Nancy Tillman

Feets received this soppy, gorgeous book from her Gran for Christmas and I just find the colours and magic of the illustrations bewitching. Another one for the Beautiful Books for Children list ... On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman

Another Beautiful Book

Following my theme of Beautiful Books for Children, I came across The Conductor by Laetitia Devernay and it is exquisite.  I actually don't always have patience for books without text - I feel cross when I don't understand exactly what's going on.  But this is one of the most beautiful books I've seen and the story is quite simply of beauty.  It's almost a flick book in the simplicity of narrative, and in the sense of motion that carries through the pages.  It's a definite 'I wish I'd done that!'

Egon Schiele: The Radical Nude

Liam and I visited the Egon Schiele exhibition at the Courtauld Institute.  I think of him mostly for his almost grotesque, intrusive portrayals of the human form, but there's an incredible beauty to them too.  Also amazing is to look closely and see the carefully sketched pencil lines that began the drawings - the pictures feel so fresh and spontaneous, it's strange to realise just how many layers of work went into them.  It make me want to draw ...

A Stocking for Feets

Four precious hours in the Art Room and I was compelled to make a stocking for Feets. It was a very focussed and extremely satisfying project, though time constraints mean it's not quite as lavish and ridiculously over the top as I would have liked! I thought perhaps I could add a flower or bow each year. And perhaps one day she'll take over the decorations herself ...

It's her first Christmas and we are pretty low key about these things, so we didn't buy her any gifts, just gave her some boxes, filled a couple of containers with rice and the like, and a bottle with glittery water. She was pretty happy!