a. t. whim

I got a book of postcards from work full of illustrations by William Heath Robinson. I just LOVE it. It’s called City Living, and it’s just full of *creative* living solutions when living in a small flat. I was so inspired by the above picture that I painted my own version….

I may do another in acrylics this time. It’s been so long since I’ve used my acrylics. I wish it would warm up in my studio already!

I wanted to show you those Arthur Rackham silhouettes I’ve been gushing over. But now I’ve misplaced my book. It happens fairly often when you live in a house with 2 bibliophiles and piles of books everywhere. One day my house will be a library, that or an animal shelter. So anyway, maybe next time.

Tomorrow is the first day of March, my favorite month of the year! Only 22 more days till my birthday. I can’t believe how quickly it came. I’m still figuring out what to do that day. 30 is kind of a milestone right? Am I officially an adult now? I don’t feel like a grown up. I’m still awkward and clumsy, like I’m still growing into this body.

I just saw Sweeney Todd last Tuesday. I loved it so much, I didn’t even mind the pretty boy who was suppose to be a *sailor* or the ear piercing voice of Johanna. Johnny and Helena were so perfect, I could sit and just watch them forever and ever. AND Alan Rickman was just the perfect creepy villain. Musical bloody brilliance. Tim Burton gives such visual eye candy with all his movies, I expected nothing less.

Unfortunately I couldn’t say I shared a love for The Golden Compass. Visually, yes, it was okay. But, for these books in which I hold so dear, I feel like they ripped them to shreds and glued it back together haphazardly. I was so disappointed with the whole film. There wasn’t any of the rank, nastiness that was Iofur’s palace. I didn’t feel the connection and importance of people’s daemons. The beautiful way the gyptians ran as a society was completely dismissed. SO upset by the whole film. I’m afraid of what they’re going to do to the other books. I don’t think I can bare to watch.

To put that film out of my mind, I’ve been rereading the series and appreciating Pullman’s beautiful writing all the more. So I guess I should thank the movie for making me love the books more than I had already. Oh please, if you haven’t read these books already, do so as soon as you can. It would be tragic if you only had the films to glimpse this trilogy’s brilliance.

I’ve painted a few little things. Two of which I finished today, that I love love love.

Mad Alice

Snow White on a pyre of roses…

Both of which I’ll be posting in my shop soon.

The following I did a little while ago.

A Horsey girl to ring in Chinese New Year!

And a girl who’s been shot by cupid so many times, she’s bleeding hearts… poor thing.

It’s still very very very cold here; colder than it has been all year. I think it’s so unfair that it isn’t snowing. Maybe if I wish hard enough….

xoxo

I couldn’t think of what to name this painting.

I showed it to my friend Priscilla who surprised me a few weeks before with a watercolor travel kit that I LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! The painting above was the second painting I finished with this lovely kit. The first was this….

. A Bunny Christmas .

Now back to the little girl, I showed my friend the painting. She asked me the name, and I had some silly name like “Girl with Young Trees”.

I have such a difficult time naming pieces, I usually revert to just describing the picture and call it a title… i.e. “girl with skinned knee“, “a girl and her chickens“, “girl with white flowers“, etc. etc. Maybe I’ll do something daring and paint boys, then I could name them something like, “boy with…blah blah blah…”

So, anyway, Priscilla said, “She looks like Little Red”.

And I said, “Yeah! She does look like Little Red!”

So that’s her name now…..

*Little Red* and *A Bunny Christmas* have already sold to two lovely repeat Etsy customers (Hello Sandra and Michele!), but prints are available in my shop.

And I have a new book for you to read… it’s called : The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Oh and LOOK! I was on a small corner of Powell’s Books INK recommending my favorite kid’s books! Oh how I love books….

The books were:

The Three Hedgehogs by Javier Saez Castan

The Rabbits by John Marsden and Shaun Tan (illus.)

The Wizard Comes to Town by Mercer Mayer

Elena’s Serenade by Campell Geeslin and Ana Juan (illus.)

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan

The Dragon Machine by Helen Ward and Wayne Anderson (illus.)

Crictor by Tomi Ungerer

On My Way to Buy Eggs by Chih-Yuan Chen

Ellington Was Not a Street by Ntozake Shange and Kadir Nelson (illus.)

Ms. Rubinstein’s Beauty by Pep Montserrat

Today the role of my heart will be played by a little red bird. Sweet isn’t it? I wish everyone could have a little red bird for their heart.

I’ve just discovered a new Children’s picture book that I must have. It’s called *Chester* by Ayano Imai. It’s so cute! There’s a little dog named Chester looking for a place to call home. He walks around with his dog house on a leash and a little birdie friend follows him everywhere.

I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!! and soon it will be mine.

So it’s already November! Can you believe it? I’m so unprepared for the holiday madness. On Halloween the most I could bring myself to do was my Medusa hair (which turned out pretty neat), but I didn’t have a costume. Here’s the only picture I have…

Hope you all had a good one. August got all kinds of sugary sweets at school, a bucket full of candy at night, got sick and vomited in his pirate hat…. then bounced right back and said, “This is the best Halloween ever!” It’s good to be a kid.

Two pieces done.  The first I finished today and the second finished last week, but I never got around to posting it…

entitled: It’s Quiet in the Middle

entitled: She’s a Birdhouse

Now I have to get started on a commissioned piece before I even think about working on anything else.  I’ve been putting it off for too long.

Look at what I bought myself!

It’s an amazing specks necklace made by Star Willow Studio . I got compliments on it everywhere I went.  It’s so freakin’ cute!

I just saw *28 weeks later* and it didn’t disappoint me.  Still bloody, gruesome, suspenseful… not as good as the first, but still a good sequel.  I just love horror movies! Of which I also watched *Cigarette Burns* a short John Carpenter horror flick.  Some of the imagery was body cringing, and gave me crazy dreams.  But overall I was a little disappointed.  It could’ve been really good, but it was missing depth and some of the subplots were unnecessary.  It did have Norman Reedus from Boondock Saints, and it was worth watching just for that.  mmm… he’s yummy.

*Extras* the newest book in the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld is out.  I think I’m going to recommend this series this holiday to all the silly teenage girls who think sci-fi books are so boring.   I’m almost done with *Extras* and I’ve really enjoyed all of them.

Okay, now I’m going to make some peanut curry with tofu.  Yum.

I’ve been reading the Scott Westerfeld series *Uglies* and I find myself saying things like “bubbly” and “icy”, and thinking that a pulsating tattoo over my eye would be kind of neat.  It was a good teen sci-fi series, and it has a female heroine which is rare for sci-fi novels.  I don’t think I’ll ever get around to reading “grown-up” books since I live in the kid’s room.  But I’m not too upset by that, since many adult books can’t even compare to the books in my lovely kid’s room.

I’ve been laaaaaaaaazy these last few days.  I don’t want to do anything but curl up on the couch with a stack of books.  But life doesn’t allow for laziness, and my house is looking like a college dorm.  I wish I had enough money to just have someone come in and organize my world, then I could just live in it!

This month is coming to a close, and I can’t believe how quickly it went!
Fresh from the kitchen studio is my Portrait of my sweet boyfriend Phil who loves lizards. Pictured with him is our dearly missed uromastyx Biko.

Here is my mysterious fox lady walking through silent streets.

And I was telling my son the story of Rapunzel and drew this picture as I was telling it.
I’m working on a drawing of the witch cutting off Rapunzel’s hair, I should have that one done tonight.
But my favorite part of this week were the new picture books I got. I found these 2 old gems as I was shelving the best section in the store.

*The Grouch and the Tower and Other Sillies* by John O’brien….

just look at the walking house, and tree headed people!

Then there’s *Long Ago a Moonboat* by Christopher Carroll…

This one’s loaded with beautiful, intricate illustrations. I wish I could show them all to you.

I also got the new Peter Sis book *The Wall*, and a few European folktale books. YAY! I love getting new books!

What an insane week it’s been. After a whole week of Harry Potter mania, frantically painting and crafting, leading up to the midnight sale at Powell’s; I got on a plane the very next day and here I am in California feeling as if everything was a blur. I would’ve written sooner, but I’ve had my nose in the new Potter book for the last 3 days. And I just finished it about 2 hours ago. I think I’ll read it again, but more s-l-o-w-l-y this time! I do have a few pics for you to look at from our fabulous midnight event…..

This is the 21 foot by 14 foot archway I painted for the main entrance of our store. And I must say I’m pretty proud of the way it turned out! I didn’t have enough space to spread the whole thing out while I was painting it, and had to do it in sections. So after the grand unraveling, I’m VERY happy it wasn’t lopsided!

My favorite part is the lamp and the quill behind “Blotts”…

Here are a couple Monster Book of Monsters…

and here’s me, dressed as Dobby, face painting with 2 lovely people that don’t even work at Powell’s…

It was so much fun! And I’m SOOOOOOOOOOO incredibly grateful to the 2 people helping me, I think I would’ve cried if I had to do it again by myself. Unfortunately my camera ran out of memory after these few pictures and there is so much more to show you. I’ll have to borrow some pictures from someone else and post them here later.

I’m feeling a bit antsy not having my art supplies around me. I was trying to think of what I could bring on the plane, but I think most of it’s been labeled unacceptable. So here I am, on vacation, without my paints. I’m tempted to go to an art supply store and just get a few things. We’ll see.

By the way… Harry Potter was FABULOUS! and I won’t say anymore.