Be Happy and Healthy
Use your imagination, be creative and believe in it!!
A New Year brings brings thoughts of the past year and dreams and hope for this year. Other than the obvious, health and happiness for my friends and family - creatively I'm hoping to be disciplined - to put in the work and to be confident to believe in it - because it is all there. Last year felt like a year of continuous searching (waisting time?) I spent so much time looking at products and pattern I forgot about the true picture, or even the story. I also kept trying to paint differently, almost in the search of producing something -proper, a grown up art if you like - and I failed miserably. Now I realise it's not what others think of my work - it's about me, insecurity doesn't get you anywhere - how can I expect others to believe in it if I don't. So it's like going back to where I started and seeing what was always there - back to Itchycoo. I painted the first and second large picture in Jan 2010 and the last in six months later. I've done 18 small canvas's the last one was completed a year ago. It's about time to get on with what I had in mind, a picture book.
Somewhere Beyond the Sweet Milk Mountain
Where the Silken Threads Surround You
I Love You Inside Out, Whoever You May Be.
(The text for the book)
Beautiful Itchycoo
Mimi imagined a land called Itchycoo.
Somewhere beyond the sweet milk mountain, where the silken threads surround you, trees weep rainbow tears and strawberries fall out of the sky. On the day the habbits escaped the carousel.
Wait!
A whisper echoed inside her head, I love you inside out, whoever you may be.
Didn’t you know?
The book will be 12 pages of paintings, there is almost no text, it will be up to the individual to make up their own story. There will be a glossary for characters and objects and an open answer question page to help plot your own story as it is just as much about your imagination as it is about mine. For younger children the book becomes a bit of an eye spy, or where's Mimi. For older the book is to stimulate imagination and to encourage their own creative writing.
These are the original sketches to the first 3 Itchycoo paintings.
These sketches, above and below this text are from August 2010.
The titles and theme have stayed the same but the composition has changed.
December 2011, Sketches for the next 3 and a half Itchycoo story paintings.
No 4, Curiously We Wait Across an Arctic Wilderness.
No 5, Starfish and Coffee at a Table Laid for Tea.
No 6, Super Fly High in a Sky, Beside us a City That Floats on by.
No 7 ??
As you can see I have a long way to go and hope it doesn't take too many years. As for the story, or the illustrative part - that's it so far - half way, beyond that I don't know.
Last summer I wrote a fairytale with Mimi inspired by old Norwegian folklore from the land of trolls. So below are a few sketches, not that you will be able to see what it is about yet, but is also in the making.
Mimi Share The Love
And The Troll Without a Heart
If you haven't seen it I have also started a new Mimi in Itchycoo blog which gives a new dimension to the paintings where the characters can come to life. It has posts from Mimi, that becomes a diary of her journey in Itchycoo. There are also posts by Momo, her great great grandmother who gives her an insight to her history and helps Mimi along her way. My posts are a bit like excerts from a book were the characters in the painting talk to Mimi and each other.
I did do something I liked last year, except it isn't finished!
I'm hoping I will have put some serious work into it and get well on my way to achieving part of the above.
Then there is Life at Forty - to be a Fit and Fabulous 40, Not a fat Frump at 40 !!
We can all hope!!
Happy New Year 2012
Be Happy and Healthy
Use your imagination, be creative and believe in it!!
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