Stories Behind "Queen Anne and Queen Anne's Lace" Series vol.2Like I said last time, today, I will talk about the bird, Queen Anne more.
Last time, I talked about the reasons why I named the bird in my illustrations, Queen Anne.
As you may notice, Queen Anne in my illustrations is an orange-ish bird. Well, the reason for that was actually none. It was just because I felt like coloring her orange. She was brown at first, but I changed it. And I didn't pick particular bird in my mind at all while I was drawing it. However, since the only orange (wild) bird that I know is Robin (I remember one Japanese one, but I forgot the name.... anyway), after seeing robins playing on the lawn in front of our building recently, I felt like looking it up on the internet (again). Well, as many people know, robin is very common bird in North America. But, this time, while I was looking it up, I learned the existence of European Robbin which is not exactly related to "Robin" in America, but also has orange chest.
Well, basically the stories behind my illustrations are totally fictions, and not related to reality at all. But, to start from conclusions, I have decided that the model bird of Queen Anne should be European Robin, though the Queen Anne's feature doesn't really look like it.
As I told you last time, I always like finding the reasons after doing something I felt like it, or being attracted to something or someone. This time, when I knew about "European Robbin", I already finished 10 of Queen Anne series illustrations. And, as I was looking up the information, I was so excited about that there are facts that I really liked about this European Robbin.
1. First of all, it is also orange.
2. Queen Anne is a royalty who is originally from Denmark (Europe!). So, "European" is perfect.
3. European Robbin's female and male have a season that live separately. (Male stay in one place throughout the year, but female move to the warmer areas during winter.) I will explain more later, but this setting was perfect for the illustrations that I already made.
4. European Robbin is a Christmas bird in Britain.
5. There was also a legend about this bird that I really liked. Which is, when Jesus was dying on the cross, the Robin, then simply brown in colour, flew to his side and sang into his ear in order to comfort him in his pain. The blood from his wounds stained the Robin's breast, and thereafter all Robins got the mark of Christ's blood upon them.(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Robin)
These are enough reasons for European Robbin to become the model bird for Queen Anne, don't you think?
And this is European Robbin. Very very cute!
Next time, I will talk about Queen Anne and her love, and her life a little bit.
Before finishing this entry, there is one more thing that I want to mention as well. If you look back my old blog entry, you might find one of my Etsy treasury entry, "Happy New Year with Orange Birds!" which is my first treasury in 2009. Well, some of you may know that I kind of consider myself as Yellow Bird. But, at that time, somehow I was so attracted to all the great orange bird design products on Etsy. After starting this Queen Anne series, I remembered this treasury, and kind of found it very amusing. So far, as I make this Queen Anne illustration series, orange bird is indeed making me feel happy inside. :-)
Love, Yoshika
