Ashly Lovett's The Little Mermaid

by Ashly Lovett (Illustrator), Cory Godbey (Foreword by), Ashly Lovett (Adapted by)

Overview

"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 the 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781777081744
Publisher:	Eye of Newt Books
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Pages:	45
Product dimensions:	11.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Ashly Lovett is known for her ethereal and hauntingly beautiful chalk pastel portraiture. Ashly has been drawing people and faces since childhood, and eventually found that chalk as medium captured the subtleties of emotion and expression just so. 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.

Read an Excerpt

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.”

What People are Saying About This

Brom

"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

Brom

"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

Editorial Reviews

"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

From the Publisher