ToughPigs

Monday, May 28, 2007

The Young Muppet Fans Art Extravaganza! Part Two

by Ryan Roe

Welcome back to the Tough Pigs art gallery! It’s part two of the Young Muppet Fans Art Extravaganza (part one can be found here), and today we’ll be looking at works from the past, submitted by the artists now that they’re older and taller and can grow moustaches. Well, some of them can grow moustaches, anyway.

Leighanne M is going to kick things off for us, with this pair of pics of Bert and Ernie she made when she was 4 and 5, respectively.

Regarding the caption on that first picture, Leighanne offers this word of explanation: “I made Ernie’s and Bert’s torsos way too long so I solved the problem by calling them worms. Imagine the Muppet News Flash that would've ensued if Bernice the pigeon were a wormivore.” Leighanne called the second picture “Sharing Schmaring,” and I think it’s a pretty good snapshot of our favorite odd couple.

Hey, I like Sesame Street characters. Let’s see some more. Here’s Mary Catherine O's Big Bird, drawn when she was around 5 years old.

The cool thing about this picture is that it’s a great recreation of an illustration in The Sesame Street ABC Storybook, from a story in which a knightly Big Bird is searching the kingdom for things that begin with the letter A... or possibly for foods which keep the doctor away, I'm not sure which.

Speaking of Sesame characters and books, when Michael H was 7, he affectionately paid homage to – or as he puts it, “blatantly plagiarized” – the literary classic Oscar's Book by creating this three-page work.

It’s powerful stuff. When Oscar begs you not to look at the book on the first page, it only ensures that you must dare to look at the second page, where he begins to warn you that the book will make you crazy, only to think better of it and declare that it’ll make you crazy.

Finally, he asks you to play “mud drag,” whatever that is (the artist has no recollection as to its significance). And you’re right there with him.

It’s a pretty ambitious work, but Michael wasn’t the only one experimenting with long form techniques as a kid. Here’s another selection from 5-year-old Mary Catherine. It’s her adaptation of A Muppet Christmas Carol, complete with “Miss Piggy twins.”

Now I’m going to force you to look at another one of my own childhood drawings. It’s Rowlf the Dog, drawn around the same time as the Kermit I showed you in this original post. (And most likely on the very same day – I work fast when I’m inspired.)

Go for it, Rowlf! Play the heck out of that tiny piano with your differently sized arms!

Here’s something different. When Josh H was 13, he took shop class, where he was assigned to create a shelf. When the teacher said the shelf could take any shape, Josh says his “Muppet senses kicked in, and a light bulb went off,” and he knew he had to make the class’s only Gonzo shelf. Nine weeks later, he had this lovely piece:

Shifting our attention now from Gonzo to Gobo, here are some Fraggle Rock watercolors painted by Justin P way back when he was only three years old. The first one is Gobo flanked by Red and Mokey, and the second one is Pa Gorg.

I’m pretty sure Pa is dancing there. For more Fraggles, we turn back to Leighanne, who drew individual portraits of the show’s main characters.

I think seven-year-old Leighanne could have gotten a job as a portrait artist at Six Flags Over Fraggle Rock.

Wow. Lots of great pictures. But we’re not done yet! Here’s another one from the prolific Mary Catherine – it’s an adorable rendering captioned “One day, Kermit asked Miss Piggy to go to the prom with him.”

After seeing that, I can only assume Piggy is wearing her prom dress is Mary Catherine’s next picture.

And finally, let’s close things out with Stevie B’s shot of the Muppet Show cast, drawn when Stevie was five.

If that picture doesn’t make you smile, you need to pay a visit to the smile repair shop as soon as possible. And that’s what this whole thing was about… the Muppets make kids smile, and kids draw the Muppets, which makes everyone else smile. We all win.