About the Subjects of My Drawings

Artist Marie Brozova answers your most frequently asked questions…

• Where do you get ideas for your drawings?

  The idea for my drawings comes to me as a complete thing. Sometimes I see the image in a dream, or it visits me when I walk in nature. The completed visualization is absolutely vivid, I can go for a walk in it and look around – that´s how I have the imagery finished in my head, in all its detail before I start to draw. But I need to hurry or else I lose contact with the idea.

• Is your work designed mostly for children?

  I think they appeal to childern´s souls, but that remains, regardless of the age of the viewer. I'm very pleased that they attract a generation brought up in the world of computers, as well as intelectuals, housewives or seniors. There really are no borders. We all were children once. Everyone choosees his own favorite colour from the rainbow.

• Why do you not like to sell the originals?

  It might sound strange, but it's very painful for me, almost as if I sold my children. But thanks to the copies, which can be made of the originals in high quality, there's no need or pressure to sell them. The copies are not limited and they can go to anyone who cares to buy, without any restrictions. I prefer giving the originals to my friends or to people I´m sure will take care of them well. In my work with charitable institutions, I prefer to leave the originals at the specific places, where they can bring joy and encouragement – like the children's oncology clinic at Motol Hospital in Prague.

• They are so beautiful but they're not kitsch. How do you account for that?

  Especially in our country, it was common to call everything colorful, kitsch. For me, kitsch means an artless travesty, created for commercial purposes. But you even hear people describing the miracles of nature, like sunsets, or even the tiny red and white mushrooms, as kitsch. I am not afraid of beauty and colors. There is energy hidden in colors and it's necessary for life. It would certainly be sad if people could only satisfy their hunger for colors in garish, large, outdoor eye-catchers and billboards.

• Do you really see all those pixies, elves, fairies and other imaginary entities from nature?

  I believe that every thing of material substance has its invisible softer substance, that you cannot reach with the senses. But communication with this softer world is too intimate for me to speak about and I don´t want to add to all those fables and fabrications about this subject that became such a fad in these modern days.

• What is your favorite fairy-tale?

  The Neverending Story, Momo and the Stolen Time, and other books by Michael Ende.

• What fairy-tale character would you most like to meet?

  I´d love to meet Gandalf, the wizard from Tolkien´s Middle-Earth, and with the lucky dragon, Fuchur, from the Neverending Story.

• And what about Saint-Exupery´s Little Prince?

  The Little Prince was my best friend when I was 15 or so. Later, I became afraid of the importance of his message to the people on Earth, especially the one about responsibility. And I couldn´t cope with the sad fact, that even wise petit-princes care more about beautiful pampered and disdainful roses, than frank, candid desert foxes…

• You say you find the ideas in your dreams. What dreams do you like the most?

  I love the best the dreams in which I can fly. I always say to myself: "It´s so easy, this time I must remember." But then I wake up and I´m caught by the gravity of Earth.

• Is that you, the girl with long red hair in your drawings?

  I often drawing myself walking through the world of my fantasy. But mostly I drawing myself from behind, so everyone can imagine a face for themselves.

• Why am I attracted to specific drawings, when I look through your portfolio?

  I believe that a good drawing is much like a mirror. People see things that are in tune with them. It depends on their mood and state of mind. It happens quite ofte, that people remember my drawings differently from what they are, because their imagination added something from their memory.

• Why do you sign your drawings MAB?

  Lady Mab was according to the English and Irish lore the queen of elves bringing people their dreams, and exactly that seems to be my most important vocation. Queen Mab was made world known by William Shakespeare, who described her in Romeo and Juliet in Mercutio’s poetic verse. But MAB is also an abbreviation of my civil name MArie Brozova, and because I bring people their dreams with the help of colored pencils I changed the letter A into the shape of a pencil.

Read more frequently asked questions in the sections:

About My Colored Pencils Technique | About The Defense of Colored Pencils and Public Drawing | About Life, Universe and All…