aLtEReD OZ - Taking Up My Pen

One of the most fun things in the world of blogging is OmaLinda's annual Celebrate Oz event.  I decided very late to join in this year (just a week ago), so I knew I'd have to keep my contribution small, and I had little idea of what exactly I was going to do.  The theme this year is Altered OZ - mashing up Oz with some other thing, and I was (am?) even less sure how I might do that.

It wasn't until yesterday - after trying on and discarding several ideas as simply not for me, or not doable in my time frame - that I dragged out my drawing pad and decided to see what might happen.

Other than my foray into doodles a couple days before, I haven't drawn in years and years - it was something that mattered to me hugely as a child and young adult, but then being 'grown up' took over and I mostly stopped... and then I really grew up, and realized I shouldn't have and by then my hands had started hurting and I got frustrated with it and put it behind me.

I don't know why I suddenly seem able to again, but I'll take it!

Oz was actually the reason for my original love of drawing - as a kid and young adolescent, I saved up my allowance each month to buy another book in Baum's Oz series until I had the entire collection.  I loved the stories, but what really grabbed me were the illustrations by John R. Neill.  It was the first time I realized that 'illustrator' was something people could do, and it's what I wanted to do. I didn't waver on that until I was in my 20s.

So, yesterday, I sat down with my pad, thinking about Oz and Neill's drawings and how much I loved that iconic Oz logo, with the O and Z interlocking, and also about those Zentangle patterns I'd just been playing with, and this I drew that logo - with a tree bark Z for the forests of Oz, and a jewel encrusted O for the opulence of Emerald City.

(I also messed up on an idea that didn't work in the background inside the letters.... so I cut that part out. There's your 'altered' part, I'm afraid)

I'm also realizing it isn't finished - now that I inserted a bit of 3-dimensionality by cutting it, it really begs to have something meaningfully done with what it peeks into, and I need some time to mull just what that might be.  Actually - how about this:  leave me some ideas in comments about what ought to go behind this.  I'll pick one of them (or none and go with something of my own choosing), but everyone who gives me a suggestion will go in the running for getting  a small giveaway as a thank you.

The giveaway will be for either a copy of this piece, or a smaller art card sized original OZ logo drawing (let me know which you'd prefer) - I'll pick one of you at random on Saturday, March 23.

I'm really excited by this - I think it's opened me up to drawing again (so that's the other thing altered - me!).  Oz has always been magical that way, hasn't it?

Go see what everyone else is up to!