Ashly Lovett's The Little Mermaid - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1777081742 ISBN 13: 9781777081744

Publisher: Eye of Newt Books, 2021

Synopsis

"With this haunting adaptation, Ashly Lovett brings the darkest depths of the sea to life through her eerie prose and ethereal paintings, giving us a glimpse into the very soul of the Little Mermaid."
― BROM

"Ashly’s haunting portraits feel like a pang of remembrance, the shudder which comes from recalling a forgotten memory at long last."
―Cory Godbey

The little mermaid has always yearned for the strange and exciting life of the humans. For humans have ever lasting souls and mermaids merely return to the ocean as sea foam upon their death.

After saving a human man during a sea storm, she soon desires his love and an eternal soul. Naive and desperate, the little mermaid turns to the banished sea witch among the world pools. The exchange to be human was high. Scared, but determined, she begins her journey to find love and a soul.

This timeless classic is revisited by the deft charcoal work of Ashly Lovett. Lovett’s undersea world is unique and haunting, lit with bioluminescent colour-charcoals it sparks imagination with the amount of worldbuilding poured into the illustrations. True to Andersen’s original text, this retelling depicts the little mermaid as wilful and wistful, making her choice to pay for a chance at love with her voice at once understandable and heartbreaking.

About this title

About the Authors

Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author best remembered for his fairy tales. Andersen's fairy tales, consisting of 156 stories across nine volumes and translated into more than 125 languages have become culturally embedded in the West's collective consciousness, readily accessible to children. They present lessons of virtue and resilience in the face of adversity for child and adult readers alike. "The Little Mermaid" is one of his most famous fairy tales, along with "The Princess and the Pea," "The Snow Queen," "The Ugly Duckling," and "Thumbelina." His stories have inspired ballets, plays, and animated, and live-action films.

Ashly Lovett is known for her ethereal and hauntingly beautiful chalk pastel work. Ashly has been drawing since she was a child. She began her career as an illustrator in 2015 and has since worked with clients and galleries across the world. Inspired by folklore and mythology, she hopes to bewitch her viewers with a deep sense of wonder and dark nostalgia.
She has done licensed work for Jim Henson Company, Adult Swim, Netflix, Sega, and more. She received her BA in illustration from Ringling College of Art and Design and has been published in Spectrum Fantasy Art Annual 22-27, Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles, etc.
She and her husband live in Louisiana with their cat Skeletor.

Ashly Lovett is known for her ethereal and hauntingly beautiful chalk pastel work. Ashly has been drawing since she was a child. She began her career as an illustrator in 2015 and has since worked with clients and galleries across the world. Inspired by folklore and mythology, she hopes to bewitch her viewers with a deep sense of wonder and dark nostalgia.
She has done licensed work for Jim Henson Company, Adult Swim, Netflix, Sega, and more. She received her BA in illustration from Ringling College of Art and Design and has been published in Spectrum Fantasy Art Annual 22-27, Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles, etc.
She and her husband live in Louisiana with their cat Skeletor.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Read the foreword written by the award-winning illustrator for the Dark Crystal series, Cory Godbey.

“A particular feeling washed over me the first time I laid eyes on Ashly’s work. And it’s a feeling I’ve struggled to name to this day. Exquisite and darkly sublime, her work is a marvel of tone and atmosphere. Yet the serene and lovingly rendered pastel belie a razor-edged strength and a deadly elegance. Ashly’s work is transportive. With ease, she guides the viewer from the familiar world to one dappled in a strange light. That world is steeped in a kind of bewitched nostalgia. There’s nothing mawkish or wistful there, rather, Ashly’s haunting portraits feel like a pang of remembrance, the shudder which comes from recalling a forgotten memory at long last.

With ‘The Little Mermaid’, Ashly invites us to stand alongside her and watch a storm sweep across a moonlit beach, to feel the lash of a cold ocean, and respond to the pull of a darkening tide. And it’s that pull in her work, like an undertow of perilous beauty mingled with sorrow, which beguiles at every turn.

It reflects, in the contemplative sense of the word, in the way it gently asks you to stop and consider. It also reflects like a mirror, exposing elemental human fears to the beholder: darkness, separation, and deep water. And yet through it all echoes the other side of the song: selflessness, sacrifice, and love. This fantastic swirl of emotions, enchantment and melancholy, which Ashly balances so well with her work are on full display in this book. Like looking through ripples in water and catching a glimmer of something beloved but you dare not reach because you never know just what else lies beneath the surface.

Move toward the light and the shadow on the crashing waves.

Take a deep breath of salty air and sink into a familiar story now seen through new, luminous eyes.”

Edition details

• Publisher: Eye of Newt Books
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1777081742
• ISBN 13: 9781777081744
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Lovett Ashly
• Number of pages: 45