Sixpence

This is a piece based on Sing A Song of Sixpence for an art show in Los Angeles, called Eat Your Art Out IV, which is Nursery Rhyme themed this year. It's a fundraiser auction for Angel City Derby Girls, with Beat Bee Jane Dope at the helm. The show will be on Saturday, February 26th at Meltdown Comics in Los Angeles.

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing;
Wasn't that a dainty dish,
To set before the king?

The king was in his counting house,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlour,
Eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes;
When down came a blackbird
And pecked off her nose.

I tried to imbue the drawing with as many references to things in the Nursery Rhyme as I could, and hype them out a little. I was definitely drawn to this story more than other nursery rhymes, Blackbirds being a strong element. Then I opted to just turn the birds into derby girls because it's fun to draw crowds, and it was maybe a better choice over making the Queen and Maid into them. Though, now that I'm looking at it, I could have made them into derby girls and the king a ref... well, better luck next year!



This was planned to be a lot bigger, at 11" x 28" rather than 11" x 17", which allowed me the room to give the King a tower of bricks for him to count his loot, the rye and garden for the Queen and Maid, and then a "pi" sculpture behind the Derby Girl Blackbirds busting outta the "pie". Also, the King had a sword, and I'm not sure why.



I rarely, almost never, do any painting. I love it, but it's time consuming and I feel like maybe I'm not as good at it as I would like to be. I chose a painting for this particular show because the artists roster is truly apeshit bananacakes, including some of my long long time comics friends, and I really didn't want to feel like I was half-steppin' in any way. At any rate, I think this came out pretty good.