Saturday, April 23, 2016

An Alien City and Its Unlikely Origins. . .

Greetings to you today, Dear Friends of The Tearoom,

I have always been fascinated with worlds which might exist someplace else.  When I was a little girl, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and there was a time when I answered, "An astronaut!"  I was told that girls didn't become astronauts.  I accepted that answer at the time, especially because my grandfather was an amateur astronomer (even built his own telescopes), and even he didn't think there was any reason that girls should be interested in astronomy!  Luckily for me, even though I had plenty of people telling me what I couldn't be, something in my head told me that I could do whatever I wanted to with my mind.  So, I now dabble in whatever interests me and see things through my own vision as much as I want!  I now place no limits on myself as to what interests me and I am certainly more enlightened when it comes to any ridiculous, if not dangerous, limits placed on anyone based on their gender.

(As always, please click on the image to see it larger.)

My collage today is of an alien city, perhaps located near that brightest star you'll see in the sky tonight.

I think the most curious thing about my collage today might not be what is about, but the source of the images I used to make it.

For sometime I have been fascinated by the botanical photographs of Karl Blossfeldt.  He photographed stems of plants, seed pods, blossoms and buds, very closely, with a camera he made himself!  I was able to find many of these images online at The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.  They very most generously have made 200,000 of their works of art available online in their RijksStudio and placed them in the public domain.  You can even save collections to use in your artwork or for future reference, as I have (take a peek at my collections here.) After looking at several of the Blossfelt photographs there, the wheels of my imagination began to turn and I began to think of these botanical artifacts as buildings in an alien urban landscape.  To see which botanical images inspired me in this work, take a peek here.  I also used several images from space from their site for the background of my collage.

Thank you, Dear Friends, for taking a trip with me through my imagination once again today!

Monday, April 18, 2016

The Bat Babies. . .

Greetings Dear Friends!
Some of my most creative ideas sneak in the back door when I am sleeping and I hardly hear them come in until I realize I am in the middle of them.  But others come riding in, making all kinds of ruckus, on the backs of other projects.  This was the case with my new collage sheet Bat Babies & Their Garden of Gloomflowers, for my Etsy shop Velvet Revived.  As I was working on my last collage sheet The Rootababies, I was getting ideas for making some kind of bat creatures as their play-mates!

And so, today, I introduce you to their world...

(As always, click the images to see them larger.)

When the moon is full
The Garden of Gloomflowers is at its most morbidly fragrant...

Their scent attracts many creatures,
and I think I hear the quiet beating of leathery wings now...


Here comes one of the Bat Babies now, 
cute but creepy,
baby-faced creatures of The Night...


Let's get a closer look...


And, look, she is being joined by some of her sisters!

The Bat Babies and their flowers of Gloom can come
to live with you and make your art projects just a
bit gloomier by visiting my shop Velvet Revived!



All of my collage sheets, printable invitations & other
fun and decorative projects are available for
instant download, and therefore, instant gratification!

Oh, and by the way, I just finished the updating of
my shop!  I hope you like it!

I've even taken advantage of Etsy giving us more sections to
use by creating a "Digital Oddities" section for my
dark-but-fun creations!!


And now, back to the mental drawing board,
where my next dark idea is starting to pick at me...