headgear in the wild

Speaking of interesting things on heads, I love the series of illustrations of animals in hats by Lisa Hanawalt featured on the hair pin in honour of New York Fashion Week. Be sure to check out the rest. (via Etsy Tumblr)











The colour blocking morbidity bonnet is the best thing ever. I think she's satirizing fashion with love.

Collectors

Tiny Showcase brought illustrator Lauren Nassef to my attention this morning. I've been perusing her portforlio (and you should to - you won't be disappointed). The thing which seemed the most magpie-like to share was her collector series. After all, we've had animals, tea sets, and wunderkammers on heads before. This series of illustrations though, is for the specialist collectors:


Duchess, shell collector


Edward Palmer, plant collector


Imelda Marcos, shoe collector


Mr. A.C.D. Pain, mineral and gemstone collector



John Kirk Townsend, bird collector


Andrey Avinoff, butterfly collector

Do look at her site. There is much, much more to see.

Cat in a Box

Surprise Content (1909)
Sal Meijer


'Just Fit' by Natsuo Ikegmai



"White Cat" (1919) by M.C. Escher


Allison Cole (via we say meow)


'Cat in a Box' by Carol Justin


'Sharing a bos' by Nicole Wong

The Snow Queen

illustration by Miss Clara for La Reine des glaces Hans Christian Andersen, ed. Gautier-Languereau


Andersen, Hans Christian. Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales. Milo Winter, illustrator. Valdemar Paulsen, translator. Chicago: Rand McNally & Company, [c1916].


The Snow Queen by Debra McFarlane
The Pink Fairy Book
etching with aquatint
190mmx140mm


Art direction by Marcel Wanders and photography by Nicole Marnati. (via)


Illustration by Edmund Dulac for The Snow Queen By Hans Christian Andersen

You can read an annotated version of the Snow Queen Fairytale on Sur La Lune Fairytales. I watched Black Swan recently, which made me wonder about why the Snow Queen is depicted with geese (not swans?). Perhaps it was the deceptive mirrors which reminded me of the Snow Queen. I was thinking about her connection to the White Queen in C.S. Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. The White Queen, who has a wintry realm (as the Snow Queen), also drives a sleigh and kidnaps a boy. In the Narnia books, she is later revealed as a descendant of Adam's first wife Lilith, made from earth like him, rather than a rib. Lilith claimed to be his equal and refused to submit to him. She appears in Jewish mythology. Her history is messy (from ancient Sumeria, through the Pre-Rafealites, wiccans, to modern feminist theory), debated and beyond my ken. Some claim her to be a daimon, succubus, a night spirit, screech owl or a conversely subverted mother goddess. C.S. Lewis' Lilith is half-djinn half-giantess. Like Lilith, the White Queen is the first to rebel, which makes for a particularly interesting, if loaded villain.

A young girl must travel to Svalbard (like The Snow Queen's Spitsbergen) to rescue a kidnapped boy, as in The Snow Queen, in The Golden Compass (or Northern Lights) by Philip Pullman. Incidentally, Pullman was no fan of the Narnia books. He lambastes him for sexism, racism, manipulative use of Christian imagery and rejection of sexuality (particularly in women like Susan, the adolescent who wants to grow up, but this ties clearly to Lilith as well). I read the entire Chronicles of Narnia seven times before the age of 12, and while I did think Lewis a good story teller - in fact, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was what first inspired me to read in English - as I grew older I did think that some of Lewis' ideas and theology insidiously seeped into my subconscious while I was unaware. The idea of not allowing a young woman to mature, or to embrace her sexuality, brings us full circle back to Black Swan. I wonder if I would have been a different sort of young person had I read His Dark Materials, rather than The Chronicles of Narnia.

One of the things that does attract me to The Snow Queen, is that for once, a little girl rescues a little boy.

Girl with Owl

Michael Shapcott
The Girl and the Owl
24” x 30”
Graphite / Acrylic / Oil on Canvas



Lauren Carney
Entangled
Artliner Pen and Watercolour on 300gsm Watercolour Card


Audrey Kawasaki
Owakare
Oil on canvas 30x22
'Ephemera' @ Nucleus Gallery
2007
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif


Dilka Bear
New Moon


Dilka Bear
Emily and the Owl

Riding the Dodo and the Folk-Singing Wolf

Check out the illustrations of Melburn Australia's Genna Campton. She plays with scale, includes animals, fashion illustration, a hint of surreality and references Bob Dylan - what's not to love?


dodo races (2009)


chincilla (2009)


rooster greenstripes (2009)


peacock (2009)


wolf dylan (2009)

Find her site, blog and etsy shop at these links.

(via frankie magazine)