Its been a couple years since my last Miyazaki/Sendak crossover and I’d been itching do another these last few months, though I think what really sparked the desire was listening to “Howl’s Moving Castle” again on audiobook (for probably the seventh time). I finally sat down in June and started looking over my worn out copy of “Where The Wild Things Are” (easily my favorite Children’s Book of all time) and started roughing out what new spread I might use. There were two spreads in particular that I could not decide between, and in the end I decided to paint them both.
I started with rough pencil doodles to figure out what Miyazaki characters would best fit the roles they’d be playing, and then I spent three days cleaning up the drawings and inking them while in my booth at the Edmonds Arts Festival in June 2015. Afterwards I picked out a couple canvases (18″ x 36″ is probably my favorite size canvas to paint on) and then spent the next few weeks painting…
“Hungry And Homesick”
18″ x 36″ acrylics on canvas. 2015.
Another in my tribute series mashing up “Where The Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak and some of my favorite Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki) characters: Kamaji, No Face (Spirited Away), Totoro and San (Princess Mononoke). There are a kodama and some soot sprites in there too.
“We’ll Eat You Up – We Love You So”
18″ x 36″ acrylics on canvas. 2015.
Another in my tribute series mashing up “Where The Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak and some of my favorite Studio Ghibli (Hayao Miyazaki) characters: San (Princess Mononoke), Totoro, No Face (Spirited Away), Ponyo, Turnip Head (Howl’s Moving Castle), Haku (Spirited Away), and an Ohmu (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind). There are kodama and some soot sprites in there too.
The title is part of the text from the page of “Where The Wild Things Are” that this painting is based on.
Close up details…
Work in progress…