Interior illustration from The Little Mermaid. "This illustration, a favorite of mine, was a real challenge for me. It was the moment in the story when the Little Mermaid is faced with a life-or-death decision. Now that the Prince has married someone else, the dawn will bring certain death unless she kills the Prince with the magic dagger for which her sisters traded their long hair to the sea witch. She must make a choice now before the dawn! The composition, drawing, color, had to be infused with a tautness or tension. Her sisters are imploring her to act! The ship's architecture and rigging, the roll of the sea, must all reflect a feeling of immediacy of time suspended. Most of all, the picture had to be romantic. I was inspired by some of the great Victorian painters like John Waterhouse, Dante Rossetti, and later painters like Abbey, Pyle and N.C.Wyeth."