About Me:I am Isabella a 22 year old artist who specializes in the wonderful and amazing. My work is inspired by fairytales, folklore, mythology, fantasy, literature, music and old shadowpuppets.
Since a little while I run my own little business, selling prints, handmade shadowpuppets and other products based on my illustrations. Next to this I also do custom work.
If you are curious about my work please visit my website at:
Music:Rock & Roll! Jerry Lee Lewis, Wanda Jackson, Gene Vincent, Janis Martin, Buddy Holly, etc.
Also I love Folk like Judy Collins, Donovan, Pete Seeger, The Dubliners, etc.
I am especially crazy about really old ballads. I love the entire collection of Alan Lomax. (He has build up the most briljant collection of folk music!)
I also LOVE The Kinks! They just make me so happy!
Furthermore I love to listen to music from the early 1900's especially music from Lee Morse.
Movies:Orbis Pictus, Big Fish, Wizard of Oz,
The little Prince, The Odyssey, Nosferatu
and lots more!
Books:Everything about folklore, myths and legends.
Hobbies:Drawing, reading books, daydreaming, baking cup cakes.
As I have said in a previous blog post here on EF, I am the new guest
columnist from Dante's Heart (A journal of Myth, Fairy Tales, Folklore, and Fantasy) and today I have posted my first column.
In
my first post I am featuring the work of a very talented Steam Punk
artist going by the name Winona Cookie, so make sure to take a look!
We
all know here what a compliment can mean, so if you like her work
please don't keep it to yourself but share your love by leaving a
comment for the artist at Dante's Heart blog!
This week was very exciting for me because I was expecting to receive my package with laser-cut shadow puppets! Because of the huge success of my shadow puppets I was no longer able
to make them all by hand. Don’t worry, I will still make and sell
hand-cut shadow puppets but next to this I also have a range of
laser-cut shadow puppets, based on the most popular designs I have
sold so far. Here are a few examples:
There are 6 different designs available at my shop and a nice thing
about these puppets is that they cost less! Of course originals are
still available at my shop as well.
Next to this a new series of drawings will arrive at my shop
tonight, based on the famous story of Peter Pan. Here is one of the
drawings in which Peter Pan learns the children how to fly:
Also, I am currently selling some of my original art at my etsy
shop. At this moment I am selling a very special series of original
drawings called the Bird Adventures. Every drawing in this series
depicts its own “bird-story”, showing the life of bird-men and
bird-ladies. The drawings are made on old sheet music taken from a 1932
lessons book on how to play the violin.If you are curious please take a
look at my etsy shop here: link
In the next few weeks more originals will arrive, so if you are
interested keep an eye on my work. If you don’t have an Etsy account
but would like to purchase one of my original works, just contact me
and we will work it out!
I have some great news to share with you all! Since this week I am one
of the new guest-colomnists at Dante's Heart and my job will be to
highlight the work of emerging artists.
Dante's Heart ( link ) is an online venue looking for creative work that explores how myth
and fairy tale define and are defined by the human experience(s).
Once a week I will write a post about art that relates to myth, fairy tale, folklore and fantasy. So
if you have work that you think would be interesting for an article in
Dante's Heart please send me a message or leave a comment on this blogpost
and I will take a look at your work!
And of course, if your work will be featured in one of my posts, I will contact you.
Hi, my name is Travis J. Lee and my website is www.dreamingwings.com. I create my fairies based around the idea of normal people creating their own wings and fairy lands from metal scraps and common objects (warning: artistic nudity, if thats a problem).
Hi Isabelle thank you so much for your friendship. I would love to join you in your articles to submit my artwork. All of my photos are on my EF page. You can choose what you like. Thank you!
Right there, go bug Lise about her wonderful plates, so original and unique. And then there's Susan with her photographs turned to magique, so full of heart and caring.
Tell 'em Tommy sent you. You can't pass them up! :^)
Lately
I receive many custom requests. Most of them are requests for
reproducing or creating new shadow puppets but once in a while I also
receive requests for making a drawing. That happened to me last week. One of my customers wished a drawing in
which a frog and a witch was incorporated and this is the result:
It was the customers idea to base the drawing on an older work of
mine called the little Halloween witch, where a witch is riding a cat.
And so I replaced the cat by a frog, created a new scene and there it
was….
During the process I made a couple of pictures on which you can view
how my drawings are made. Done before with one of my shadow puppets and
so I thought it would be nice to show you the process of creating a
drawing as well.
As you can see I don’t do rough sketches. I prefer to have the
picture perfectly drawn with a pencil before I start working with ink.
When the pencil drawing is finished I basicly color it with ink. I know
this is not the usual way for working with Indian ink but that’s the
way I like to work and I do believe that you should always do what you
like best.
When I was younger my art teachers always told me I worked the wrong
way, whatever that means, and I believed them for a long time. So I
tried to do as they told me too and yes my techniques were perfect but
none of the works I made had a soul, they didn’t “live”. It was quit
some years later when I decided to give up everything I had ever
learned about drawing and started to do what I liked best. It was in
this period I realized that a work process is very personal and so is the choice you make when you decide which materials you will use. It’s
all part of that “thing”which give your work his own soul and
uniqueness. I know that in the eyes of many people I work with lousy
materials, a gnawed off pencil from 5 cm, a plastic point setter in the
shape of a swan, a ordinary ink pen (which didn’t cost me more then 3
Euro) and a simple dishcloth I use to clean my pens with. Though their
not perfect their mine and I love my materials, I even know their
smell. If you would show me a thousand pencils al together I would
still know which is mine.
I know I’m a bit too young to give anyone advice, there is more that
I need to learn then that I know. But I know one thing when it comes to
art, never follow the usual way, you will then only become one of a
million. Only when you follow your own way you can become one out of a
million.
I’m not sure how I came on this subject….. Oh, well…
Anyway the drawing is part of my new portfolio I am creating online.
It’s not complete yet, I’m still seeking for all the right photographs
and stuff, but it’s there. If you like you can view it at: Isabella’s Portfolio Here you can see a selection of my commissioned works, publications,
artworks, shadow puppets and projects . Like I said it’s not finished
yet but I’m working on it….
Last week I received a message from Artemissn, a very talented jewellery designer from Belgium, which you should check out here: Artemissn website
A little while ago she gave everyone the opportunity to win one of
her necklaces which was made out of Czech faceted glass beads. I really
loved the necklace, especially because of it’s beautiful, intens
colours, so I took part of her contest. I was very happy when I heard
later that I was the winner! Here is a picture of the necklace I’ve won:
I was even happier when I noticed that she did not only send me this
gorgeous necklace but also gave me all sorts of little goodies, which
you can see below:
Oh, and there was also a bar of really good chocolate in the
package, but I had already eaten everything before I could even make a
picture of it….
It felt like my birthday when I received this lovely gift and I
think we all should just give away something once in while. You can
make someone really happy with it and what’s better then making another
person happy with your own talents and gifts?
So keep a close eye on my blog because I might hold a contest as well in the near future….
Hi Isabella!
Thank you for the friend add and for your comments on my blog. Nice to meet you! Hope you find some things of interest in my writings, big smiles!
Bright Blessings x
You're welcome :) I took the pictures from inside our conservatory which helped in not scaring them, but my goodness they have good hearing! We were tip- toeing around and speaking in whispers and they still looked over at us o_o
I did look up Vasnetsov and, yes, Wikipedia had alot! I very much enjoyed his paintings. It's always fun to 'discover' someone new...well, new to me, anyway! I love art history and I also teach art as a volunteer in an elementary school where I incorporate a lot of history.
Hi Isabells,
Thank you for the friendship and the nice comments. I had a look on your blog and really like your work. The designs are great and the shadow puppets are unlike anything I've seen in these parts.
I've always thought of Færy Dust as simply a visual representation of what's already there: færy magic. Færies don't really need to resupply, they've got it with them all the time (magique!) and spread it all about to enchant us mere humans... We just get more impact by seeing it. :^)
Thank you for your kind words about my writing. My turn...your puppets are wonderful! Such detail, both in design and in fact. I love to see the lost arts return...brings a little of the magick back into the world.
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I enjoyed reading your column!
Marianne01:41 AM CST