Antonia Mechkueva - The Adventures of Courage Forage, Havesome Halva, and Crispin Cheesy in the Kingdom of Auberginia

The artist had the difficult task of creating 40 different characters with human personas to correspond to their funny names, ingeniously constructed on puns from the names of various vegetables, sweets, and all kinds of other foods (an undisguised homage by the Bulgarian writer Ivan Radenkov to Gianni Rodari). The compositions are constructed with ease and imagination, the numerous adventures and battles of this army of deliciously named heroes somehow reminiscent of a medieval illustrated manuscript for children. The characters are in constant motion, and the artist depicts palaces, ships, and banquet tables with love and with beautiful drawing in every detail, while humour gushes out everywhere. In the background of blue seas and green meadows, there is no hierarchy or linear perspective in the arrangement of elements in the panoramic compositions. The costumes and ornaments, the expressive silhouettes, the dynamic gestures and facial expressions are interpreted with a recognizable decorative style in a classical and impeccably executed tempera technique. In these illustrations, every time you open the book, you come across new fun and entertaining scenes.