Eggcup Daisies
March 19th, 2009 § 2 Comments
Today, like many ‘home’ days, we went for a walk to get fruit and veg supplies. As usual we dawdled rode wild elephants, scanning for sun-baking skinks snapping crocodiles, gumnuts fairy cups to sip from and tiny flowers precious jewels to collect. On our way we visited the park Amazon jungle, the sandstone sleeping lions and the tiny goldfish Pirana pool and arrived back at home the palace just in time for lunch.
Above is today’s booty. All of the adventurers are very pleased.
All about fairy rings
March 18th, 2009 § 1 Comment
As I mentioned not long ago I bought some fabric to make a reading corner cushion for my girls. The fabric is a super sweet Decollelo mushroom print. Yes, I have to admit, I have a soft spot for red-spotted mushrooms and fairies too. Lucky I had girls!
Spotty mushrooms and fairies are like green eggs and ham, they come hand-in-hand. I know this without a doubt because of all the hours I spent as a kid, nose deep in fairytale tomes. Thrilled at the unpredictable nature of fairies, loving the contrast between beauty and beast. And it turns out that just like their fairy friends, these sweet little ‘mushies’ that are printed on everything vaguely kid related, also have a sinister side.
The very sight of red caps in unearthly rings have long struck fear into the hearts of mortal men. If you happened to stumble into a ‘fairy ring’ there was a hair-raising list of consequences, like being overcome by the compulsion to dance till exhaustion, madness or death. Escape was nearly impossible. One Welsh farmer managed it by tying on a stout rope and enlisted the help of four men to pull him from the ring, clutching his bewildered daughter. However if they make it out, the victims usually remember nothing. Hmmm, sounds suspiciously like a night down at the local.
Never the less, throughout art and literature the delicious descriptions of the fair folk and their world put ‘stumbling into a fairy ring’ squarely on my to do list, with the help of four friends and a rope of course.
And I serve the Fairy Queen,To dew her orbs upon the green.The cowslips tall her pensioners be;In their gold coats spots you see.Those be rubies, fairy favours;In those freckles live their savours.I must go seek some dewdrops here,and hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.~ William Shakespeare
Credits | Lily Fairy, Luis Ricardo Falero | Midsummers Eve, Edward Robert Hughes | Fairy Rings and Toadstools, Richard Doyle | All via Wikimedia Commons.
There lies a leafy island
March 17th, 2009 § 2 Comments
Whilst searching for a celebratory Saint Pat’s pic this one stopped me in my tracks. Isn’t it stunning! It’s a true-colour picture of Ireland taken from space. You don’t get more green than that! It was taken by NASA’s MODIS imaging equipment which captures the entire planet every two days and records changes in the oceans, the sky and on land.
I know my Dad would love it as much as I do. He’s a surveyor with a passion for maps and an inbuilt GPS.
Credits | Image at Wikimedia Commons | Title from The Stolen Child, William Butler Yeats.
Toadstools and Vikings and Caterpillers…oh my!
March 16th, 2009 § 1 Comment
Recently I bought a cute Decolello print of smiley mushrooms to make a reading-corner cushion for my girls.
It got me thinking that even though I’ve never seen a real spotted toadstool, I come across them everywhere, busily propagating throughout popular culture. So, in true procrastination style, I felt the urge to look them up to find out what the story is. I mean, if your cute and fascinating, you deserve a post. Right? Right.
So it turns out… The ‘fly’ part in the name, Fly Amanita, is a medieval term that may refer to the delirium that happens after eating one, as if those red caps weren’t a clue. Apparently, folks in medieval times thought that flies could enter your head and send you nuts? In fact munching through one cap can kill you. That didn’t stop the Vikings though, who happily chomped into them to bring on bloodthirsty Berserker rages. Nasty!
It has also been well recorded that when intoxicated by Fly Amanita the perceived size of objects is distorted, which makes the caterpillar’s advice to Alice in this excerpt from Alice in Wonderland interesting. And Lewis Carroll, himself, very interesting.
This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again. In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself. Then it got down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely remarking as it went, ”One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.”
And if that’s not enough, even jolly old Santa gets a guernsey. Siberian legends tell of reindeer that would dance and prance after eating the mushrooms and that Santa wearing his trademark red and white suit would enter yurts through the smoke hole in the roof and fly out again. Who would’ve thought!
So, there’s more to these little mushies than meets the eye and that’s before mentioning the fairy connection… These complex little characters make for some great stories and that’s a very good reason to keep on propagating. I’ve always loved a good story, reading cushion here I come!
Images | Fly Amanita, Jon Rowley | Cabinet of Curiosities ~ Amanita Muscaria, Kris Klarin | Felt Baby Booties, Funky Shapes | Felted mushrooms, Kathryn Ivy | Alice and the Caterpiller, Blanche McManus |
All images used with kind permission.
Roddy and Ginger
March 15th, 2009 Comments Off
I first stumbled across London-based Roddy & Ginger on Bloesm and immediately fell in love with Virginia’s style. Her work is an elegant synthesis between her passion for folk art and clean modern design. I particularly love the paper cut feel in the dresses of her folk dancers and the character in those faces. Just gorgeous!
The shop stocks a great range of products and she is more than happy to ship worldwide. Wonderful news for those of us in the Southern hemisphere. If you want to find out more about Roddy and Ginger, check out the fab Open House Tour and interview at B-Kids.
I look forward to her pending blog. To get regular sneek peeks at her latest vintage finds, inspirations and designs will be lush indeed.
Images | All courtesy of Roddy and Ginger.
Introducing – Child’s Play
March 13th, 2009 § 3 Comments
Time for ‘Show & Tell’ on a little project I have cooking.
For the last three years my muses have been short, demanding and have table manners that, frankly, need work. But it never ceases to amaze me how effortlessly my kids lose themselves in their own imagined worlds. I remember a doctor telling me that when your pre-schooler doesn’t respond to your call or even acknowledge your ever reddening face, she isn’t ignoring you, they simply don’t hear you. They are completely absorbed in their moment of play and despite being nose to nose with them, you are not even there.
So ‘Child’s Play’ is all about capturing that childlike enthusiasm for the moment. Being completely absorbed in play, or discovery and the ease with which kids do it.
These are my first inked sketches. I find it very hard to leave pencil drawings in pencil. Most of the time I ink over the pencil lines and erase them straight away. I usually work small; something I was taught as a fledgling Art Director. Apparently a great billboard idea should fit on the back of a business card. Which is in fact great advice because it stops me from getting bogged down in the detail too soon and helps me look for clear silhouettes.
