Enthrallment Treasury

This lovely art treasury was collected by sewsilldesigns. I love the huge variety of art on etsy, and I spend way too much time just going through page after page of masterpieces.

It includes the following etsy artists:
irenesuchocki
seasprayblue
ihavethreeheads
groundwork
ellemoss
corid
julzevi
papermoth
johnwgolden
kalla
yuuco

Fairy circles take me away to fairy lands;

Just looking at pictures I took last summer makes me feel dreamy...

I was included in this fun Pirate Treasury

Arrrrgh! Sunny shores and rum. This treasury was currated by Perlenprincess, and these etsy artist are included with me:
Kumitwist
TrishWA
jolijoli
teamzvonik
jdeandrade
karingrow
petracollection
KatrinLermanJewelry
ShopClementine
idreamicanfly
SimpleLiveDesigns

The snow is falling

The snow is falling. I thought it would never come. For some reason, I am convinced anew every year that winter will never come again. I am surprised by the invasion, even though I shouldn't be. Millions of moth wings float to the ground, covering it in their iridescent dust. They whirl through the air, dancing and avoiding the ground. Little currents come up, licking them back toward the sky. It turns out to be a passing promise. The flakes continue down to the dirt to melt.


Ice is starting to cover the roads. The police have stopped counting the number of accidents. It is not surprising; people always find a way to crash in burn in even the most innocuous conditions. Right now, the layer of snow is just a tease, a dusting. More moth wings are promising to come down, global warming or not. We will not be neglected, at least this year.


I can hear their voices, soft and lulling. "Settle, softly, sigh". You will miss me when I am gone, they whisper. I can't hear them with my ears. The echo is in my mind. It is heard so quietly, I have to strain to hear. It is the sound of millions of voices. No single voice says anything in its entirety. Each voice breathes a part of a word, a millisecond of the whole. You have to concentrate to put it all together. The sounds pulse softly, like a faint heartbeat. They create a tune – one that you've heard before but you can't quite remember.


You want to walk into the woods to that sound. Maybe lie down and let the moths encapsulate you. You can lie in your cocoon, forgetting the cold and curling yourself around your own steaming breath. As you lay there, you forget about the places outside your new domicile. Your memories blur and parade before you like an old VHS tape, distorted and jumbled and lacking a sound track. Of course, you cannot hear yourself. You are surrounded by the moths singing you their lullaby. Lie still, and we will hold you. Nothing else will matter but you and us; we can shut out the world with the blinders of our wings. We will make the world one color, muted and stoned.


There are different intensities of the gray, even some tinge of hues. The red brick looks like it is forgetting how to be red. But the green of the holly bushes revolt – they scream green in a world of gray pillow stuffing. The leaves refuse to be silent and forgotten.


Traffic is rolling now. The discarded wings are being torn and soiled by the tires. Someone will put salt out on the asphalt, dissolving the veins in the wings. They break apart and succumb to the slashings of the tires and the plows. We fight back stubbornly, wanting to still get to work or the liquor store despite the onslaught of the moths. Why would such little things presume to interfere with us? Most people don't hear the music or the heartbeat in the air, nor do they care to. They don't stop to acknowledge the apparitions. Eventually, the moths give way. The heat and sun overcome in the end. Even the last little colonies in shady corners sly away. But they promise to come back to us again. My ears are ringing with the silence of their leaving.

The sparrow plaque project

This is a little sparrow wall plaque that I just finished. I love it! It is layers of mat board, decorative paper, vintage paper, a vintage sparrow illustration, and buttons. I made sure that the back looks as good as the front. Most of the time, I spend my free time drawing and painting, but sometimes I just need a break, and projects like these are fun since you are just cutting and glueing.

Summer Fish

This is one of the few pictures that I have taken that I like. So I'm sharing it. It makes me miss summer and warm weather. It's so cold already! I want to fast forward to spring...

It's a little late, but...

This was Phi's costume for Halloween this year. The little elephant distracted her long enough to snap some photos before she tried to eat the hat. The wings are made out of artificial lilly pads, and they turned out so adorable. I don't know if I love them or the hat the best. We didn't go anywhere this year, but I couldn't let her first Halloween go by without making her a costume. She looked so cute. Now, she loves to look at pictures of herself in her woodsprite outfit.

"Candid"

"Candid" 7.5" x 11" watercolor and graphite on coldpress paper

Sometimes, I have a hard time keeping things to myself...

"Shears"

"Shears" 7.5"x11" Watercolor and graphite on paper


Her legs sometimes get in the way while she is gardening...

"Tigerlilly"

"Tigerlilly" 7.5"x11" Watercolor and graphite on paper

The wild Tigerlilly is a rare flower of extraordinary attributes. In the early spring, before the trees get their leaves, it emerges from the soil on foggy mornings. It only fully blooms for one morning, and it disappears before the sun reaches it's apex. They are gone by the afternoon as they are cannibilistic and tend to eat each other. They are safe to be picked since they dislike nibbling on people.

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I am so, so pleased with this painting! From the foggy trees to the sublime expression on the girl's face, it has a wonderful flow to me. I like literal takes on words, and tigerlillies really lend themselves to this concept.

"The Tortoise and the Hare"

"The Tortoise and the Hare" 7.5"x11" Watercolor and graphite on coldpress paper

This painting represents a new breakthrough for me artistically. Before, my paintings were very abstract, and the most common comment I got was "It makes me think of Tim Burton." I don't want to be a hack and do paintings that people immediately associate with well established characters. I want my style to be my own, and while painting children and animals in surreal situations is nothing new, each of them have my own unique perspective.

I like to use children in my recent work. They are innocence confronting the big, scary, confusing world. Through their eyes, you can see from a different perspective. Things look more amazing and daunting.

This painting, "The Tortoise and the Hare", is a study of hue, saturation, and dimension. The tortoise will never win the race because it is tethered by the girl wearing the rabbit mask.