First, I found these two images above, from a blog called Catnip Studio Collage, while hunting around for cheerful flower images, and got pretty excited about them. Gorgeous seed packet circa 1893, wouldn’t you say? So of course, I had to continue investigating a little bit, just to see what this “Mayflower” publication was all about… Continue reading
Like countless other readers, I’ve been a lifelong fan of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and it’s safe to assume that this person has been too. Then again, it’s perfectly fine if (s)he chose to have John Tenniel’s illustrations inked in just for the look of it; I wouldn’t have necessarily taken my fondness that far, but Tenniel’s version of the story is a classic for good reason. To view more work by Berlin tattoo artist Sara B. Bolen, click here. To see Alice’s adventures interpreted by other artists, visit here.
Photo found on Le Blog de Shige.
Just in time for Easter Monday! It took a while, but I finally finished my eggs. I’ve posted a bunch of pictures on my other blog, createthreesixty5.com.
I’ve just spent the last couple of hours working on Easter eggs. I should say ONE Easter egg. I posted the following here yesterday, and thought it would be fun to go ahead and do some of those doodle eggs as an art project. Usually I don’t bother to empty the eggs and just boil them, but I decided to do it right this time. Broke nearly more eggs than I managed to rescue in the process (organic ones too, though they were past due, so it wasn’t too bad!), but I managed to get a half-dozen empty and cleaned out since yesterday, and then spent nearly the full two hours working on that ONE egg just now. Actually, I’d started on a first egg and badly broke it when I had covered a good half of it—rats! A light touch is what’s wanted here. I’ll be sure to show results when I’ve got them all done to my satisfaction.
Here are Alisa Burke’s eggs, which made me want to try it out for myself:
I’m sure mine will come out looking very different, but aren’t these pretty?
The above egg designs should probably not be attempted by us mere mortals. But Beth Ann Magnuson has egg carving down to a science, and her Victorian Lace Eggs can be purchased at her Etsy shop The Nest at Windy Corner. She also has a video demonstrating how she goes about making one of her eggs, which I found fascinating (and short & sweet). They are absolutely gorgeous of course, but I’m not likely to be trying this at home anytime soon. On the other hand, Alisa Burke has several suggestions for decorating easter eggs on her eponymous blog, and I found her Doodle Easter Eggs both pretty and intricate and much more accessible to anyone who has a spare Sharpie and a few minutes to doodle some seasonal designs. I happen to have some eggs that are way past due in the fridge, and am very tempted to try this for myself.
I’ve put together a small gallery of egg designs that I found interesting, from the traditional and not so traditional Ukrainian pysanky to my attempt at making silk-tied eggs a couple of years ago. Enjoy!
Above: Dahlov Ipcar, Four Greyhounds, 20″ X 35″ Oil on Canvas, 2004
I was just now rudely interrupted in my quiet reflexions by my very loud and very obnoxious doorbell, but Oh Joy: it was the mailman coming to deliver a couple of packages from BookDepository. I received Paper Cutting: Contemporary Artists, Timeless Craft compiled by Laura Heyenga, a GORGEOUS book that I will no doubt enjoy perusing for many years to come. I rarely purchase books from the “suggestions” section, but when I was getting this one from BD, there was a suggestion for The Gift by Carol Ann Duffy and Rob Ryan, the latter being one of the 26 artists featured in PC:CA,TC who also wrote the intro to that book. I don’t even want to leaf through that one yet, so I can keep the images as a surprise when I read the story, which is about a girl’s journey through life.
(click on the images to view larger)
The view from my kitchen today.
I woke up in the early hours this morning to a gorgeous thick blanket of snow outside. Then I got back into bed and slept like a baby—so good to sleep when it’s snowing outside (better than inside, that’s for sure). First snow of the season, and I can hear the snow removal trucks going up and down the streets already. It’s a very fine powder that keeps floating down ever so gently but persistently. If I was still a skier I’d be heading for the hills right now, but now my snowy-weather treat is watching Coco jump around like a mad hare in the stuff, looking like the happiest dog in the world.
I’ll be heading off to the McClure Gallery this afternoon. It’s the art gallery that is part of the Visual Arts Centre where I take my art classes. They’re having a fundraising affair that I think I may have mentioned before. They’re calling it Square Affair, as they’ve distributed square blocks of wood to all the advanced students, teachers and any professional artists that wanted to participate, asking us to use it to contribute a work of art, which will be on going on sale this evening at 6 p.m. I haven’t invited anyone for today because there’s a large entry fee and it’s going to be packed solid, and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t even think of it, but the show is on till the 26th, and I’d like to go back with my camera to take some pictures, so will invite my dad to come with me, and whoever else would like to see it. They apparently got over 300 contributions, most of them in the same smallish format, though professional artists had the option of working on larger (still square) surfaces. 75% of the proceeds go to the school, which is a non-profit organization, and the other quarter goes to the artist. Our watercolours teacher, who is a sweetie with a mean sense of humour warned us not to be too disappointed—”if your work doesn’t sell, you’ll know what it feels like to be a real professional artist!” lol. I don’t mind either way. If it doesn’t sell, I get to add it to my Cabinet of Natural Curiosities series I intend to keep working on. If it does sell though, it’ll be good for me as far as income taxes go, because my accountant has been deducting all my art expenses after I promised him I would eventually start selling my artwork…
Off right this moment to edit the photos I’ve taken of the pieces from the CoNC series I’ve completed so far, and publishing them on the other blog as soon as I’m done, i.e. within the hour, hopefully.
The McClure Gallery
350 Victoria Avenue
Montreal (QC)
T 514.488.9558
E galeriemclure@visualartscentre.ca
A spread from Albertus Seba's Cabinet of Natural Curiosities
Not much to report today, actually, but I thought it might be nice to give signs of life. I’ve been exhausted all week and sleeping unseemly hours. My dad phones for my pre-arranged wake-up call in the morning, I thank him and say I’ll be right up, fully intending to do so, but then am dragged under and go back to sleep till the middle of the afternoon, which means I’ve hardly seen any daylight. I’d say ‘please don’t tell him’, only he reads this blog and I would have told him sooner or later anyway. I’m sure it’s just a passing thing and soon enough I’ll have overdosed on sleep and be up before the sun. Or so I (sort of) hope.
I plowed through my first Ngaio Marsh mystery, Artists in Crime, which was admittedly very short, only to discover, to my dismay that I had gotten an abridgement by mistake. Darn! And how I do scrupulously try to avoid those silly things. Truth be told, I found the story so convoluted and hard to follow that I’m not sure I’d have wanted to stick to it for that much longer. For all I know, maybe it was confusing precisely because it was abridged; I guess I’ll never know. I’m not letting that influence my opinion on this new-to-me author and contemporary of Agatha Christie known for her very own darker style; I’ve got Overture to Death in my audio library to look forward to.
Another audiobook I plowed through today was Whose Body? by another Mistress of Crime, Dorothy L. Sayers, who is also a new discovery for me. I was plugged into the amusing evah-so-English Lord Peter Wimsey mystery most of the afternoon and evening and kept listening as I started a drawing and nearly finished it in watercolours. It’s a piece I’m doing for the Visual Arts Centre, where I take my art classes. They’re having a gala event where they’ll be selling art donated by the more advanced students and professional artist, the profits of which will go to the school, which is a not for profit organization. I put off the project practically till the last-minute (big surprise!), as we have to hand-in our finished pieces on Monday, but I intend to make two more versions over the weekend and choose the best of the three. In case the piece doesn’t sell and I get to keep it, I’ve done a watercolour which fits into a series I started based on Albertus Seba‘s Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (1734-1765), a book which I acquired recently for the purposes of this project and which is an absolute treasure-trove of visual inspiration. I’ve taken some photos of the previous pieces I’ve worked on and will photograph this new batch to include in a post I’ll put together some time this week to put on my art blog.
