Thursday, April 29, 2010

Come Sail your ships around me......





THE HOSTESS w/ Jessi


A friend of mine ( jim, hi) introduced Jessi and I.....she is so lovely and an illustrator at large,

Love her.

She's such a good silent film actress...

For this I also have the sweet bon bon sugar plum dress maker Pricilla Dawn provide the wardrobe. XX!!



I used my gran's old silver tea set here, and to answer the age old question, yes, cupcakes ARE heavy when stacked!

Since the dress is so sweet I had to toss in a bit-o-creep. I created a plumtastic and Fuschia dog patch eye for the make up - a bramble of red locks and a bread braid crown.

Later, we went onto a vista and Jessi danced around freaking out the squares with my pink ship while i lazed in the street...so much blue sky ! The day was a real pleasure...

To see images, look in candids and ( obviously) in photos for the ''hostess'' series within my site below.


http://www.darlateagarden.com/

As always

Best to you,

darla
* no objects are electronically added*












Sunday, April 25, 2010

Ana Juan

Speaking of illustrators ..... I adore Ana!

First found her through the children's book, Frida, a life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo with text by Jonah Winter. I even have her frida illustration tattooed on my inner arm with a banner reading..what else...." once upon a time". So, clearly her visions have a hold on me.

Her work has been featured all over the world notably including, the New Yorker. Her style, Naïve... bold, yet soft, has that slightly dark fairytale narrative...just lovely.

She ventures into dolls, wood, paper..well, you can look for yourself at her adorable site here


Although I appreciate the beauty of dolls and the work that goes into them, I'm not a collector...yet I wouldn't mind at all to own Ana's Snow white...it's not a typical disney influenced snow white you see so often...it's digital print on cotton with removable clothes ..limited to 30. i love it! e-mail me at darlatea@gmail.com if you want to ship her to me ;0) Only 300.00 !
A steal ! ( i love that it's in grey tones).. The doll is based on the book "snow white" ( delightfully Gorey-ish) for which she provided illustration.






Anyway, Ana resides in Madrid Spain and has agreed to allow me to take her portrait if I make it out there next year!

Now..where did my suitcase go?.....right... humming by the door, always.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

A truth we've suspected all along....





Rats laugh when tickled.

Scientists are finding there is a long evolutionary trail to our odd noises of amusement, and the latest proof comes from ticklish rats.

You've probably never heard a rat laugh, and there's a good reason.

Jaak Panksepp, of Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and his students found that the rodents emit gleeful "chirps" when playing, but only at ultrasonic tones five times higher than the human ear can hear. Once Panksepp hooked up an ultrasonic detector to listen in on rats in his lab and started tickling the animals, he realized the effect on them was dramatic.

"We used our hands as if they were playmates and pounced and tickled the rats with our fingers. The chirping sounds were out of sight, just out of sight," said Panksepp, who wrote about the studies in this week's issue of the journal Science. "The animals became bonded to you and came back for more. Every possible measure of whether they like it shows yes, they love it."

Not only did the rats respond instantly to the tickling, after awhile, they reacted the way a child often does before a tickling hand even reaches them.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

I saw you in a red coat, It was raining on Spring St.....

A while back I was in the bay area. I went out with friends to a pizza joint in Berkeley when I noticed a man staring... Fine. Women especially know this well. I fly home, when I get this message from my close friend who just happened for no apparent reason ( married with two kids) read one of those "looking for you" paper advert things that said something like the following......

''Too fast for love jacket, tattoo on your neck, long black hair..who are you?? I must meat you ( I mean meet you...sorry, that was me, not the ad ;).


......and BAM I was "that girl" in a random shot in the dark ad and I SAW it..plus I'm in my late 30's , huh. I wasn't interested, but I never thought those things worked. I never thought those whimsical, horny, romantic ads actually reached the person out in deep space ( in my case, thousands of miles away by the next afternoon).

So keep it up...be willing to grab the cheese factor by the little stinky holes and take a big bite.


About 20 minutes ago I semi-randomly came across the sweet illustrations of Sophie Blackall. I loved the notion of setting these space notes to drawings. Simple and good. I just love the idea of a person doing "it" because it kind of needs to be done. Even if again, but In her own way..



She has clearly been doing this a while by now....she also does children's books ( illustration)

Anyway, there it is. Neck tattoos, bruises, stains and regrets
( which really should be the title for this entry) and all.




Fin.

Thing is, it's never been easy....


























It's alright....






and it will continue to be long after you've gone.




Saturday, April 17, 2010

вдохновлять




















( 'spy boy' Mardi Gras Indian)

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Please, please, please....

Saturday, April 3, 2010

exquisite exposure ...

Friday, April 2, 2010