It was always a bit of a red flag for me as an art teacher when a student mentioned that they wanted to make Disney art (university students by the way). It usually meant I’d have to get pretty brutal with the student at some point in an effort to get them to consider something beyond their love for all things Disney, or endure shitty reproductions of characters I know nothing about (what are you Frozen Elsa?).
Yesterday I was feeling a little lost and felt frustrated because I kept drawing the same kinds of pictures over and over. Then I remembered that when I was a kid I went through a phase where I just really loved drawing princess jasmines. I had a bit of a jasmine drawing system that I used to experiment with, pushing the limits to see what could make the most truly beautiful jasmine.
So I thought I’d revisit drawing princess jasmines.
Here are the basics according to child Alice’s drawing process.
To draw the most stunning jasmine you need to nail the curly shoes. The more curly, the more elegant and beautiful.
Also the hair needs a really lovely curl, and if you add lots of extra sections to her pony tail then she becomes more beautiful. Boofy pants is a must, amplify that hip to waist ratio with extra boof. Also, note that red outfit jasmine really opened the creative doors colour wise for jasmine outfits, you can put her in yellow or green clothes if you want. Jewellery wise, take style inspo from the geenie cos his golden geenie bracelets are actually superior to jasmine’s arm band. DONT FORGET JEWEL HEADBAND.
The first one isn’t quite beautiful enough. The face doesn’t matter at all as long as you pay close attention to the key areas outlined above.
Yellow jasmine was a lefty, child Alice wouldn’t have been into it. Also green jasmine is a little off brief but adult Alice started to add some different flavours.
The whole point of the princess jasmines, was to celebrate that commitment to drawing the same dumb stuff over and over again without overthinking it. I think I will be more open to letting myself do that instead of worrying about doing something new or more meaningful. There’s also probably a whole bunch of stuff here about how my views of ideal feminine bodies and expectations for how I should look were influenced but I haven’t had a coffee yet so don’t worry about it.