A Fascination With Folklore

There's nothing to spark the imagination like a folk or fairy tale.

As a child, thanks to my great aunt Marguerite (who gifted me with the very old Brothers Grimm and Andersen books shown below), I read many of them and remember the magical feeling upon first discovering a new tale; Rumplestiltskin, The Musicians of Bremen, The Ugly Duckling, The Twelve Dancing Princesses...such wonderful stories (and crying out to be painted, hehe)...

At any rate, I'd of course heard of gnomes, but like most of us here in the US, had grown up seeing them mostly as guardians of the garden. I'd heard of the Tomten too, but only as a vague concept, and as never read anything specific about them.

Enter the internet, hehe. Isn't it just marvelous the information and stories available at our fingertips now?! (Makes one marvel to wonder what's coming in the future too!)

Well, suffice to say I've become fascinated with these tales and legends. In fact, it's probably safe to say the remainder of my Christmas Barnes and Noble gift cards will be spent exploring Scandinavian folklore.

So I must share the second of these Gnome or Tomte paintings, an 8" x 10" original on gallery canvas, now up for grabs in my Etsy shop. I do hope it finds a good home! ♥

Must also add, in addition to being captivated by folklore, I've also been captivated by the videos of Siku, the polar bear cub at a Danish zoo - hence the polar bear cub here. ;)

And speaking of folklore, there's a wonderful Russian tale I'm depicting next - the witch Baba Yaga. I just can't stay away from witches too long (and besides, my Halloween art friends have been joking that I may need an intervention soon, teehee). :)

Finally, a quick note to friends who've been following happenings on the home front; John's hospitalization will be rescheduled - a very long story involving miscommunication, scheduling snafus and a shortage of hospital beds. But we're trusting that the universe has a plan, and all will work out. I'll post an update when I know anything, and thanks as always for your concern, prayers and good wishes.

And now I'm off this chilly morning to brew a pot of Good Earth tea, put some appropriately inspiring music on, and begin Baba Yaga. Oh, and before I forget - - in-progress pics will be posted on facebook - - please do follow me there. The link is on the right sidebar. :)

Until next time,
♥ Carolee
PS - still two days left to enter the giveaway, two posts down!

Magic in the Air, and Bit of a Scattered Post....

Remember the movie Chocolat, where the clever north wind blows magic into the little French village?

We awoke this morning to just such a wind - dark, bluish-grey clouds moving very quickly, interspersed with sunlight, and the loudest wooooosh through the trees.....

Merlin and Arthur were behaving the way cats do when something is afoot - running from window to window, wide eyed, and a little agitated.

Taking it as a sign, I descended the stairs, put the Chocolat soundtrack in the CD player, lit some candles, filled the tea kettle and set right to work sketching a new piece with a gypsy theme. More on that later...

First I have to show you yesterday's project - a wine bottle holder and two hand painted glasses. I've listed it on eBay with an offer to personalize the glasses. How fun would this set be for an October wedding or anniversary!?

The wine shown here (not included) is a bottle of "Witch's Brew" a wonderful collector turned me onto last year when we were up in Michigan for the Ghoultide Gathering. I loved the bottle so much I had to grab a case on the way out of town, hehe....A wine connoisseur I'm definitely not, my method for choosing wine entirely based on the cool label and limited budget factors. ;)

Moving right along, the Fairy Tale Princess chest is listed again, with the reserve dropped to $300. A commission on this chest would run almost three times that, but I'm trying to think about the economy, and do need to sell it. I'm also offering personalization on this one, at the base of the chest. Soooooooo, if you know any real life fairy princesses...

Let's see....what else? Oh! My workspace is completely organized now! Thanks to Courtney, who was home for a weekend visit, and decided to brave years worth of accumulated art supplies (some purchased twice because I'd lost the first ones!), scraps of paper, paint, old hardware, glitter, wood, gourds, glue, material, ribbon, wire, varnish, brushes, canvas....well, you get the idea. I knew it was bad last summer when a friend visited and declared "It looks like Michaels threw up in here!". I knew she was right, but lacked the time to actually DO anything about it. Enter my darling daughter, who has amazing organizational skills (no CLUE where she gets that from) and presto-chango - CLEAN workspace!

YAY for great kids.

That's about it for today....I'm off to pour another cup of tea and work on that gypsy piece now - which I hope to share later. In the meantime, have a magical, creative day, all!

♥ Carolee

Once Upon a Time....

There lived an artist.

She grew up in a world of her own, and while other children spent their time playing and watching television, she could be found drawing and daydreaming, or reading fantastical tales about mythical lands.

"You're like a blankety-blank butterfly!" her father, the king would shout in exasperation.

She took it as a compliment. ;)

For she was the only butterfly in a family of worker bees. She was different. She was colorful. She could make magic happen with her pencils and paintbrushes.

The worker bees went on to achieve great things in a land called Business. They lived comfortable lives, in beautiful homes, filled with expensive things, and shook their heads at the artist-butterfly, not understanding at all how she could live such a precarious life, flitting from one place to the next, one creation to the next, her spirit free but her future uncertain.

And to tell you a little secret, sometimes the artist would wonder herself about the path she'd taken. Times when she struggled. Times when she wished things were easier.

Then, she would pick up her pencils and paintbrushes. And it was like magic. It was the closest thing to Sacred she'd ever felt, almost like a prayer.

And she wished everyone could feel like this. :)

~ The End ~

Just a Little Peek....

Just at the basecoating and decoupage stage now, but already soooooooo much fun....


Tommorrow - more detailed painting!

♥ Carolee

Possibilities

I just LOVE beginnings....

Choosing a new piece, and seeing all that possibility....imagining where it will lead, what direction it will take, what it will become....


A beautiful, hand made wooden chest. Birch. Sturdy and smooth.

Paint, of course.


But something else inside, something to give it an otherworldly feel. Perhaps not Halloween this time, perhaps something equally magical in it's own way.


Something fit for a a Fairy Princess.


Something to keep her treasures safe...


Aren't these papers beautiful? I'm seeing them decoupaged on the interior, and perhaps a bit on the outside edges. I may need to add some crystals and jewels too...

This one is going to be quite a project, but I'll show you photos as it progresses.

In the meantime, there's a recipe box and a tea box calling my name. One for eBay, and one for the upcoming PFATT Marketplace. Stay tuned. :)

Right now I'm off to take care of some mundane household things like sweeping floors and washing dishes (Cinderella, Cinderella, *sigh*)... Then a bit of packing and shipping to do. Then I can finally sit down to paint! John has kindly volunteered to cook dinner tonight so I can keep creating - isn't that nice? Time was he only knew how to cook things on the grill, but he's evolved. ;)
I'll be back tomorrow with finished goodies to share. If you haven't already, don't forget to stop by the EHAG Art blog to join the Skeleton Key Hunt - one lucky winner will take home a whole bunch of goodies!

Until next time,

¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`• ~ Carolee

Books!

The stories of childhood leave an indelible impression, and their author always has a niche in the temple of memory from which the image is never cast out to be thrown on the rubbish heap of things that are outgrown and outlived. ~Howard Pyle

Having already shared so much about music as inspiration, and this being a slow week eBay and Etsy-wise (busily working on commissions!) I thought I'd share a few books which spark the imagination. :)

As a child, I was (and still am) a voracious reader. Friends and siblings would be outside in the street playing kick the can, and I'd be curled up in a beanbag chair in my room with a book, thinking these adventures far more exciting than running bases or riding bikes. I'd savor every word, picturing every scene better and far more vividly than any movie....and to this day, I will not, will not, will NOT see the movie until I've first read the book.

The Harry Potter movies? Good, but no comparison to the books. Poe? Entertaining stuff in old movies, but give me the stories any time. And don't even get me started on cartoon versions of fairy tales (although I do love Disney animation).

I've loved books for as long as I can remember, and as Easter and springtime approach, there are a couple of children's books that never fail to inspire.....

The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, by DuBose Heyward. Amazing, amazing tale, and with it's feminist message, hard to believe it was first published in 1939. Basically, the Country Bunny, despite being a single Mother and responsible for twenty one children, bests all the male bunnies in swiftness, cleverness and kindness to become the next Easter Bunny. As my now 27 year old daughter (who also deeply loved this book as a child) would say, *Huzzah*!

The Velveteen Rabbit, or How Toys Become Real, by Margery Williams. Here's my favorite part, when the Velveteen Rabbit asks the Skin Horse in the little boy's nursery how it is that certain toys become Real:

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

And Fairy Tales! Can't forget Fairy Tales.....


These are copies of Grimms and Anderson fairy tales from my bookshelf, published in MCMXLV, which if memory serves (been awhile since I figured out Roman numerals - do they even teach that anymore?) is 1945. They were gift from a great aunt many, many years ago and I treasure them. These are not the sanitized fairy tales children hear today, though....These can get a little gruesome....

In the final page of "Cinderella", for example, after she marries the handsome prince, the birds swoop down from the sky, pecking out the eyes of the evil stepsisters.

And the evil queen in "Snow White"? She dances in red hot iron shoes until she falls down dead. Yikes! Some pretty vivid imagery there...

No clue which of these - or perhaps others - will make it's way into the work the next few weeks (along with more Halloween goodies, of course!) but stay tuned. :)

In the meantime, what books sparked your imagination as a child? What books get your creative juices flowing now? Any favorites? Any new discoveries?

Inquiring minds want to know....

Until next time,
~ Carolee