The Book of Life by Susan Lea Murray (aka Serene Murray-Denton)

A song written by my mother for me when I was small and she was young. (lyrics from memory)

Audio of me singing it on Soundcloud:

nobledesign · The Book of Life by Susan Lea Murray

It's about my mother's awakening to the fact that women don't have to live within the confines of ristrictive gender roles. That they could branch out and make their lives about what mattered to them without any limitations. It was an important lesson for me to get when so young.

I read the book of life,

as it was given to me.

And in many ways,

I was the princess.

I saw the dream.

and I was in it.

And in many ways,

I was the princess.

Now, you ask me,

to read you this book.

One I thought I knew so well,

One I should should believe in.

One that I should want to tell you,

When the only way I'm different,

from you, my lovely one,

is to know.

To know to throw that book away,

and go live your own.

Go do your own smiling,

and go make your own play.

Why play a lonely princess,

with only one line to say.

Go do your own smiling,

and go make your own way.

Cloud kitty made sure I knew she was always in charge of the production.
I turned around to see her perched on set like this and it made me laugh.

Cloud was a real all-grey beauty.

As far as I know, Cloud was the world's only ladder-climbing cat.

She would climb up and down by herself!

Back at the old loft, before the new kitties arrived, Cloud was my dearest love. And she loved it.

I kissed one dark night while she was sound asleep and startled, she lashed with sharp claws

at my smooching kisser. Stitches were required and a scar is still visible in photos.

But hey, at least she luckily just missed my eye!

In the new house, we rescued two kitties off the street and Cloud was forever angry over it.

                        

It got more and more difficult to care for her as time went on. Many hours a day cleaning up big messes, Trying to treat her with special diets, keeping the cats apart so the younger ones weren't bullied by her, etc. When she was too aged to jump, we would escort her in the backyard to sunbathe which helped. 

I came into the studio to find Cloud lounging on the bug party set even though she knew she wasn't supposed to be there. I took it as a most definite message of her displeasure with me. 

I had to laugh.

 

Cloud in healthier elder days May of 2019. I took other photos and videos of her as she

lost substantial weight and became disorientated after seizures, etc.

When it seemed as though she was truly at her life's right and proper end, we called in a wonderful service that provides euthanasia via house call. We preferred not to take her into the vet's office as home would be less stressful to her, a bit warmer, quieter, we could give her her favorite food.

She was 17 years old and infirm so we didn't feel extensive medical intervention would be best in her case. When it seemed passing away would make more sense than living in the state she was in, we made the call for the vet service.

She actually collapsed from the first injection while eating. And then was gently made to stop beating just a few moments later. We made our goodbyes. And thanked her for being our dear friend.

Cloud, it matters where you are.

Jeff's Magical Workflow

Now that I've tried it out, I can outline some of Jeff's Magical Workflow in general:

1. Shoot frames to memory card (shoot high res native raw)

2. Open as library in Adobe Lightroom (this is the amazing key tip from Jeff-- so effortless)

3. Modify frames as a batch within Lightroom (snatch still frames from Lightroom and take to PS for further edits for books an posters) Non-destructive.

4. Export to Adobe Premiere Pro on HD per Jeff's settings (shown in screen shot)

5. Open new project with preset Arri>1080p>Arri1080p 23.976 (for proper resolution and frame rate).

6. Import frames from HD folder --but select first image only and then check "Image Sequence" in the dialog box (this will import all the images into a single clip.

7. Drag new clip from project window to timeline--and you are done! (edit further as you like there before exporting to Apple's Pro Res 422 Codec in H264 format at 1080p (or whatever size you like to post.)

He also recommended Crash Plan for Cloud backup ($60/year and excellent speed) and to link it to (my soon to be) External RAID enclosure for Firewire 800mb, 2-bay, 3.5" HDDs/s with (2) 3 TB drives as my local back up.

Let me know if you have any questions and I'll try to answer. And please report back how it works for you if you try it!

GOGOGO!

Rivalry

Halfland has but one rival for my love, focus, and time. Ballet. Permit me to explain why.

(Last Sunday, during my second class of the morning, one of the extremely talented young male dancers, Roman Frey (portrait below), asked me to work next to him at barre. Stills taken from stolen quick clips of class barre work.)

My 42 Year History With Dance.

My first ever in life ballet class was at age 11.5 with the very man who teaches me today. The man is an absolute Master Teacher of Classical Dance. I am smart enough to know he has no equal on earth. I watch his every move and word to every student and am regularly in awe of not only his extraordinary grasp of body dynamics and mechanics, music, artistry, and meaningful expression at every level of experience, but also his wisdom about living life.

When I was a little girl, he took me into his world and shaped me as a dancer. I was shy and quiet, utterly intimidated by everything, but he saw a quality in me that was worthwhile and was the first person to elevate how I saw myself. Forever after knowing him I was a dancer. I studied with other teachers in other places as my houses kept moving but he was always the one that made enormous impact for the better in my life.

At 18, I was in a small ballet company in Santa Barbara when they ran out of funding. I objectively looked at the circumstances and determined that I didn't have enough drive, looks, or talent to pursue a career in dance further. I decided to quit completely and see what the rest of the world lived like. I learned and danced a bit of Jazz but no ballet classes or performances at all for 25 years after that.

Then by chance, 10 years ago, I saw my first teacher on television. He was alive, teaching still, right near where I lived. I was floored. I had been repeating stories about him to my husband for decades to the point that the teacher became a mythological creature, like a unicorn, to us. Yet here he was. I convinced my husband, whom I had met in my spiritual group, who was then aged 55, never having in his life taken any dance classes, to come and experience for himself a True Master for the enriching experience. Just once, I said.

Well, I'm somewhat bewildered yet thrilled to report that one class turned into a decade of profound transformation in every way for both of us. The teacher lived up to every anecdote from my history and continues to exceed them again and again. (Can you imagine the cosmic collision it was for me to witness my ballet world and my spiritual and personal world coming together?!) It was surreal and yet this second epoch with our teacher has proven to be even more transforming (and longer) than the first!

I have spent the last 10 years taking the teacher's basic beginning classes so I could attend with my husband, Paul. It was he who asked me such astute questions, I was forced for the first time to observe the correct placement of every part of the body and figure a way to explain it to him and other beginning students of the teacher's (with his express permission). I attempt to slowly break down the teacher's technique, like a translator for those with no prior experience and help them to take better advantage of their classes with the master. I aspire to explain his dynamics and form, repeating his wonderful metaphors and stories, taking extensive notes in every class and doing whatever I can to support him in his work.

(The barre behind us held the other two fantastically talented future stars of dance, one of which, Larkin Miller (with the blonde head; clip linked below of his audition video from a year ago), is my favorite dance artist to study where I do ever. He has become one of the warmest, sweetest people I've met. And even before I knew that about him, was the finest, most devoted artists I've seen. A total inspiration in every movement. Being liked and accepted by these boys for my work makes me feel strong and right in step with them, even at more than twice their ages.)

The thing you should know about this teacher and the profound impact he has on myself, my husband, and every one of his other thousands of students he has taught over the decades is that how you dance ballet is only the beginning. And here's where we get into some deeper matters.

How We Move Reveals Who We Are.

Recently, my teacher lectured me privately that it was time for me to move past the level on which I was working. It was time for me to stop seeking some sort of perfecting of the technique and learn instead to dance at a more professional level. He suggested I take his more advanced classes, once again calling me forward into a new world. I needed to expand my understanding of the more complicated combinations that make up the center work in the longer, more advanced classes. And, as I'm now finding out, to also exceed my limitations of expression on the physical, mental, and emotional/psychological levels.

It isn't enough for me to get the combinations right, or to master the technique of a difficult step. The challenge before me now, the one I am taking up, is to fundamentally change how I react to life. Where I have been tense and nervous, I am to be relaxed and at ease. Where I have been convinced I am inadequate, I am to know I am wholly enough. I am to express a greater sense of well being as I move. And when I think that I can no longer do any better, I am to once again excel further regardless.

So that's what I've been doing since I have recovered my health (largely thanks to the ballet again, but that's for another story, perhaps for another time), Taking class nearly every day and napping to help recover from the physical exertion. Helps me get to bed before too late too.

The challenge isn't comfortable but it's an opportunity for an authentic revolution of who I am and how I navigate in life. And as a rising tide raises all boats, the new way I think and operate are bound to affect how I can get Halfland truly done.

Thank you for listening to this underground tale of things. I thought it appropriate to try to explain where my attention has been divided and why to my Halfland followers.

*I don't name my teacher to keep our location/wherabouts private/secure.

**A year old clip of my favorite inspiration in classes right now, the blonde that can't been seen well above, Larkin Miller.

***Roman Frey (the beautiful dancer in the striped shirt and mauve leg warmers next to me above.)

Power of the Press

When Robert Ito saw something worthwhile in Halfland and crafted a story about those of us who are crazy enough to love building tiny worlds, via a tedious photographic process's known as Stop Motion, he showed me the power of the mighty pen. Even in our Internet universe, the Greg Lady packs a punch to a huge volume of eyes. People who barely knew my last name came up to me at ballet and asked whether I was the Shelley Noble mentioned in that Sunday's NYTimes edition. Tons of people saw it and heard about the project that wouldn't have otherwise. There's something about that power of large numbers.

Since then, I moved to an entirely different sort of space, in many senses. No longer in a huge loft, the whole production is shoehorned awkwardly into a standard-sized room. And what was once an intention to make the film like any other animation for entertainment has now been further defined as hoping to be something else altogether.

It's now about pure art. Art that is admittedly an overindulgent pleasure of creation. But I'm learning to reign in the impulses to execute the ideas that flow out in favor of greater direction of my energies and time in order to get the film made.

At this point, it's all about getting scenes in the can. To get any sort of footage, with what's built as it is, with some things unfinished fully, get the clips into After Effects and get to cutting, enhancing, finessing, etc. There's a danger that all that's been made to date could be lost and it's my ferocious focus to get what ever possible on film. If this were a major test at school, my current state would been known as, "pencils down. Hand in by paper "

The

Sky Kiss

Crude Pre-Viz on how I hope to paint the back sky layer. It's a Half Sky, Night kissing Day, but it isn't drawn on half, more like 1/3. Still, we can imagine the scene carries on to the left thereby making it always half if you were standing at a different angle.

There's also now built a starry constellation-ed "Night Hoop" but that's a different story.

Cool Find: Christina Spangler

My favorite Stop Motion clip of all time so far, this by Christina Spangler This clip strikes deeply at the core of what I'm after with Halfland. The natural sunlight, the lack of narrative, the simple doable movement performance, the rack macro focus that mimics our observant eyes while in nature. Did we see what we saw? Yes, we did.

Cool Find: Granny O'Grimm

Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty. A really charming solid short. It's well done cgi with a really nice visual style contrast between the film's setting and the fairy story being told within it. Wryly funny and well written and performed by Kathleen O'Rourke, Directed by Nicky Phelan, produced by Brown Bag Films:

From a Pauper to a Prince

One of Cirelle's recent photos of her beloved dog, Jemmy. The very one rescued for her from the mean streets by noneotherthan Shel Rasch! He's a happy, loved, and healthy doggy now. Dig those crazy fun ear wisps!

It's been a full year since the day Shel picked Jemmy off our street after our visit. She cleaned him up and gave him to Halfland volunteer Cirelle. In that year, Cirelle has learned to take superb care of a such a bright, adorable dog and he is enjoying the sweetest pampered puppy life to be sure.

He has the best friend a dog ever could in Cirelle, and she the best companion woman's ever had. They have each other thank goodness.

She told me that the other day on one of his many fun walks in the park, he inadvertently stepped right on a bee in the grass with one of his hind legs and it stung him on a back paw paw. He yelped and hopped as fast as he could go on three legs, leading Cirelle home by the leash the whole way. They got in and he ran right up stairs and dove straight under her bed as his place for comfort and safety. She of course collected him immediately and took him to the vet to make sure he'd be alright from the sting.

She was worried (he turned out to be fine) but to her the episode let her know for certain that he knows where to go if anything goes wrong with life... he goes Home. He has, at last, a real home.

With this new fellow in her life, and her puppet project fully done, I don't suspect Cirelle will have time to work in Halfland much going forward. But I wanted to thank her for all that she has done for it and for her being Halfland's Muse in inspiring other people to come and work for a time.

Good things tend to happen for people when they are around Cirelle.

Frame Rates

Marina Kanno and Giacomo Bevilaqua from Staatsballett Berlin perform several jumps captured in slow motion at 1000 frames per second.

So, working on Halfland brings a great deal of realization and insight with it. One of the things that is occurring is the sense of life itself being very much like a frame-by-frame animation. It's dawning slowly on me that the only difference between life, animation, and dreams is the "Frame Rate". How many slices of action we can perceive. Too out-there of an idea for you? well, that's why it's posted on the underground.

Case in point. The super slow mo camera technology experiments that are emerging from all over the world are capturing human imagination, I think for a reason. If you watch this captivating, sublimely beautiful clip of young dancers jumping, you may notice how when the 1,000 frames per second kicks in, it begins to imitate or emulate our own mind's ability to see. It becomes nearly a god's eye view (be sure to catch it on YouTube directly after it's all buffered for the effect). I feel that we often see this way in our own dreams. Do you?

Mimizard Puppet Completed!

 
I could not be more proud of Cirelle for actually completing her original puppet character she began here two years ago.

She came over to finish him up especially yesterday and we spent a whirlwind day putting the finishing touches on.

When she saw the date of February 2010 on her initial sketch, she turned to me to say that she finally understood how Halfland has taken me so many years. (YEAH! Tell me about it!) It's not that she or I spend every moment making our creations. Life happens as well. In her case, she became a dog owner over the last year (the wonderful puppy that Shel Rasch rescued for her from our street) and built the cedar-shingled roof on the Halfland cottage.

See her workman's journey over the two-year making of her Mimizard puppet below.

Cool Find: The Fall

Stumbled upon this trailer, The Fall (2006) by director/artist Tarsem Singh. It wasn't available on NetFlix so we bought it because the clip alone is about the most beautiful film I've ever seen.



"In a hospital a little girl with a broken collar bone meets a bedridden man who starts telling her a fantastical story which reflects his state of mind. As time goes by fiction and reality start to intertwine in this uplifting epic fantasy."

It's a mythic fairytale story told with breath taking visuals clearly. I'll know more after I see it. But already I saw several visual games that speak directly to what I'm attempting to do with Halfland.  UPDATE: IT IS THE MOST SPECTACULAR MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN. Master director Tarsem's vision & guts, the genius costumer Eiko Ishioka's mind-bending creativity, the superb performances by the entire cast, the 28 exotic locations it was shot, the story, both reality and fantasy, engrossing and honest. I have since become a Tarsem scholar and hope to enjoy his future storytelling projects. His Snow White is coming next Spring.

Reverence Adagio

Since I have a dance vein going on the Underground, allow me the indulgence to include a 2 minute film here that I have made earlier this year of my private dance student, M.

It was meant to give her a little showcase for all her hard work studying classical technique and as a tribute to our master teacher Stefan. We choreographed it together, I made her costume and styled her hair and make up.


It's about a young girl's difficult moment of decision to leave her teacher and say goodbye even though she might prefer to stay with him. It was filmed at a beautiful Italian villa and gardens in Los Angeles.

"Reverence" [rev·er·ence/ˈrev(ə)rəns/ to treat and honor with deep respect] is the bow she makes at the end of the piece. It's what all ballet dancers do at the end of every class in reverence and thanks to their teacher for showing them this secret sacred art.

She is a lovely young woman now. I remember when I first started giving her private lessons at our teacher's suggestion. I've learned and grown so much. I will always be thankful to them both.

This is me teaching Maddie at the old studio when she was about 11, the same age I was when I began studying the same art with our same master teacher today. photo by M's dear father.

The Story in a Landscape: An Essay on Narrative and Place

A few examples of my case-in-point: I could tell you a novel's worth of data from each set: 1:: The aftermath of Chernobyl on Children in the area. 2:: The isolated night time city walks of a recluse. 3:: A European country road leads to an ancient family vineyard. But who runs it? 4:: An impoverished ghetto in Brazil where living shoulder to shoulder yolks people together for life. 5:: An isolated pier disappears in the mist like the ships who used to use her. 6:: A spicy personality cafe owner dares to buck convention in a conservative town.

Mike and I had an email fight today. Nothing serious (it's gotten serious now), just a long debate over whether a place can tell a story. Mike is adamant that a place is a container for a story but tells nothing in itself without characters and events/actions. His is a perfectly reasonable assertion. But I feel it is thoroughly wrong.


I didn't start out feeling that way. Our discussion just got me thinking about it and as Mike got more and more entrenched in his pov I got more and more clear what was more true for me.


Below is essentially my side of the argument in snippets of the email exchange. Should be self-explanatory. It was a good exercise, one that gave me greater knowledge of why Halfland is so heavily weighted on the development of the place, on building the details of the Halfland world... In its Ambient Narrative...

No characters are needed for a story at all. The narrative is in the setting. And not by personifying the landscape or elements in it. Every setting has a feeling by its very nature. That feeling has a wealth of actions and emotions that come with it without adding any other players.

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.”

                                                                                           --Henry Miller

And that world has plenty of data in it at once. It's like with language. A single brief poem can affect us as a longer form art like a movie. I'm seeing visuals the same as poetry and therefore I don't need characters. I don't need stories. In fact, I can get rather tired of them. Blah blah. Just give me the poem, as I mean that word. I'm talking about the exquisite eloquence beyond character and words. Insta-story.

"...What lies beyond man's word is eloquence of God."

What the difference is to you between the effect on you of a proper "story" and the effect on you of an evocative visual that inspires, provokes, etc. I maintain there is no difference of any consequence. How is the effect of that experience different to you than a narrative?

It's like the word Blue. Blue is a color, yes. But it's also a feeling. Same with the word Narrative. Same with the word Story. When I see a landscape it tells me--YES!---a narrative---a series of details that inform the setting and its story. I get as much from a bare landscape as from a plotline with characters. A lot happens in a landscape. Anyone could tell a story using landscapes/settings ALONE!!!! It's RIDICULOUS to say otherwise. I see the import of landscape/settings like I never would have before.

Further, the setting's story is wildly influential to the audience's subliminal experience of the overt plotline, my word for the linear events of a typical entertainment scenario. What you decried as my stupidity is actually my informed conviction of what it is to express an idea. I'd invite you to go ahead and try what I'm saying as part of our debate. Make a series of landscape/setting images in your mind that tell a narrative without a single thing happening nor character. You'll immediately see it's not only possible, but creatively rewarding.

The story in the landscape is there without an old man saying it. Because the way things are in a place, even on another planet, are that way because of events. The events are written in the place. The more the viewer knows about history and developments in the area the more information they get out of looking at a place. But even without knowing what's happened there or making up a story based on what little they know, a place tells volumes just by how it has grown/developed. The story it tells is of it's development and history, how it came to be through time, whether we know the story consciously or not. A world of story is in a blade of grass. You just need to listen to it.

But while story tellers are not stories, neither are landscapes merely vestiges of stories. The stories landscapes tell, to me, are as filled with data as a story with characters and things that happen. Probably because we can see the things that have taken place in the landscape. If we see the prairie degrade over centuries and the house be built and fall apart, by the time the setting is our story, we can feel/get what took place there in that example. Going further though, if I see a shot of the cold barren moon of Saturn however, I do feel the isolation, the vastness, the silence, etc. and those cues make me feel and think a certain way. Just as a story does. I think the kernel of our disagreement comes from my assertion that story isn't limited to the strict technical linguistic definition but broadens out to include things that make me feel and learn the same stories do. It's not calling it a hot dog to say that I can learn just as much from a series of settings as from a movie. Especially these days when commercial movies are so empty of any substance. For me everything I see is unequivocally a story in the sense of my learning and processing information.

A place, every place, is exactly a series of events. How the place came to be required loads of things to happen, including creation. As Carl Sagan said... If you want to make an apple pie you first have to create the universe." A story is told by simply a place's very existence.

It isn't a stage. It is the play itself. Another story can be told on top of a landscape, but there already is much story in the setting choice itself. For me.

Learning comes into it because that is the end result of interacting with a story. They edify. They expand knowing. Even when they are in the guise of entertainment they educate on many levels, from cultural, moral, to philosophical. Mood is story as much as plot.

I was just watching the dance clips posted here recently, truly the finest moments in dance ever captured. And I was struck by how much "story" was taking place in the second dance especially. Clearly ecstatic emotion, serious meaning, beauty, forceful anguish, and persuasive feelings of sympathy were being transmitted through just a single body's movements in a bare black landscape. I could experience the vein of emotional cues the dancer was expressing even though there was no narrative nor action in the typical sense. Sometimes these types of dances are called abstracts, with no costume or text as with more classical story ballets. And yet, I was struck by how articulate his was in terms of genuine story telling. I knew what human story he was expressing. Volumes of it.

I'm going to term the kind of abstract emotional cues inherent in a landscape the Ambient Narrative.

Update:: An article from a highly experienced photographer that supports my pov on this as well:  "...Immerse yourself in a situation, and then take enough photographs to properly tell the story." Telling the story does not necessarily mean producing a sequence of frames, but rather exploring the situation in enough depth to be able to extract the one or two definitive frames that capture the essence of the situation... this is one of the reasons that I photograph — not, as one photographer put it, "to find out what I've seen", but rather "to be more fully in the moment" — to experience what there is to see and feel all the more intensely. And to do so means not being passive and waiting for something to happen, but rather to be an active participant; looking, thinking, and feeling the moments as they happen..."

Update:: A long article by an experienced artist that supports the notion of visuals telling a story as well: "A painting always tells a story. But just because it can be told does not make a story worth telling.... There are also stories that remind one of truths about human beings in general, or about life, that one would just as soon not be reminded of. One knows them well enough, perhaps all too well, and someone insisting on telling them irritates everyone...."

Meet The Adorable Jemmy!

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Got to visit Cirelle and her new puppy that Shel Rasch rescued from our neighborhood for her. He is a super fantastic little doggie; smart, good natured, giving, and a pure delight of adorable tufts of oinch!

I didn't know what to expect, actually, I did expect the worst. I assumed he'd have to be a total handful coming from the streets without any training. I thought he'd be yelping constantly and jumping and unwieldy, but he was the opposite. He was clearly a good boy and already fully in love with Cirelle. That's really the only challenge they are having to adjust to right now, is how awful he feels when she goes off to work or other activities. He's so attached to her affection and care (I know how he feels!) that when she leaves him alone for any length of time in the condo, he gets frustrated and tears things up.

I say bring him mostly everywhere. Problem solved. But Cirelle wants to be able to go off when she wants/needs to. I think after a while, he'll realize he's got a secure home with her and he won't be so anxious later on. That, or maybe other neighbors can pitch in a share he walking and care. He's so dear that he'll win over anyone who meets him.

Meanwhile, good luck to Cirelle and Jemmy! (that's a French nickname for the name Cirelle got was his from a dream) Shel did such a good thing for them both!

The Finest Dances I've Seen: To be as God

It may or may not be germane to Halfland per se, but Paul found these two Korean dance clips on YouTube that are among the finest examples of dance as art I've seen. The first was from a couple years back of the stunning dancer Min Young Park and we love her entire presence throughout her piece, even the way she commands the stage as she walks onto it. All the way through.



The next is a sublime young male dancer named Sun-Chon HAN who, it seems, has been inspired  by the previous performance and taken the genre/style higher still. He makes a leap at the 2:39 mark that, if one is at all in touch with their heart in that moment, will move the viewer to tears with its total ecstatic abandon.



There is something profound at work in these pieces. Something at the core of dance as an artform. They both seem to be not just merely dancing to music, nor performing it.

To dance is to become the music. Not to dance to it. Not to perform it. But in reality to become the vibratory expression itself. To be as God.

Character Round-up

Talented animator, Gustavo Arteaga was kind enough to ask whether I made my own characters for my projects. I said yes and collected a few sketches to give him the idea. I added a few more and put them here, in case anyone else might want to see the gang all together, and often in the all-together!

Yanu the Moth man sketch made from photo of his sculpt.

Bosq the sleeping cat puppet on the set

Rana, the Goat Woman (and main character) stand in puppet on set.

Pink Snail, with cozy home on his back, portrait of the large puppet.

Tarn the Crow Woman sketch

the Time Frog sketch with the Time Flies (Musca Tempora)

The Koi of Enlightenment puppet seen in the pond. He rises up from the depths only for a moment.

Kyra, the black Mermaid sketch from photo of her large sculpt. Undersea she turns blue and the shells woven into her hair turn to pure gold.

Rana sketch, showing how she'll carry the small chocolate-skinned Kyra mermaid puppet while on their journey....

The Birds in Hats sketch, among their hat box nest and habadashery fighting to see themselves in the mirror.

 The Writing Mouse small puppet and his tiny lens glasses.

The Hermit Crab sketch, eating his lemon crab cake, for the undersea scene

Monty's sketch, the little pink balloon blowfish who has no friends, for the undersea scene.

The Chicken Painter sketch, painting a landscape en plein air in the meadow yard. In a fowl mood today.

The Tailor Spider puppet, who lives in Rana's attic making cobwebs for her to wear on her clothes.

There are also marching ants and bugs dressed for a party, caterpillars, worms, a lizard (by Cirelle) and pretty butterflies (by Constance) as well...

To be continued...

Hand-crafted 3d illustration Win-- Miss Clara

Découvrez Miss Clara et ses merveilles en papier sur Culturebox !

Found via Annekata

A new heroine inspiration Miss Clara in France. I've long admired her 3D hand crafted illustrations and was so pleased to discover the woman behind the work.

I hope to craft illustrations for the Halfland story book, rendered from stills of the film with some of the charm and beauty Miss Clara's works have.

Patina Recipe: Pig Iron

Iron recipe, originally uploaded by Nobledesign.

Found a great patina recipe for simulating pig iron.

PIg Iron Patina:

•Slate grey acrylic paint on any base surface.
•Two rough coats of iron surfacer paint (iron particles in suspension).
•Allow to dry.
•Saturate with rusting solution (sold with iron surfacer; good info here).
•Allow to oxidize/rust over several hours or overnight.
• Hit high points of surface by lightly rubbing with iridescent grey chalk.
• Rub with soft cloth to burnish and fix.

Woo!

(This letter is from a necklace I'm nearly finished building.)

Cool Find: Shadow Play

I adore double imagery, things that look like one thing yet are in fact another. And use of shadow too. The interplay of an object's shadow. A trick of the eye. I really admire this artpieceUlla posted. The clip shows Hans Peter Feldmann's Shadowplay at 303 Gallery in Chelsea, NYC. September 12 - October 17, 2009.
"A simple, elegant sculptural installation of light, shadow, and found objects." Check out the review at artblogNY.com



And of course, there are the boggling pieces of junk casting realistic shadows of other than what they are made of by Tim Noble (no relation) and Sue Webster. Some are crude and unpleasant but all are ingenious.