"The Moon jellies Under the Bridge" Illustration

                  Busy weekend, spoken in two works after long hours of homework and Card against Humanity night. Anyways, one of our first Illustration homework assignments was to draw or paint an image from your earliest memory.
                 There were a very hard selection of memories to uncover but some of the rememberable moments was when I broke my arm, family vacations, ballet and karate performances, or times at my hometown. However, one that I pulled out and had an interest to illustrate is the time that the moon jellies revealed themselves to me one night.
                 What happened that day was when I was four to five years old and I had entered myself in the kiddie dance costume contest. The prize was pretty much a free ice cream cone coupon and feeling of happiness. My costume I made was of a Moon Jelly costume, which I was inspired by the book "The Night of the Moon jellies"by Mark Shasha, one of my childhood stories. Basically the story follows a boy who send the day with his family at the beach and has the moon jellies come up to the boy to end the story. The artwork is as beautiful as this cover and enjoyable to read.
                Anyways, I made my costume out of bubble wrap, fabric, plastic hair net and the childhood memory. It was an original costume idea to make myself.
              After the costume contest, we went outside to walk home and just as we looked over the stone bridge there were a dozen of moon jellies just hovering under the bridge. Just seeing them there in the dark, illuminated almost everything but gave off this mysterious sensation. Maybe it was a miracle or a fictionally memory I made, or it could have happened another night and it inspired me to make this costume. I don't really know but these two images seem to still exist with me for a reason. That I still don't know but it may have been the inspiration for being creative, or something.
             So, this is the illustration I did. I painted a medium size image in watercolor and gouache medium, of myself and my family looking over the bridge. It is a very similar perspective from Mark Shasha's book cover as the characters are looking down to the moon jelly beings. I did enjoy painting this memory back, maybe I'll do another one if I have time but for now. I think the only issue that people had was that no one knew what a moon jelly was. All I can say is "really?" We are on the coast and there was no time that you saw a harmless jellyfish wash up to shore. I do hope they're not going endangered.