Places to Dream, Draw, and Work

I posted a few months ago about my studio space (http://hansmyhedgehogblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/where-i-work.html).  Since then I've decorated my office space as well. I had been holding off as it was just a place for work, the place where I research, check email, and prepare classes. But it was just so ugly.  Why not have two places to dream?  I hung a medieval sculpture reproduction, my Brementown Musicians, a 19th-century print of China, an angel drawing I made for my husband, two prints from Swan Bones Theatre, and my Ph.D. diploma.

The office (and the first time I've actually hung my Ph.D. diploma).

The desk. I've had it since 7th grade.

 By the bookcase, I arranged my stuffed creatures, board games, a pair of ceramic mandarin ducks, my Hans poster that I use in retail fairs, a drawing of us from my husband, a digital painting my little sis made in high school, and the 2012 Children's Book Week poster.

Bookcase.

The updated studio with new green desk.

A New Beginning

These past few weeks have been one of serious reflection for me and for the direction and future of my artistic endeavors.  As always, I go back to the beginning.

I will be developing the theme of "magical animals" that I have so far, but will move away from the cute to follow the fantastic instead.  I will be looking to take more inspiration from folk and fairytales, with my own twists on them, of course.  It feels right and we'll see where it goes.  The last drawing I did (see below) made me long to return to these roots.  An art teacher in college told me that I always had my head in the clouds.  He was right, but that's not a bad thing.  It's just who I am.

I've started work on my own version of the Goose Girl, the Grimm fairytale.  It's another dark story, but the elements are fantastic: a talking severed head of a horse, a princess cast down who now tends to the geese, but of course, she can command the wind.  Where artists of the past, see below, have looked to the scene of magic, like Arthur Rackham (one of my very favorites, seen below), I will look to the end of the tale, to happiness.

Arthur Rackham, The Goose Girl.