Artwork Monday

I draw and paint mostly on Mondays. This is mainly because Scoundrel normally spends this day with his best friend – the Elfin One – and I like a day for myself once a week. I’m more productive when I’m alone.

Drawing more means more pictures I can show you, and this is exactly what I’ll do on Artwork Mondays. I won’t make it a weekly installment, I know that I can’t keep up with those. But every now and then will be possible, and it even correlates with one of my resolutions for this year.

Enough with the talking, I know you want pictures. Erm, a picture.

It’s more or less an experiment, and I noticed too late that the paper was definitely not right for water colour. I’m not entirely pleased, but I do like how the letter parts in the last panel came out. If I’m feeling like it some day I’ll draw it again, gladly I’ve got the inked-for-lightbox-sketch still.

You can see the picture full-sized here.

Favourite Words in January ’12

1. highfalutin’. Flashpots are shootin’ bright as the sun, I’m one highfalutin’ son-of-a-gun! Don’t ask me how, fortune found me, fate just crowned me, now I’m king of New York. (Newsies, “King of New York”, 1992). An adjective for someone who’s a show-off.
2. serendipity. I tend to trip and scuttle over that word, although it’s a happy accident or pleasant surprise.
3. gonfalon. Banners is a nice word, too, but gonfalon just sounds so elvish.
4. shenanigans. It sounds a bit old-fashioned, like lace doilies and ruffled gingham curtains, but I like it.
5. conundrum. A great word for riddle. I especially like the -drum at the end. It makes the word roll even more.

10 Adorables in January

1. Checklists. I make one for every three days or so, in big, bold, colourful letters. It’s red right now, and I love to tick them off.
2. Vintagedudes, another favourite tumblr of mine featuring pictures of handsome men (well, mostly handsome and mostly men) in period clothing, mainly out of period movies.
3. The Mast Brothers, chocolatiers from Brooklyn. A friend of mine shared the link to their video on facebook with the comment ” In case the whole teaching thing doesn’t work out I’ll just do this!”. I’d happily join him.
4. Newsies. Quite unknown, Newsies is a 1992 Disney musical starring Christian Bale (yes, that Christian Bale) as the leader of the newsboys’ strike of 1899. Even though is wasn’t too well received when it first went to the silver screen it has quite a fan base today. What I like about it? 19th century working class boys (The caps and hats! The longjohns! The braces!) on the barricades, singing and dancing, faint folk tunes every time we turn to the characters from Brooklyn, wonderfully bad slang accents (take a look at the quotes from the original leader of the strike on Wikipedia), leading of poor-but-righteous masses and that certain feeling of Disney music-induced euphoria, what could I want more?
5. Botanical Illustrations. I’ve got a few prints of these on my walls and rejoice every time I see some. IRis even sent me a letter written on the sheets of a calendar with botanical illustrations. As soon as I find them (yes, chaos, I know, you won’t let me that easily) I’ll pin them on to my wall, too.
6. The way my favourite red Chapati jumper and sneakers match in colour. I guess that’s the reason why I love to wear them together… well, I love both items anyway, but isn’t it fabulous when items match in colour? My other pair of everyday trainers go quite well with my teal bodice, by the way.
7. Clockworker Buttons. AyraLeona from Ruffles and Steam had them made for the community of Clockworker, Germany’s probably largest Steampunk blog (which happens to be a blog I write for rarely, and record a podcast for – more regularly, though -, too). They really pretty and one of the two I ordered immediately went to my derby hat’s ribbon.
8. Dendrochronology. Get a core sample of a newly-chopped tree and  be able date back wood as far as the early neolithic! Isn’t that wonderful? While I’m not so very much intrigued with radiocarbon dating, dendrochronology is closer to crafts and botany than to chemistry and physics (which I’m horrible at), which makes it pretty much my favourite scientific dating method.
9. Booty Swing by Parov Stelar. It’s kind of the theme music of the podcast mentioned above and one of the songs for Jules’ upcoming fashion show. Oh, and of course it’s awesome.
10. Parcels. One of the reasons why I love ordering things via the aethernet is that I love unwrapping and unpacking packages. I also love packing parcels, so if someone is in for a selfmade-things-trade…

30 Questions Mori Girl Challenge – 13

13 – name 5 mori girl style hobbies!

1. Growing your own food. If you’re lucky enough to have your own garden, a balcony large enough or appropriate window sills, that is (sadly I have none of these at the moment). My mother is planning to start gardening in spring so I’ll be able to visit and help her and get my fair share of this mori-style hobby soon!
2. Working with wool, be it spinning, knitting, crocheting, weaving, felting or even sewing things from felt. You can make your own one-of-a-kind mori clothes and accessoires, and I wish my knitting and crocheting skills were a bit higher. Spinning is also a neat hobby if you have to go by train a lot: you can always take a hand spindle and some raw wool with you.
3. Drawing, just like Beatrix Potter. Aquarelles and pencil sketches are the most mori-able kinds of making art in my opinion, and they are both used to depict things from the outsides – like in botanical drawings or animal scribbles. Ink could be quite nice, too.
4. Climbing and exploring, maybe hiking with friends, old school style. I’d love to do this one day, preferably with Scoundrel, Weirdboy or Jules. Imagine downtrodden trails, your feet in woolen socks that reach your knee, a straw hat on your hair, your bento in your bag or backpack and the wide sky above you…
5. Cooking and baking, preferably with things found in the wood or grown in one’s own garden, but at least wholefood. You could make a dinner with your friends, carry the table outside, hang some lanterns and dine with the music of the crickets in summer or curl up on a rug between hills of cushions to spend an evening with the muffins you just made.

New Year’s Resolutions 2012

Happy New Year! I hope all of you made the passage into 2012 happily and the way you wanted to and had a Happy Hogswatch yesterday, too! I celebrated with Jules, his prince charming, Imp and of course Scoundrel eating raclette in the latter’s wonderful kitchen, watching Dinner for One, nipping at cocktails Jules made and blowing up Imp’s working models from his study of architecture. The only thing that was a rather bitter during the evening was that I lost a strand of hair (and my scalp got a bit burned, too. I was incredibly not enthusiastic about that.) to a awry-gone firecracker, but luckily the damage is barely visible and it doesn’t hurt anymore (most of it was the shock, I guess). But for next year I’m going to sew myself a leather cap with goblin ears (simply because I can) for events like this, which brings me to the actual matter of this post as it relates to No. 1 and 5 alike…

1. More Fairy Tales. Since I started reading Once upon a Blog and Folk & Fairy (again), started to watch Once Upon a Time and am trying to think up a fairy tale-inspired design for a skirt at the moment I noticed how little I have been in my personal fairy tale during the last year! Sure, it was full of stress, trials and tribulations, but that is surely no reason to let yourself down with the depression and ground your inner child and fairy tale character! Expect projects! I also hope that my group is taking up Changeling again in concerns of RPG, and maybe I’ll find the right adventure path for my Grimm game in 2012.
2. More Sleep. I’ve been so tired all last year! This resolution also includes the jalousies for my bedroom that have been planned for much too long now. As much as I like the warm glow of the street light outside my window, I’d like to have my chamber darkened though the night.
3. More Baking (and Cooking!). I’ve done next to nothing during 2011, which is horrible! Back in the day I used to bake every week, and even if I won’t return to this regularity I’m going to try new recipes and combinations. It’s my kind of cauldron magic, and I’ve got sweets afterwards, so everything’s perfect. As for the cooking part I noticed how much fun I used to have with it when I prepared dinner for Jules and me on Boxing Day.
4. More Music. The same thing as baking, I’ve neglected my music project with Imp far too much. And not only this, I think I touched my flute not once all year, and also only got on the piano during the holidays! This must end, and so I’m going to schedule myself some sort of music time each week.
5. More Arts & Crafts. I want to finally start a comic project I’m not tired of after some weeks. My biggest problem is that I instantly plan for Silmarillion-like sagas each time an idea strikes me. I’m trying to start small this time so the outlook on the Mount Everest of work still to do won’t crush me again. Also, I need a new wardrobe (partially, at least), and my Fairy Tales resolution fits in this one, too. Additionally – not as a resolution, but anyway – I want to make a new header for this blog. (Overall, this also means more drawings giveaways! ^^)

How did you celebrate the passing of the last year? Did you make any new year’s resolutions? And what would you like to see on Teaparties & Fairytales in 2012?