to do it on watercolor paper and did a horrible job at pre-stretching it, so the fish-eye effect, sadly was not just from my camera. But, I have learned for next time! One more thing, I know I'm being a wordy girl right now, but I would also add just a tiny bit more hatching texture to the pathway areas that are just pure white and a little bit more shading to the mushrooms in the background so they don't quite stand out so much. Some of my classmates couldn't see Alice unless they got up right close and had someone point her out, so maybe those changes might help!