There's a Lion in my Bathroom - sketches 13

Off to the surreal and happy place called "Beddy-byes Land" with these next sketches. In B.B.L many things have beards (including bees... and cleaning ladies), kites fly without a breeze in skies filled with cheese shaped clouds and the lovely ruler, king "Dandy Dan" has decreed no household chores. Not sure what the author was smoking when he wrote this one ;) My first thought (and my favourite approach I think) was to marry up two different themes from the poem. How can the kites fly without a breeze...? Because bearded bees carry them of course. There was a chance with this to develop an unused bee design from the "food" poem but in the end I simplified the bees to work at a smaller size on the page. Think I ended up with vaguely Bill Bailey like bees on sketch sheet 1 (not necessarily a bad thing I feel, hope some of his humour rubs off). On sketch sheet 2 I tried for more individuality in the face fur. Strictly speaking the mutton chop whiskers on the far left bee aren't a beard but mutton chops are funny, and that's reason enough to stray from the text ever so slightly. I don't know if it really works but I tried out a more surreal kite design in sketch two to attempt to visualise some of the quirkiness of this weird dreamlike place. Maybe the Miro like surreal shapes just amuse me while confusing things, not sure... I didn't know what to do with the royal reference in the poem but as I started sketching out the king (with every costumed 'dandy' frippery going) he just naturally held a pair of scissors (probably going to open a supermarket...). The vacuum cleaner, red carpet and cleaning lady followed on from there... and of course she has to have the suggestion of facial hair.