Black Widows and Boudoir Dolls

The other year my dear friend Lindy Lou was bitten by a Black Widow spider.
She is fine and is still the crazy Olde Broad she has always been.
I am slightly sad that she hasn't become a Superhero though...
(Or has she, I mean, they have to keep their secret identity, well, secret don't they? mmmm)

So, I had this idea floating around my head, (usually in bed when I'm really trying to sleep), of creating a Boudoir Doll who was also a Victorian Mourning Doll.
Then after this horrific encounter with an arachnid (he he) I thought maybe I could also add Black Widow to the list of ideas.
After all, to the Victorians, more was most certainly...more.

So here she is in all her Gothic glory.
Mistress Charlotte (see what I did there?).
I thought that rather than make a 'spider' I would use the colours of the Black Widow instead. I also thought she would look nice with velvet and lace, who doesn't ?
She has big spider eyes which also look like she has been weeping, even spider widows cry.
'My my Charlotte, what big eyes you have...'
'Well, my dear, I am a Spider'

I love Mourning Dolls and the idea of a Victorian Spider Widow is just so absurd that I think she could get away with anything.
Hence, the hair...wild and pouffy...(my children think her hair is like Helena Bonham Carter's).
I have added a very soft veil, it's so soft to stroke...
I like being able to see through the veil to the world beyond, sorry I'm getting lost in metaphysical things again. :o)

She has really big feet, no idea why, I just love big feet (mine are not big, maybe I'm overcompensating?).
Maybe I just like my big dolls to be much bigger than my teeny dolls, so everything is bigger?
Who can say...

I hope Lindy Lou will not mind me using her encounter with the Black Widow in this way, but I'm sure that when she climbs down from the web in the corner of the ceiling, she will let me know :o)

So now comes the part any creative person has learned to love...
What will the next thing be?
We never know where or when that odd thought will prod us and the Muses will wake us from our dreams and demand we do something to satisfy their desires.
I'm not complaining though, I love the Muses.
How else could we turn something so nasty as a spider bite into a doll? :o)

I think it's time for some tea...

Waiting For Jack

(I know that not many people will read this but that should never stop anyone...:o) )

I thought that I would share some of my paintings and their progress, it also does me good to see how they look on-line, the colours change so dramatically that sometimes they no longer feel like my work...so...here goes the first...be gentle...

Pumpkin Patch

This painting was done to honour a friend who passed away at the beginning of February, she was called Tammy and was an amazing artist.

Tammy had a studio called 'Light and Shadow' so I thought the painting should represent these ideas.
We also had an Ehag Emporium theme of Light and Shadow for Tammy, so this fit nicely.

This is painted in oils on canvas paper, I don't have the space for lots of large artwork, so most of my paintings are A4 size, this is also easier to scan!
Tammy made many pumpkin creations, so naturally the painting needed a pumpkin!
And, of course, every Faerie wanted to join in, so it was hard to chose just one, but this lady seemed to speak to me and so she was posed on the pumpkin...

Hand on Heart

I was thinking of Tammy while I painted her, how quickly things can change, just how much we can miss out on if we let ourselves.
I think that if one positive thing can come out of Tammy's death it is this...
We should grasp every moment, make the time matter, don't let things slip away because we are afraid...and make as much Art as we can, so that when we are no longer here, we have something which tells the world, that we were here, that we did something, that we left something for others to enjoy...
After all...Art is long and Life is short...

Waiting For Jack

So, What Do Artist's Do All Day?

They wrestle Monsters!

I have a dirty little secret...
I have a Faerie Persona...'Oberon's Wood'.
There, it is out, I can now join the secret society of artists who 'Do Fantasy'!
This means that I will never, ever be taken seriously as an 'Artist'.
It isn't that I am ashamed...I would have mentioned it before but Victorian things got in the way...so...

I have been painting faeries, I enjoy this, sometimes though they just refuse to sit still long enough for me to capture them, they're tricky, faeries!
I am also sculpting portraits of dead people.
How my mind works is a puzzle.
In one day I can be drawing a beautiful little fae child, then later have my arms covered in clay trying to decide how to create a new 'Memento Mori'...is there something wrong with me?

I also make teeny things...teeny things are a problem.
The more teeny things you create, the more of your house they take over.
I am thinking that the time has come to pack them all away in an old trunk and chain them up!
But I would just feel sorry for them and let them come out for a while, maybe feed them, you know what happens then...

I draw every day.
I think drawing is my happy place.
I was drawing a balloon this morning...see what I mean...my mind has a mind of its own.
I sit on the sofa, (I do not have a studio, which is a problem when I am painting), and have a cup of tea and some dark chocolate by my side and just draw...a truly happy place.

Later though...I enter the 'Painting Place'...cue scary music...this is not such a happy place, it is full of monsters and doubts and struggles...it pulls my hair and pinches me.
It calls me names and sniggers at me.
It mocks me.
Painting...
Painting is tricky, you have to make sure that you use the correct brushes, not the ones you have just been painting faeries in oils with and then decide to touch-up a watercolour...doesn't work, believe me!
I love to paint but I don't feel that am very good at it.
I have doubts about my abilities.
I think many artists are like this.
The more I learn about the way you should paint, the less I know how to paint.
I am what the 'establishment' would call a 'Kitchen Painter', they mean this in a derogatory way, to me it is a necessity, it is the only place available for me to paint and sculpt.
A kitchen painter I am.

Someone once said to me, that it must be lovely to be able to 'just create things'...oh deary deary me...
If only they knew.
Faeries, dead folks, balloons...
Yes, it is lovely to 'just create things'.
Lovely in the same way that my chocolate tastes before I think about it making me tubby.
Lovely in the way that your children grow up and fly away and do not need you anymore.
Lovely in the way the familiar old person looks at you in your mirror.
And then I turn to my 'Memento Mori' once more...
This leads to thoughts of life and death and also what kind of art you will be leaving behind.
What will your achievements be?
If any?
See what I mean...it's lovely.

Though, to be honest, I find the temptation to create things so delicious that I face my monsters head on.
Face to face.
Bring it on...
Or at least wait until I have made the cookies (in my 'studio') and have one in my hand as a shield.
Then I can face anything...
Even Art!