Saturday 8 August 2009

Nursery rhymes


I gave a macabre treatment to my chosen nusery rhyme, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, this week's challenge at Sunday Postcard Art.

When I did some investigation on the web, I found an excellent UK site about the history of nurdery rhymes - rhymes.org.uk - and learnt that many of them go back in history and the seemingly child like imagery actually refers to torture.

In Mary Mary, the rhyme is about Mary Tudor, "Bloody Mary", thus called because she sent thousands of Protestants to the gallows. The silver bells are thumb screws and the "pretty maids" a guillotine called the Maiden. Mary's garden is the cemetery.

How precious are these rhymes when you consider how old they are and how we can still recite a lot of them by heart.

I used dimensional paint to represent blood, a photo of Mary Tudor, Gail's font (my own handwriting courtesy of Your Fonts) and sketched a gallows scene from Tudor England,colouring with Copics.

13 comments:

Sandy said...

Wow this is brilliant.
Fantastic rhyme. Love them.

Gayle Page-Robak said...

Very lovely, Gail, beautifully created. Love that rhyme.

katrin said...

FANTASTIC and a brilliant idea and GORGEOUS result!!!

Martina said...

Fantastic and beautiful postcard !

Judy said...

I got my info from the same site as you, Gail! Love how you have portrayed that wicked Mary in your art, added some gory details there!!!!!

Willy said...

Fabulous Mary card, Gail!

indybev said...

What interesting history of the rhyme. I had no idea. It sounds so innocuous! You've interpreted it beautifully. Thanks for the art AND the history lesson!

Terri Kahrs said...

This piece is fascinating and so is the history. Awesome interpretation! Hugs, Terri

Mandy Chilvers said...

very interesting postcard! lovely

Lori Saul said...

Wonderful work here- beautifully created - interesting post as well!!

Jayne said...

Great card!!!

Betty said...

Love your card. Thaaks for the link to rhymes history,think I'll go check it out.

http://truutske.blogspot.com said...

Fantastic postcard, Gail.