A New Friendship

The image of Lucy and Mr. Tumnus walking through the snow was Narnia's beginning, and so it is rightfully its most famous illustration. 

It depicts the start of a wonderful friendship. But this discovery marks more than just the first meeting of two friends. It was also the onset of the Pevensie's adventures in Narnia, just as it marks the start for all those countless readers who have fallen in love with Narnia since. 

 

 

For Professor Lewis, Narnia began with a glimpse of a faun carrying parcels through the snow. Though he himself did not know what it meant or where the faun was going until Lucy came across him. Everything else, great and small and wonderful, came after that walk in the snow. In this way, one might say Narnia began with the meeting of a girl and a faun in a wintry forest. In the story of stories and how they come to be, Narnia begins with friendship, and to me, nothing could be better.

"And so Lucy found herself walking through the wood arm in arm with this strange creature as if they had known one another all their lives" 

~ C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe 

 

The Richest Violinist

The Richest Violinist knew he was going to be a gift, and so, he felt special from the start. He knew even before I painted him onto his podium that the tree was designed for his leisure and every little critter below was devised by my brush so that they might listen with pleasure. 

I myself knew he was going to be a gift, and I painted him with this in mind. But it was not until I painted in his eyes that I knew this cat was not just a violinist, but the richest of violinists. 

 

He was so rich in fact that sometimes, when the night is clear and still, he would steal away across the hills from his mansion to the very tree I've pictured. There he would sit comfortably on the crook of the sturdy branch, its golden leaves whispering between the silver stars, and with a satisfied sigh, a bit like a purr but not quite, he would play. 

 

 

The rabbits of the countryside knew that this was when the Richest Violist did his best playing, there, unperceived by any but the company of nature that encompasses the clear soft evening. His music was lively and soothing all at once, and so, the eve being bright and song reassuring, the rabbits would play unafraid, even late into the night.  

 

The cat played for the love of it. He played like a dance, till it felt like the night was just a trance of his tune. He played where he perched, in a crook like the curve of the moon, paying no heed to the cows across the bow of the hill, which bounced happily, like the rabbits.

But then as chance had it, before the night had yet run its course into morning, I, the perceiver and the painter, had to come along walking, my brush in hand, and he saw me looking, as you can see by his smug certain eyes. 

And I knew at once by the look of his gaze that this creature before me was not just a cat violist. He was the richest violinist of them all. 

 

 

Bullfrog in Love

Their song rang through the meadow all night long that first night they played. It was the meadow's serenade. The strings sang sweetly. The guitar hummed neatly, and the trumpet stole the show completely. 

And all the while, their froggy legs were atapping. Their froggy hips swayed. And between each song they played you would hear the meadower's softly clapping, their shimmering wings flapping with glee.

Had you been there that night, I'm sure you'd agree, that so lovely was their music, it made the fireflies bob in their flight. It made the owl nod to the rhythm, and the dragon flies danced as they dipped over the water.

So sweet was their chorus, and so enthusiastic their tune, that, if you had looked up into the sky, you'd have seen a smile even on the face of the moon.  

 

She Always Took her Time About Things

She took her time about things: like reading, finishing her tea (she liked the last sip cold), like thinking carefully between her sentences when she spoke. 

She took her time about things: like trees, and talking to them, and watching out for birds, and long walks in the snow.  

 

They said she was strange and old, older even than the trees. The children regarded her as wonder. Some saw her as a timeworn crone. 

She tried to smile at them whenever she noticed them noticing her, but sometimes her thoughts got the better of her and she didn't notice them at all. 

She knew these things still, because she was a well practiced listener, even when she never talked once.

Indeed, some said she never talked at all. They said that she had lost her voice to excessive smoking (she didn't smoke), or traded it away in exchange for a husband that she had lost. 

If she had given her voice to anything it was the forest behind her house. 

It was then that she took time about her more than ever, like the blue coat she wore, wrapped close around her timeworn body. She remembered when there was forest around every side of the street on which she lived. Now the small patch in the north was all that was left, and even those trees were slowly dying. 

 

She walked there often. In fact, she walked there most days. And not just now that she was old and slow. She had walked here as a young girl once. 

She sometimes thought she recognized some of the trees from her youth, though she knew that in reality those had been lost long ago. 

But sometimes she liked to think the trees she once knew had wandered here late one night so that they could grow old near her. 

Now she could see them perfectly from her kitchen window. She could see them when they beckoned at her in the dark. She knows their shapes as she knows the veins in her wrists and the wrinkles around her eyes. She cannot remember any particular time in which she climbed them, but she feels it in her bones that she once did. Sometimes she almost convinces herself she still could.

Some well meaning folk worry about her long exertions. She knew that too. She was a very good watcher. She'd come back after hours of meandering through her small patch of forest, and she'd see the neighbor glancing anxiously from behind the curtains.

Secretly, she thought dying in that forest wouldn't be such a bad way to go. She'd lie down in the snow, and it would cover her like a blanket, and then she'd fall asleep, like a spell come to take her.

 

She had been a summer child once. Then, as a young woman, she had loved the spring. 

But now, in old age, winter was her lover. She cared little that it made her bones ache and froze her ancient joints. She knew the trees suffered the same way. She could hear it when the wind made them groan.

But she liked to think she had aged like the winter; she liked to think she had walked through this white world so long and so often that it had taken her once blonde hair and turned it the color of the snow; turned her skin to a white so fine and crystalline that you could see her veins course blue beneath, glowing like a winter evening. 

 

 

They said she was old and strange.

But that wasn't true. 

 

She was merely under an enchantment. She was convinced of it because, sometimes, in the space between wakefulness and sleeping, she was sure she was still young. She could feel it in her toes and the tips of her fingers as she wiggled them to wakefulness.

As for the strange part, she knew well that all silent things are regarded strange, and so, she tried not to blame them.

 

They also said she was lonely. She never heard them say it, but she knew that they did. She could see it in their eyes when they looked at her. 

But, that wasn't true either; not so long as the trees were older and wiser than she; not so long as she could still share the silence with them; not while there were birds to feed, and deer that knew her; so long as there were rabbits and owls that no one knew still lived there in that little patch of forest.

 

She was slow though. That much she admitted. 

But that, that was her choice. 

 

 

Little Uncle Runs Home to Make Coffee

Let Pippi and her friends go trudging through rain storms and sleep in shacks and under pines, Little Uncle thought to himself. 

 

He was going to run back home where there was sugar cubs and pancakes. He was going to spend the next few days grazing in their front lawn and awaiting Pippi Longstocking's return on the front porch. And maybe, if he could manage it, he would have the coffee ready for them when they returned from their exertion. 

 

After all, running away from home was for the young. He wanted nothing more than to stay home where all was good and the food was tasty.

 

 I knew from the start that this was a field in which an Astrid Lindgren character needed to graze. And who could be a better individual for such a field than Little Uncle: trusted horse of Pippi Longstocking. 

 

In the episode in which Pippi and her friends run away from their respective homes, Little Uncle also runs off when a rainstorm sends him into a fright. 

 

I always loved the casualness with which Pippi responds to Anika and Tommy's worry, claiming that he was simply running home to make coffee so that they would have something warm to drink upon their return. 

 

Little Uncle is nothing if not a thoughtful horse.

 

I am glad he has joined my collection of animals going for a walk. 

Papa Bear Goes for a Stroll

Papa Bear went for a stroll that night, thinking bearish thoughts about literature and life, and the poem he had read the night before by the fire after baby bear was snoring softly. 

 

It was such a nice night for a walk, he thought. 

 

He walked for quite some time, till his thoughts were less thoughtly, and more musings, till he barely noticed he was walking at all. He walked till long after dark, till the edge of the wood, the edge of the page even. 

 

And so it was that Papa Bear walked right out of the book of fairy tales where he lived with Mama Bear and Baby Bear and into the forest I happened to be painting.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I see a work of art on the internet and I just want to paint someone into it. So it was with this one when I saw a painting of a cluster of trees and couldn't help but feel that they looked lonely and unappreciated. 

 

I once again started by staining my paper with tea. I find that staining it first (even if you cannot see it once I've added the foreground) makes it seem as if I am painting an illustration in an old storybook. 

 

 

So bit by bit the stained back ground was covered, as a forest appeared on the edge of my brush. As I worked on this one on and off for the following weeks, I thought a great deal about who would come walking through this painting. Eventually, Papa Bear appeared. 

Lesser Griffins Chasing Fireflies

My husband is always asking me to draw things for him. He has so many ideas, yet so little patience for drawing.

I finally drew something for him. Behold, the Lesser-Griffin. 

I don't usually paint in this style, and I struggled for a while with making the owl-griffin look the way I wanted it to. But after I added all the little details to the background I was mostly happy with the finished result.

 

The Hundred Acre Wood

I did this painting as a gift to my little brother.

The style is largely inspired by the beautiful forest illustrations featured in the background of The Tigger Movie.

Fantastic Mr. Fox Goes for a Walk

To continue with my focus on Fantastic Mr. Fox, here is a drawing I've been working on for the last two weeks. I started working on this before I wrote my previous blog post. I wonder what it says about me that I unconsciously decided to paint in his tail...

As you can see in the picture, I used tea (English breakfast if you're wondering) for the sky with a touch of yellow paint for the brighter parts.

I used a mixture of green tea and acrylic paint for the hill. You can see some of the tea leaves still on the page. 

The light and the flowers are done with acrylic paint.

And the finished result!

Sera

I did this painting without ever having experienced Italy. It was only a few weeks after finishing it that I got the chance to see Italy for real.
I called the painting Sera, which means evening in Italian. 
What I wouldn't give right now to sit on a porch somewhere in Italy, with a drink in my hand and the evening sun peering over the horizon. 
Strange how a country I hadn't yet been to could feel so much like home, even before I got the privileged to experience it.
Thanks to all those who experienced it with me.
The time we spent together will forever be a golden time in my life <3

"Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life." 

~Anna Akhmatova

 

 

Meraki

I will never sell this painting because it is too precious and money can not buy it. 
I love the way the pebbles glow and the way the paint shimmers when the light hits it.
I painted this one in my Art class a while back with my best friend. 
I called it Meraki. 
Meraki is a Greek word that does not exist in English. 
Meraki means to do something with soul and with love. It means leaving something of yourself behind in your work.
This painting sits in my room and to me it represents the soul and love the two of us have invested into our friendship. 
A long time ago me and my best friend agreed that, despite our many differences, and despite the distance that is now between us, we would not give up on our friendship even when life got difficult. 
Even when life gets busy and we haven't talked in weeks I know that friendships such as these are far to rare and precious to let go. 
It is the beauty of two people that decide not to give up on each other. Friendships such as these are priceless. And therefore, so is this painting. 
   

 

Lion Eyes

I recently re-discovered this painting behind some canvas's. 
This Lion is inspired by Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia. I was always intrigued by the power of the face of Aslan. Instead of a fierce and lethal look in the Lion's eye there was instead a look of immense wisdom and overpowering peace.
The painting is now hanging in my Dad's office. 
This is by far one of my favorite early works.  

Jungle Town

This painting is called Jungle Town.
I had this idea almost a year ago, but I never thought I'd actually get around to doing it. When I heard that we were going to be given a free project in my art class I thought it was a good a time as any to finally start this project.
I love the surrealism of the painting. My favorite kind of painting is the kind that depicts a snapshot of a story, and I feel this painting does that very well. The Tiger and the Boy are inspired by Calvin and Hobbes.
Before I sold Jungle Town a few weeks ago, it was hanging over my bed. I used glow in the dark paint on the neon signs, so that as soon as I turned off the lights the painting would begin to glow.
I have decided to make Jungle Town into a series and am currently working on a Woodland remix to add to the collection.