A sense of Elinor

I would never forget when I first came to the US how I was terrified that I am taking a huge step back, leaving everything I have worked for behind, knowing that it will be a very long time before I feel home here. I knew very little English and I never received formal English language instruction with a teacher and all, so it was even scarier that it will be quite a while before I learn to think in English and express myself as well as I would wish to without the inhibition of the language barrier. 



If you know me, you know that I love reading and the first thing I did when I came here was to get a library card. There was one significant problem though, I had no idea who the ( present) worth reading authors are, so I decided to " go back in time" and start from the classics. 

I sure tried Byron and Shakespeare, (original versions of course, I always say that if an author took the time to write something in a particular language, he did it for a reason, so you should take the time to understand why) and I won't get into details, but it was painful. I was reading with the dictionary in hand and I was losing the enjoyment of reading because some of the expressions you couldn't even find in the dictionary. 

You can't learn a language from a dictionary! It is an inevitable evil to use one, but you simply cannot rely on it all the time. Unless you want to get beat up somewhere for the "proper" language you used. But, you can learn language from books and that is exactly what I did.

Anyway, I decided to start with something easier and then Jane Austen caught my eye. This is how I fell in love with her, the century she writes about in her works and with English language altogether.  Of course I learned not only to love but also to appreciate the language too, but that wasn't until I took out all the words I didn't know from Bronte's "Jane Eyre". Believe me, you don't want to know how long that list was.

What does this have to do with my Art and Craft section you will ask? Well, it has been a long time since I first read  " Sense and Sensibility"( a great movie with Emma Thompson too, by  the way!) but when I first made the card in this set, I was thinking of Elinor. I felt that it is only proper to name the set after her and I hope you appreciate it as much as I do. Here she is, coming to life under Austen's quill : 

"...She was stronger alone; and her own good sense so well supported her, that her firmness was as unshaken, her appearance of cheerfulness as invariable, as, with regrets so poignant and so fresh, it was possible for them to be..."

The "Elinor" set includes 

- a bookmark

- a gift box

-a greeting card

I will be glad to hear your comments or questions or simply if you want to say "Hi" .

Annie

Jump down the rabbit hole with..."Alice"

If you feel adventurous, take a look at my "Alice" gift set!

The set includes:

- A bookmark 

Here are some details:

 

 I love the paper that looks like leather!

- A gift box

- A hardcover notebook







What do you think?

"Florentina"

After the post about my giveaway I got hooked up on decorating sets of bookmarks + other things.

Here is the first set I created, named " Florentina".

The set includes ...

 - A bookmark

   

- A gift box

- A sticky note notebook

So far I have created 9 different sets ( no 13 this time ;-) with different items included, like bookmarks, gift boxes, sticky note notebooks, hard covered notebooks and cards. I can't wait to show you all! 

Would you give as a gift something like that? 

It will be interesting for me to see what you have to say. 

Annie

The girl from Japan

Wind turns red her cheeks:

I will open my heart up

As wide as the sky.

    -- Daniel Westreich



Just felt inspired by Daniel Westreich's haiku and made a quick sketch...aaand then I wrote this...which is not a haiku by all means, but it came with the drawing. 



I have never seen her. Never will.

She probably doesn't exist,

but she entered my dream and

and smiled.





The way I made the composition wasn't intentional but I knew it had to be that way. The space behind her is very important. The space in front her she doesn't want to look at. She closed her eyes and remembered what was behind her.



Annie

Remastered

I have been going through my box of cards the other day and I saw couple of cards that I made last year but never made it to anyone's home. I have posted before how I drew the pictures for these cards ( check out the previous post) and then I posted the actual cards I made ( you can see them here).

As you can see the cards images are drawn with colored pencils and at the time they didn't look bad but when I saw them now, I thought since I already have the Copic markers, I can "remaster" them and freshen them up.

See for yourself what came out of it:

The old version     vs.    the new version

  

The old version    vs    the new version

      

The old version     vs      the new version

      

The old version    vs        the new version

    

The old version   vs      the new version

    

The old version    vs     the new version

   

The old version   vs  the new version

      

The old version   vs  the new version

       



Old version   vs   new version

    



If you want to take a close look at the drawings just click on the pictures and if you want to see more pictures, visit my Flickr set.

Have you remastered any of your cards before? Do you think it's worth it or you just go ahead and make new ones?I feel it's kind of like restoration and to me it brings a good feeling of preserving something and make it better and help it last longer.