Monday, July 18, 2011

Naree Pol



My Tr!ckster piece. I chose the Naree Pol (aka Makalee Pon) from Thai/Buddhist mythology. I learned about them many years ago on an episode of Ripley's Believe it or Not, and always wanted to do something with them. My (shoddy) memory of that episode described them as girl shaped fruit that come alive when they fall from the tree and lure men to their doom. Although in the research I managed to find they "distract monks from their meditations". Not as exciting.

It was actually very hard to find any information on them at all and much of what I found on the internet is written in Thai or some other language that I can't read. If anybody out there knows where I can learn more about this myth please let me know.



The original art will be up for sale at the Tr!ckster gallery show Saturday July 23rd.

26 comments:

Aaron Spurgeon said...

Wow Now that Cool! Fantastic Work!

Mike Crichlow said...

This is such a cool idea and fantastic work here. Really is amazing! ^__^

Richard said...

Wow!!
What a way to go

rad sechrist said...

so so nice!

ANTONIO CUESTA said...

Very nice! I want it! :)

paolo_gaspare said...

Very impressive

Ciao
Paolo

Nate Villanueva said...

dang that is a beaut. i want it too.

téb.art said...

Beautiful illustration but I think the best is the idea. Good work!!

DNewton said...

Love the way you built the composition tonally. It really works incredibly well. Punchy simplified shapes make for a great design and overall I super piece of art!

scruffy said...

Something tells me that celibacy was getting to some of the monks. ;) The work is alluring and intriguing.

chromasketch said...

awesome piece.

Samuel Araújo said...

Very nice. :)

Gad said...

i always hate it when naked chicks fall out of trees and distract me from my meditations...


love it

monkeyfeather said...

Gorgeous Bill!

Albert Campillo Lastra said...

veeeeeeery gooooooooood!!!!!!

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

Hm. Interesting. If they come to life when they fall to the ground, what happens if you try to pick them off the tree?

Matt Jones said...

Killer piece Bill!

William Bradford said...

Haha, THIS would make a cool short cartoon. The "peach fruit" early stage is just too cute to pass up on

Emerson Fialho said...

Árvore espetacular... Onde consigo uma muda para plantar aqui em casa? (risos).

A ilustração ficou fantástica, parabéns!

Paz e sucesso.

Owen Williams said...

beautifully realised, love it

Daisy Church said...

love it! super gorgeous piece- love the mythology behind it! : )

JT said...

A friend of mine lives in Thailand and he pointed to this page:

http://th.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B5%E0%B8%9C%E0%B8%A5

It comes out pretty mushed up through Google translate ("hippopotamus slightly"?) but might shed some more light on it.

Also this:

http://www.oknation.net/blog/surasakc/2010/04/15/entry-1

Hard work to read again, but some nice pics.

Diana Grande said...

hi Bill, I met you at trickster briefly (AUU animation student you drew for). I asked my thai friend about Naree Pol since he did his thesis on it. Here's what he said:
Naree = a girl
Pol = a seed, fruit
"It is a kind of tree that grows only in Him-Ma-Pan forest (the forest that is underneath Heaven)
the Naree Pol is grown up to be a pretty girl, but she can live only for 7 days, then dies. She won't wake up until being touch from a guy.
Apparently there are many variations of this story, but the core comes from a very old book called "Tri Bhoom Prah Rouang." The tree only appears in one page of the book. Over the years many stories reference Naree Pol (even buddah's) but in different ways."

...hope that helps! He mentioned that in almost every story the naree pol is is something akin to the apple in garden of eden- pure in itself but also a representation of man's sin/temptation, so it's often symbolized as being evil.

bpresing said...

Diana,
Thank you so much for that information. I didn't know much of that at all.
JT, Thank you for the links too.

David Jernigan - Illustrator said...

Your illustration has a great composition and concept. I liked the naked lady tree and the slight variations in color.

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