The Fate of the Four friends--Oz pages 37 and 38

 

Hello lovelies! Today we find out the fate of our four friends. I wanted to do another harlequin page like a I did for what the four friends did on their first night in the Emerald City. I divided my pages diagonally and painted then alternating blue and green.

Let’s see what the story says:

Some of the Monkeys seized the Tin Woodman and carried him through the air until they were over a country thickly covered with sharp rocks. Here they dropped the poor Woodman, who fell a great distance to the rocks, where he lay so battered and dented that he could neither move nor groan.

Others of the Monkeys caught the Scarecrow, and with their long fingers pulled all of the straw out of his clothes and head. They made his hat and boots and clothes into a small bundle and threw it into the top branches of a tall tree.

This is my first illustration. I made the tree out of the same tree pattern I used for the Tin Woodman to be chopping down on his page but reversed. I cut out both the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman and then cut them into pieces. With the Scarecrow I stuck him together all higgledy-piggledy into a ball and glued him in the tree branches. I know the text said his hat was in the bundle, but his head didn’t look right on its own and I wanted to have his head separated from his body. So artistic licence, baby. For the Tin Woodman, I cut some jagged rocks out of scrap of grey paper and then arranged his body like it had been dashed to pieces. I purposely only gave him one arm because in the book The Tin Woodman of Oz when he and Captain Fyter meet Chop-Fyt (the man who was glued together from meat-glue from their discarded parts and eventually married their Munchkin sweetheart Nimmie Amee) Chop-Fyt has a tin arm because they had spare parts for both men, but the Tinsmith came up short on the arms so just meat-glued human parts and made one arm tin. It’s called homage, baby.

The remaining Monkeys threw pieces of stout rope around the Lion and wound many coils about his body and head and legs, until he was unable to bite or scratch or struggle in any way. Then they lifted him up and flew away with him to the Witch's castle, where he was placed in a small yard with a high iron fence around it, so that he could not escape.

But Dorothy they did not harm at all. She stood, with Toto in her arms, watching the sad fate of her comrades and thinking it would soon be her turn. The leader of the Winged Monkeys flew up to her, his long, hairy arms stretched out and his ugly face grinning terribly; but he saw the mark of the Good Witch's kiss upon her forehead and stopped short, motioning the others not to touch her.

This is my second illustration. I got out all my felt and sewed a miniature version of the Lion from his illustration then put him in a paper cage. I know the text actually says a small yard with an iron fence, but I wanted to give the suggestion of imprisonment, baby. And as for Dorothy—the text in the next chapter details all the work (much like Cinderella) Dorothy had to do, so I made her a bucket and used the same blue Eric Carle tissue paper for the water that I used for the river. Why a bucket? I think you know. It’s foreshadowing, baby.

Here they are side by side:

We dare not harm this little girl," he said to them, "for she is protected by the Power of Good, and that is greater than the Power of Evil. All we can do is to carry her to the castle of the Wicked Witch and leave her there."

So, carefully and gently, they lifted Dorothy in their arms and carried her swiftly through the air until they came to the castle, where they set her down upon the front doorstep. Then the leader said to the Witch:

"We have obeyed you as far as we were able. The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow are destroyed, and the Lion is tied up in your yard. The little girl we dare not harm, nor the dog she carries in her arms. Your power over our band is now ended, and you will never see us again."

Then all the Winged Monkeys, with much laughing and chattering and noise, flew into the air and were soon out of sight.

Now, I have not talked about the round shining mark. Early in our tale when Dorothy lands in Oz, the Witch of the North kisses her and leaves a round shining mark on her forehead as protection. Very few illustrators choose to show this.

Stay tuned for the melting of the witch, with what I hope will be a bit of pop up magic!