Mozart + Reiniger = Delightful

The color-palette of this lovely Lotte Reiniger film is delightful. To see more about how she created her wonderful paper-cut animations, see "Escapism" in the bottom margin of this blog.

In Between

In between illustration commissions and Etsy orders I've been stitching away at my own version of an embroidery sampler: my own rendering of "Death and the Maiden." I plan to work in every kind of stitch, floss, ribbon I can find and learn. (Needle'n Thread has a wonderful video library of how to perform many different stitches.) I am obsessed with white-on-white in most things I do; finding this obsession quite a cleanliness-challenge - I'm not succeeding at present.

I learned many of these techniques as a child but have only recently revisited this craft. I've found I love embroidering - so calming. Making lots of mistakes and stumbling upon little tricks now and then.

Fine artists are also taking this craft to a new level:

ELIN
http://elintm.blogspot.com/

Rosalind Wyatt

Jenny Hart

Animated Embroidery

Pleat-Love

An out-of-the-blue illustration opportunity arose last week which is taking me away from my personal projects for now. It's a more "fashionista" job, referred to me by some fashion illustration clients from a few years ago - so I'm in a fashion-y mood. And when I'm in a fashion-y mood a few clothing elements dominate my favorites list. First of these is pleats. I love pleats. They must be handled with such skill and trained with utmost care and when they are treated with respect, perform amazing visual and tactile stunts.

Already behind on posting . . . . I do have a legitimate excuse, though. Bit o' cold brought on by too many late nights with an old friend over the weekend. Some Etsy orders have been coming in this week - this a relief since I thought my shop had been entirely forgotten in cyberspace! Here's a few things I've been musing on this week; have been on a bit of a carnival-kick lately. Hope to post some updates on my work soon.

From top to bottom:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/12/photogalleries/sea-animals/photo5.html
http://www.madphotoworld.com/2008/04/circus-arena-at-night.html
http://www.anthropologie.com/ - gladiator bird, raven
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfduggan/62199231/