Posted by Sherrie Thai of Shaire Productions.

I had the opportunity to catch Wicked last week–a visually compelling musical with a solid story–an interesting parallel to the classic L. Frank Baum’s “Wizard of Oz.” The Flying Monkeys stood out to me as compelling subjects, so I viewed the original 1939 Judy Garland movie and lesser known adaptations: “Tin Man” and the “The Wiz” with the late Michael Jackson.

My version explores the displacement of the creatures. The Flying Monkeys are an unnatural evolution–torn between worlds, but expelling fear in their path. The glow from the Emerald City lights the sky. Like many of my fine art illustrations, the coloring was added through a variety of Photoshop layers after the graphite drawing was scanned. The fur was a bit challenging as there was quite a few layers of subtracting/adding graphite through the kneaded eraser and pencil.