bunny.

Here's a fluffy bunny watercolor with impossible detail that I like by Albrecht Durer.



Isn't he lovely? I think I might have to buy this print.

project?

I'm so glad Genna's back. She's got the initiative I lack; day before yesterday, she insisted that we just throw ourselves into some projects, and she wouldn't let me procrastinate at all. Which is good, cause I ended up with this after two evenings of work. It would probably have gone faster if I had just gone with my gut feeling on a few things without doubting them.
I started by just working with some thick white acrylic paint mixed with gel medium to make a cool textured background, then did several different color washes over it. Then I added a painted version of a sketch i made a few weeks ago, the thread, some little birds and the bottle with feathers and flowers that were brought to me by a girl in the last week of fairy camp. Anyways, here it is.



I didn't imbue it with any deeper meaning at the time, but I think I could probably find some in it if I wanted to. I think she might be Aurora. Or maybe Aurora's sister. Haven't decided yet.

hooray for tonight!

yaaaay i get to go see MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND tonight!!!!
in honour of the occasion, here is my favorite music video ever:

Dorothea Tanning

Below are paintings by the fabulous artist and poet Dorothea Tanning. She was married to Maz Ernst, and as if that wasn't enough to make her cool, she's also a phenomenal artist herself. The first picture here is my favorite of hers; Eine Kline Nachtmusik. It's so dark and beautiful and a bit unsettling; it makes it even more eerie when you play the cheerful, innocent sounding Mozart piece alongside it.
Below that is a photo of her and Max. And below THAT is one of her Birthday paintings, which seems to involve a gryphonish animal. Anyways, they're absolutely beautiful paintings and I'm on the hunt for prints!

Fairy Camp!!!

This summer I got the rather brilliant idea to run a fairy-based art camp out of my house. Seeing as last summer's art camp was so well received, it seemed a shame to scrap the whole idea just because my mom's finishing her masters degree and wouldn't be able to be involved. So i took up the reins and organized a camp myself! FINALLY I've found a way to put my ridiculous knowledge of fairyness to good use. The first two sessions of Fairy Camp have gone extremely well; the little girls are soooo cute and creative. In the camp we: hand-paint and decorate fairy wings, make gold tiaras, surprisingly spectacular magic wands, paper fairy dolls and we also write and illustrate a fairy story together, which ended up being one of the favorite parts of the camp for everyone.
It's amazing to see these little girls come up with the basic componants of most fairy tales all by themselves. They know that everything comes in threes, that foxes are charming but ALWAYS tricky, that mermaids have golden combs, and bears that appear to be mean usually just have a thorn in their paw, and are actually quite nice once you get to know them. I feel like I'm doing an Jungian experiment of sorts; figuring out what motifs are prevelant in the stories of each group of children. Ah, the collective unconscious. Hoorah for archetypes, yes?
Anyways, here are some of my favorite pictures from the first two sessions of the camp. I'll probably be posting pictures from the third and fourth sessions later on. Enjoy! It's shmaa central!!!