Kelley Lubsen's 'The Seven Swans' and Other Fairy Tale Art

A recent lovely fairy tale discovery on deviantArt, this picture of the Seven Swans is so beautiful I wish I could get a copy for my wall (one of all-time my favorite tales and I grew up with a single book with '7' swans as opposed to the six or twelve that were included in the fairy tale collections). You can see a much larger version with deviantArt stamp HERE.

You can definitely see the Trina Schart Hyman influence (one of my favorite illustrators and apparently one of hers,according to her bio on deviantArt) and I don't think that's a bad thing at all. In fact, more please!

The artist, Kelley Lubsen, known as FAyliN on deviantArt, is a recent graduate of University of the Arts (May 2010) and while she doesn't have a huge gallery on deviantArt it's worth taking a look all the same (click HERE). Fortunately, she also has an online gallery with her latest work HERE including some pieces from the Three Little Pigs and Peter Pan (see small examples at left & a HUGE version HERE, noting you'll have to scroll down a long way to find them). It's a little brighter and still lovely (though I adore the muted tones myself) and the truly gorgeous colored pencil work continues.

I do hope she continues to pursue fairy tale illustration and wish her the best of luck in her career.

Behind-the-Scenes of Vogue's "The Wild Swans"

A sincere thank you to Jordan Scott (a.k.a. J.R.D.S.) for kindly alerting me to the fact that this video was already up (I guess, as Mr. Scott said, they meant November 23rd, not December 23rd).

Here's a real treat: the behind-the-scenes video of the fashion shoot for vogue Korea's 'fairy tale issue for December 2009, specifically the shoot for "The Wild Swans".I'm embedding two versions: one with English subtitles and one without. While both have text on the screen, the English subtitled one does cover some of the images you may be interested in. Interestingly, the models all talk about their impressions of the story and what they think we can learn from it.

Enjoy!

No English subtitles:


With English subtitles:



While I found these on YouTube, the Vogue Korea website Mr. Scott alerted me to with the original video is HERE.

The models for this shoot were the popular 'boy band' members of SHINee and Korean star Seo-hyun.

There are obviously scenes shown in this behind-the-scenes that I haven't found photos of on the web anywhere (I got some poor quality screen caps as examples) so that's another reason to go find this fairy tale themed issue of Vogue Korea (December 2009). Nice stuff!

I should also mention Jordan Scott's fascinating website of little known animated fairy tales from around the world called "The Palace of Animated Drawings". It's worth taking some time to look through properly - there are some real gems there. You can find it HERE.

The Wild Swans in Vogue Korea's December 2009 Issue

Not only did Vogue Korea interpret the fairy tale The Wild Swans with Korean celebrities for the December 2009 issue, but there are other tales interpreted with high fashion too.

Today I'll only show you The Wild Swans, as there's plenty to look at from just that shoot. This is one of my favorite fairy tales, so I'm pleased to see any mention of it. Being styled for a fashion magazine is completely unexpected. They've done a light and lovely approach which makes it even better (just ignore the straw - among other things - on their heads/sticking out of their clothes if it bothers you - it's a fantasy after all...)

I'm guessing at the order of the photos. My 'google translate' and 'babelfish' can't seem to translate more than a few words per page on the Vogue Korea site.I think I may have to find myself a copy of this international Vogue issue as this is just one of the articles using fairy tales.

You can learn more about the shoot HERE at Vogue Korea or HERE.

Stay tuned for more fairy tales in high fashion from Vogue Korea over the coming week...