A World Turtle

On May 20, 2022July 7, 2023 By ArtyMissKIn Art, World Turtles

Hello my friends and happy Friday!

You may or may not know that this coming Monday (May 23rd) is World Turtle Day! I love turtles they are magical creatures and won’t be around much longer if we don’t look after them. I suppose that wasn’t helped by sailors eating them – I think Darwin famously struggled to bring them back from the Galapagos to the UK because they kept eating them on the voyage! (I mean they’re beautiful but don’t exactly look appetising do they?!)

Anyhoo, World Turtle Day was created so that people could celebrate turtles (and tortoises) and their sadly disappearing habitats. I remember as a child my neighbour had a tortoise and use to pout it in a shoebox on the winter to hibernate – which as a kid was hilarious because it would wear your shoes if it found them!

So I decided to draw myself a World Turtle.

The World-bearing Turtle myth is actually Chinese mythology and Native American folklore. Of course one of my favourite authors (one Sir Terry Pratchett) imagined the Discworld which is carried on the back of a giant space turtle, the Great A’tuin. And of course we did (historically speaking) believe the earth was flat at one point in time.

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Advice from a Caterpillar

On May 6, 2022May 23, 2024 By ArtyMissKIn Art3 Comments

Hello friends,

I hope you’ve had a good week so far! This weeks post a few pieces of art about about one of my all time favourite book characters – the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland! And I thought maybe it might be fun to post some pages from my sketchbook.

And while the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations are in black and white in the book the Caterpillar is described as being blue (and precisely 3 inches tall) so I thought that tall my caterpillar related art should use blue tones. Theres a couple of cute drawings, some hand lettering art of “How Doth the Little Crocodile” and a brilliant Terry Pratchett quote!

So, enjoy some blue toned caterpillar/mushroom related art…I hope you like it.

This caterpillar is based more from the 2010 film directed by Tim Burton, I think the movie Absalom (although in the books he doesn’t have a name and is just referred to as the Caterpillar) is much more chilled out than the 1951 Disney version – who in my opinion was far too much of a diva and he yells at Alice far too often ! It’s drawn with crayons which are far harder to control than I remember them being as a kid!

“How Doth the Little Crocodile” is a poem by Lewis Carroll which appears in his 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice recites it while attempting to recall “Against Idleness and Mischief” by Isaac Watts. It’s such a brilliant little poem and has always been one that stuck in my head.

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Swans in black and white

On January 14, 2022March 17, 2023 By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Hello my friends,

I hope you had a safe and joyful new year!

Lots has been happening here – I’ve changed my url to artymissk.com (it feels so cool to be .com) and I thought that I’d kick off my first real post of the year with some photo editing. I really love black and white images – they feel timeless so I thought I’d have a go at editing the swan photos that I took last year.

I really love black and white images – they feel timeless so I thought I’d have a go at editing the swan photos that I took last year.

These pictures are beautiful in colour of course but the elegant tones of black and white really highlight the shape of the birds.

Mute Swans really are magical birds. The local ones although being totally wild, are really rather domesticated and friendly! They get incredibly close – the adults are enormous and will actually take food form your hands.

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The White Rabbit

On November 18, 2021July 7, 2023 By ArtyMissKIn Art

The White Rabbit was illustrated by Sir John Tenniel for ‘Alice’s adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll in 1866. I absolutely love his illustrations, so this is my attempt at Sir John’s White rabbit of Hearts. I’m quite pleased with it! Drawn with Winsor & Newton Indian ink.

“Near the King was the White Rabbit with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the other.“

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A World of My Own

On November 6, 2021July 7, 2023 By ArtyMissKIn Art

Alice in wonderland has long been one of my favourite things in the world so continuing my experimenting with water colours to try and bring more green and nature inside in the winter and combining my love of all things green with my love of calligraphy and quotes, they don’t take long to do, but look really effective against a white wall – my funny little brain likes to pretend its alchemy!

Yellow flowers in the sun {Poetry}

On October 7, 2021December 11, 2022 By ArtyMissKIn Art

Firstly Happy national poetry day 2021! Secondly just a short post this week

As its the 7th of October thought I’d post this haiku!

I really love to write Haiku’s its so quick and easy. For those who may not know Haiku (or Hokku) is a Japanese form of verse most often composed (in English versions) of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables.

Thanks for reading,

have a great week.

Number seven {One frame}

On September 25, 2021December 11, 2022 By ArtyMissKIn Photography

Do you have a lucky number?

I don’t know why, but this always makes me smile. It’s a random paving slab (about 6×6 inches) in the middle of a field, but it’s a seven – which is of course not only lucky but also a magic number…or the field is #7…but then you have to wonder where they’ve hidden the other six!

The Hobbit

On September 21, 2021December 11, 2022 By ArtyMissKIn Art

On this day in 1937, J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit was published. The first line of chapter 1 is ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.’ this particular book has always ben a favourite of mine and I read it more or less once a year. The copy I have was illustrated by Michael Hague and I found it in a little coffee/bookshop near LochNess in Scotland.

Placed onto the page is a coaster I made of a cartoonised door to BagEnd.

Also seeing as tomorrow is September 22nd – which is Bilbo Baggins’ Birthday I dug out my very well read copy of The Hobbit, think I might read it again…safe to say this is the book that ignited my love of dragons! Michael Hauge’s illustrations are beautiful and lead me to the works of John Howe and Alan Lee.