12″ x 9″ Graphite
According to her neighbors Alice was a strange little girl and given to being very dramatic and overly hysterical. When she came back with tales of a nightmarish adventure that she had supposedly lived through, there were not very many sympathetic ears to whom she could tell her tale. Some even mocked her and began to call the strange place she’d been to “Wonderland”. It was anything but wonderful to Alice. These days one would call what she suffered from PTSD. Not much was written about her after this episode but you have to wonder if she ever recovered and was able to live a “normal” life….
Copyright 2013 Ann Gates Fiser
PS ~ I’d like to acknowledge: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst for spoofing her title. This is a great book for kids and adults who like to read to kids (because they can pretend they’re only doing it for the kid 😉 ) On Amazon
Moontoe Gallery 
Lots of great detail in this. Lovely illustration. What type of pencil did you use? I like good old-fashioned Ebony pencils; they help me achieve lots of variations in shading, from true black to very light grays. If you intensified the background value, all those fabulous background images and creatures would really come to life.
Thank you Afternoon Artist! I used a 2b mechanical pencil. lately I’ve been using a 6b Caran ‘d’Arche. Some drawings I use an assortment. It really depends on my mood. I have a couple of Ebonys but haven’t re4ally experimented with them much yet, but I’ll try it. Again thank you for the comment!
Love the expression on Alice’s face, and very nice composition.
Thank you Jean!
Very nice illustration, it perfectly illustrates the story and mood of Alice. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you for your comment! I’d had a kind of tough day and that night Alice emerged from my pencil with her “friends” and that was when it really drove home to me how un-Disney that story was. More of a nightmare really. Nice metaphor for how we tend to sugar coat the things we don’t want to look at.
Ann, your work is always beautiful and magical!
Thank you Purple!
Or should I say Erin :-)?
I love the intricate detail! All the facial expressions are awesome. The composition really leads my eye around the image to explore it all 🙂
Thank you so much! I’d had a really bad day when I started drawing and Alice emerged from my pencil and it looked like she’d had an awful day too, so I decided to explore her”bad” day. An out popped all the other characters.
If I had PTSD, I would definitely want it to look like your picture!! Good work and thanks for sharing.
Yes post traumatic stress would be almost fun then LOL! Thank you. It’s my pleasure to share!