More Women In Art Illustrations

Lovely illustrations for you to use in your next project of beautiful ladies just waiting to grace your art. Perfect for altered books, soldered charms, canvas work - well, it's just endless, isn't it?

I have been struggling with daylight savings again this year, I can't seem to get into a routine and the unpredictable weather is just adding to the problem... I need to get back into an exercise routine, but I am a creature of habit and I so enjoyed my daily walks. Now that the weather has turned rainy and cold, it's time to develop a new routine.

Argh, this happens every year... What do you do when the weather turns cold?

Illustrations From the Past

I collect vintage illustrations of all types and as so many of my blog friends use imagery in their art I thought I would share some of the illustrations of women I have collected. I can't wait to see how you use them in your next project. ENJOY!

Marie Antoinette

Queen Elizabeth

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

He might have been mistaken for a man sitting suspended during a long daguerreotype exposure, a subject who had become dazed and disoriented as the clock ticked away and the slow plate soaked up his image fixed for all time a portion of his soul.
- excerpt from Cold Mountain, a novel by Charles Frazier

Reading Charles Fraziers first novel, Cold Mountain is a deep pleasure for me like all great story tellers you become lost in Charles' story and you relish each page. I will become so taken with a passage from a well written novel that I will be compelled to read it over and over again, slowly, absorbing the meaning, and letting the visual images pass through my minds eye - like the one above regarding daguerreotypes. Often I am then further inspired to write the passage in my artist journal so that I can refer to it again easily in the coming year as I fill the pages with inspirational bits and pieces.

I highly recommend this book for your reading pleasure this year - add it to the list.

Photos were once rare and precious, small treasures to be held tenderly in the hand and placed in a special velvet lined box for safe keeping between viewings. The daguerreotypes were dark, and a little hazy making them even more beautiful as we imagine the color of the eye and shade of hair. It's like candle light...

The brass velvet lined cases with tiny latches gave the photos even more drama and enhanced the experience - the cool metal of the brass and soft velvet under fingertip protecting the images contained within of sisters, sweethearts, mothers, sons and daughters.

The stern faces and rigid postures were due to the process that required complete stillness by the subject for long minutes during the sitting. Photo engagements for family portraits could take an entire afternoon and were a celebrated event.  The excitement over having ones photo taken which was a novelty at the time would offset the boredom and tediousness of the sitting.

What a lovely little girl, can you imagine her personality from this photo? She seems like an intelligent young lady of about eleven years with a sensible hair style and lean frame. I can imagine her baking cookies with her mother, playing the piano well, being very conscientious about her studies and being a helpful girl with her little brothers and sisters. When she grew up she became a school teacher in a one room school house teaching ten students varying in age from six years to twelve years of age.  The older boys once placed a small black snake in the girl's outhouse that was very alarming to their young teacher when she found that they had also latched the door from outside preventing a hasty escape.  Once the boys saw how hysterical their young teacher was when she emerged from the outhouse they were filled with remorse and treated her quite nicely from that point forward.

Now how about this one.....look closely at her face....

Now I imagine this little lass being like the Scarlett O'Hara character in Gone With The Wind, spoiled, head strong, intelligent - a natural born survivor. All a delight to her doting father who championed every fit of temper his little lass demonstrated.    Much to the dismay of her mother and family.  She married well, had a well appointed home where she lived a lonely, dissatisfied life....in her perfect surroundings where she was served afternoon tea at exactly 2pm each day by her housekeeper.

Oh enough of that!  How boring....

Maybe she ran away from home at an early age and became a circus performer in the center ring of the Barnum and Bailey circus balancing on the back of a galloping white stallion while balancing on one foot......  how daring and exciting!  

She married the elephant trainer and left the circus to live in India with the peaceful elephants of the region, protecting them from harm and capture.  They had two lovely children that grew up with colorful parrots, exotic pets and loving parents - the perfect childhood.

A prize stallion could also be a cause for a photo - Is that a harness I see?  Could this horse have drawn a fine carriage for a it's proud owner?   Is this an advertisement for a horse for sale or a photo of a son in his new profession of being a stable hand?  It's very mysterious...

Sweet sisters, the eldest with her hand on her middle sister's shoulder who I assure you resents the fact that her elder sister gets the higher seat and is touching her at all - see the clinched fist in her lap? There is a fierce rivalry between first and second born children that is timeless. The little one just seems bored with the whole thing, confused by the ongoing battle of wills between her elder siblings that she will never fully understand.  She wonders why they can't just get along with one another....

Were there more children born to this family and if so, I wonder how the dynamic changed if the next child born was a son?  

This is my fascination with darguerrotypes, the imagined stories are endless and ever changing as I gaze at the images and wait for the story to unfold.....

Traveling Guitar Mosaic

I have been BIZZY lately, trying to complete some of the ongoing projects I always seem to have in the works.  I love souvenir state plates, the fun images, the vintage colors, and the gold filigree just rocks me.

I have been picking them up here and there for a couple of years knowing that a use would "come to me" and it did in the form of a mosaic guitar.

I really hate to break up those plates, but what else are you gonna do with them?  Put them in a cabinet where no one sees them or turn them into art to be enjoyed?
Believe it or not the guitar was the most difficult part of this project.  I wanted a vintage, looks like it had been used type of guitar for the plates.  You know -  a well traveled guitar.  I found it after months of searching at a garage sale in Blue Springs - by chance.

I was meeting with an antique's dealer that had vintage ladies watches for me to look through and after I made my selections I just happened by a garage sale and thought what the heck - just one more stop.  The guitar was sitting by the garage door, with just the right amount of wear I had been looking for - perfect!
I had the plates - souvenirs of an era when America took to the roads and songs like "King of the Road" were a hit.  My family took these road trips every Summer for two weeks in a car with a pull behind pop-up camper.  We listened to 8 track tapes of Merle Haggard, Charlie Pride, Tammy Wynette and the like while we drove along stopping at all of the tourist destinations.  My Mom collected state souvenir charms for a charm bracelet.  They were really cool enameled charms in the shape of the state or had an attraction listed on the front.  I wonder if she still has it?  I'll have to ask her to get it out so I can photograph it for you.
The guitar is a mosaic of days gone by when families traveled the open road, camping at night in KOA campgrounds, roasting marshmallows, and swatting mosquitos.  The kids would run through the campground free at last from hours sitting in the back seat of a car playing "Eye Spy".  We travelled with six people in the car.  Luckily cars were alot bigger in the late sixties and we have enough room without squabbling about who was touching who in the back seat.  You know, "Get on your own side", "Stop touching me" until Mom would put a quick stop to it with threats of pulling the car over.  Ahhh, the good ole days.
This guitar made of well traveled pieces of glass brought home in the trunk of a car to hang on a wall - a trophy of an adventure survived on the open road.  

Vintage Bottle Chandelier

I finished the vintage bottle chandelier after visiting a few more antique shops in search of more cobalt blue bottles, amber and frosty shades of blue. It took a few stops, but I found the perfect bottles and wire them up. After alot of fussing with positioning I was satisfied with the results.
I kept going into the room to look at the chandelier as the light chaged throughout the day and it was beautiful when the sun was in the east, and beautiful in the full sun of afternoon.
When my Mom came over for dinner she looked at the chandelier and proclaimed that she would have never thought of adding bottles to a chandelier and that I needed a few more cobalt blue bottles as they were her favorite. That means she liked it!

My nephew, Caleb who is four asked why I had bottles hanging from the light fixture. I told him it was because I like them and they made me happy. He looked at the chandelier and then at me and said, "Okay. Can we go see the tire swing now?"

He always makes me giggle.

Red Fox

I grew up in the country, the closest large city was Springfield, Missouri which was over an hour away. It was seven miles to town, a population of 1200 for groceries and school. I loved growing up in a small town. I never wished to live in the "big city". It was a scary place for country kids. So much traffic, houses so close together, and seemingly unfriendly people honking their horns at one another on the highway. We were used to everyone waving at one another on the highway as they passed.

We would visit out cousins in Lees Summit and Wichita. I often wondered what they did for fun. We used to go swimming everyday in the creek close to our house. It's where my brother taught me how to swim when I was five. He first taught me how to float and then to dog paddle. He also taught me the areas of the creek to stay away from in the event there might be a snake there. Usually pools of quiet water in the shade with a rocky outcrop along the shore. The rapids were fair game and the best place to swim. We used to ride inner tubes down the creek after a large rain.

I have lived in the city for almost 20 years now. I wouldn't swim in the creeks today. I have lost the confidence living in the country brings. It seems too shallow, dirty and there are probably snakes in there! My how my outlook has changed as I have grown older and become a city dweller.

We had lots of wildlife in the country. We would see the occassional deer, squirrels, rabbits, and skunks. In the country you have raccoons, turkey, quail, fox, bobcat, coyotes, etc. We really never saw them. It was very rare. The closest farm to ours was a quarter of a mile away and most farms were farther apart than that. Wildlife had lots of room to roam so it wasn't necessary for them to venture close to farms to find food. We just didn't see them and when we did it was a novelty.

I have seen more wildlife in Kansas City than I ever did in the country while growing up. We have several deer that will graze in my front lawn, nibbling away at my rose bushes, trees, etc. My sister in law, Laurie had a family of skunks under her covered porch that were a real challenge to remove. We have a family of fox that live near our house in the wooded area. We see them regularly and it is a real treat. It drives my dogs crazy however, because they can hear them outside the fence at night. We also have an owl that hoots from the trees at night. I love to hear him.

I love the fox that live in the city and I am so glad that they live nearby to help keep the chipmunks under control at my house. Those dreaded chipmunks - what can you do? I am way outnumbered and have tried moth balls, poison, - nothing works. Thank goodness for my two terriers that keep them out of my flower garden for the most part. Of course, they crash through my perennials chasing the chippys - but everythings a trade off isn't it?

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Inspiration - Circus

The easiest place to find inspiriation is hands down the internet. I find inspiration in lots of places but, if you want to browse through hundreds of books in an afternoon check out your favorite web browser. I am an internet junkie and spend hours browsing chromolithographs primarily on educational websites. I love the color and the artisty of vintage posters, bookplates, and illustrations. I found these circus posters today while browsing through images on google.

If you haven't tried browsing images on google - here's a tip. Select images from the top left hand of the page and enter the type of image you are interested in (e.g. circus artists). Enjoy!

Most of the images in this blog are from random circuses in Europe. The one below is from France and I only wish I could have gone to see Le Papillon - The Butterfly. The costumes must have been amazing! This poster was listed under trapeze artist

Clowns are scary. We used to go to the Shrine Circus in Springfield, Missouri when I was a little girl. It was so much fun! The clowns would come up into the audience and interact with the kids. My girlfriend, Judy and I were scared of clowns and would run away whenever they tried to get near us. This of course, only made them chase us.... I can still hear the screams.

The only image I could find of a lady clown, isn't she cute? Look at the Mary Jane's on her feet.

I did find lots of lady trapeze artists featured in lots of posters, here are a few.

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Tortoise & the Hare

Since my surgery I am feeling like the tortoise - slow and steady. I anticipate "hare status" in about 60 days. Sitting quietly has always been a challenge for me. I was the toddler that went from standing to running much to the dismay of my Mother. Busy hands and fast of foot I was climbing on top of the couch reaching for the light switch so that I could switch the lights on and off as quickly as my chubby fingers would allow.

Later, I became the tree climber. I climbed every tree in our yard much to the dismay of my Father who was concerned that I would not only hurt myself but break limbs out of his trees.

So, you can imagine what a challenge it is for me to sit quietly. Each day brings a little more stamina which allows me to "putter around" the house. If I could only manage the stairs that lead to my studio. Next week will find me in the studio putting together lots of jewelry for an upcoming show I plan to do in June. So much to do - just the way I like it!

I have fallen for sprout green turquoise that was used in the bracelet below -

I also found these great carved beads in green turquoise and sky blue turquoise. I am so anxious to create assemblage jewelry with them.

I have been busily sketching designs for earrings, bracelets, and necklaces in a variety of lengths. I have lots of vintage elements to combine with these intricate beads that will result in a one of kind piece of wearable art. Is there anything better?

Easter Greetings

A sampling of vintage Easter postcards to share.