Little House on the Prairie Artwork Readies for Illustration Art Auction

Laura Ingalls Wilder's classic books helped foster my love of reading as a child. I found the first one in a bookstore when I was four years old and pestered my mother to buy it for me - the first "big kid" books I ever read on my own! All these years later I still love to read them on occasion. Garth Williams's illustrations for these and other books (Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, etc.) were such a part of my childhood, I still find them inspiring. Wish I could be at this auction!

Iconic Little House on the Prairie Artwork Readies for Illustration Art Event at Heritage Auctions

BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- Famed illustrator Garth Williams’ original graphite 1953 cover art for Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder – familiar image to anyone that has read the classic books since the Fifties – will be part of Heritage Auctions’ Feb. 11 Signature® Illustration Art Auction in Beverly Hills. It is expected to bring $8,000+ and joins 99 other Little House drawings, spread across 30 lots, in the auction.

“So many of us saw America’s heartland through the eyes of Garth Williams, through these exact drawings,” said Barry Sandoval, Director of Operations of Comics & Comic Art at Heritage, “and the cover is the most famous of them all. With his wonderful soft-pencil art, Williams conveyed the majesty of the prairie, but also the warmth of a family that had to stick together through all of its hardships.”

Williams' scenes of the close-knit frontier family and all of their hardships have become accepted as the definitive versions, though they did not see print until the early 1950s, when they replaced the extremely stylized versions by Helen Sewell that had been used since the 1930s.

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Etsy Treasury: If I could shrink myself into a fairy...

Treausry alert! My 12-volume set of Andrew Lang's Coloured Fairy Books has been included in a treasury curated by Elficious, If I could shrink myself into a fairy... She's put together all sorts of wonderful magical items for your home, garden, and dollhouse!

My minis have been in two other treasuries this month, too:

Swedish Hearts by AnnasAdornments includes my miniature Swedish Straw Heart Christmas Ornaments.

Enchanted Story Time... Creating Nostalgic Memories with Your Kids by TforEdgar includes my Chronicles of Narnia 7-volume book set.

Thank you to all of you! :)

You can purchase these items on my website or in my Etsy shop!

Lost Lavishly-Illustrated Vatican Manuscripts Go on Display at the Meadows Museum

Lost Lavishly-Illustrated Vatican Manuscripts Go on Display at the Meadows Museum

DALLAS (REUTERS).- Rare, lavishly-illustrated manuscripts from the Sistine Chapel that were rescued from Napoleon's army, only to fall under the radar screen of art history for two centuries, go on display in Dallas on Sunday.

The exhibit at Southern Methodist University's Meadows Museum, which will run until April 23, is the only chance for the U.S. public to see the stunning, hand-made codices or manuscripts.

"The Lost Manuscripts from the Sistine Chapel: An Epic Journey from Rome to Toledo" features 40 codices that range in date from the 11th to the 18th century.
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Snow on snow...

Why does snow seem to follow me around? Everywhere I go, the snowfall follows...

"Oh sure," said Mary, "move here to southern Indiana, we hardly get any snow in our area - no more than an inch now and then, and it melts right away!" Snow so far this winter: 24.5 inches. That includes the 4" that fell yesterday. And we're supposed to get more ALL next week!

The mountains around Albuquerque, New Mexico, generally get a lot of snow, but not much usually falls in the town itself. Of course the first winter after I moved back in 2002 there was so much snow it caused the biggest rush on snow shovels the city had ever seen. The stores were completely unprepared and soon ran out. When one store managed to get 200 more shovels in, it was announced on the news and they were all gone in a flash. I had to make do with my garden shovel that's missing a chunk.

The year I moved to Bretagne, France, I was assured that they had very mild winters with little to no snow in the coastal town where I was to live (why do I keep believing people who say that?). I used my valuable suitcase space for things other than heavy winter gear. Well you can guess what happened - yes, for the first time in ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT YEARS the area was hit by blizzards and we were buried in snow all winter long! At one point there was black ice so severe it completely shut the town down for three days - it coated everything, a continuous sheet covering the streets, parked vehicles, sidewalks, and anything else that happened to be outside. My friends and I were in a cafe when it all froze over, and couldn't even get back to their apartment because it was uphill. After a half hour of crawling up the icy hill and sliding back down again, we gave up and slid our way to another friend's place. It turned out a number of people had sought refuge there, so we all spent three days eating them out of house and home and watching zombie movies.

Things I learned: zombies sound pretty much the same in French, and no, you can't make a single omelette with 24 eggs at once.

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter,
Long ago.
'Mid-Winter' - Christina Rossetti

Illustration (top): Edmund Dulac, from The Snow Queen
Photo: taken last week by my niece, Amber

Snow Sale! 10% off on Etsy until January 31st

It's time for a Snow Sale! From now until January 31st you can get 10% off all order in my Etsy shop - just enter coupon code "SNOWSALE" at checkout.

Eric Joisel, The Self Made Man

Last night PBS ran a documentary called Between the Folds about the fine art of paper-folding. Featuring a number of artists, mathematicians, and even a scientist who received a MacArthur Genius Award for his computational origami research (try saying that 10 times fast), the film explores the relationship between the art and science of origami.

Pictured Left: The Self Made Man (credit: Eric Joisel)

Eric Joisel was one of the featured artists. A trained sculptor in his youth, he turned to origami in his late twenties. Joisel is acknowledged as one of the world's most talented origami artists. He was particularly gifted at creating human figures, with detailed faces and intricate costumes. Joisel pushed the boundaries of origami to new limits, using techniques such as methylcellulose (a wet-folding technique) and unusual materials like aluminum.

"I try to respect the traditional rules of origami, using only one piece of paper and never cutting. The important element for me is modeling the paper. For me, that’s the nearest thing to sculpture. I have a deep respect for ‘pure origami,’ with its flat surfaces and nice, geometrical conception — but as you can tell by looking at my models, I am much more interested in making my models look alive, which requires volume, curved creases, and much sculpting. Mirroring life requires curves, not straight lines.” - Eric Joisel

His figures are larger than the usual miniatures I post about (many being 12 to 20 inches tall), but they are so breathtaking I thought other miniaturists would enjoy seeing them. There are even more photos of his amazing work at the EricJoisel.com.

Sadly, M. Joisel passed away in October 2010. Many of his works can be seen at the Origami House in Tokyo, Japan. Between the Folds will be showing on PBS this month, or you can view it online.

“Origami often seems to the onlooker like magic. That’s a large part of its appeal for me. From the time I was a child, I have been fascinated by the world of Tolkien and faeries. So as an adult dedicating my life to origami, you could say I am simply finding a way to live as that child in a fantasy world." - Eric Joisel

Gandalf (Lord of the Rings) - appr. 15" (credit: Origami House, Japan)

3 Kings (LOTR): Gimli, Aragorn, Legolas - 12-16" (credit: Origami House, Japan)

Saxophonist, Big Origami Jazz Band - appr. 12" (credit: Eric Joisel)

Capitan & Colombina, Commedia dell'Arte - appr. 20" (credit: Origami House, Japan)

Siren (credit: Eric Joisel)

Help Support My Free Printies and DIY Pages

I am thrilled that so many people visit my DIY pages and find them useful - thousands every day! However, the large number of visitors has increased my costs considerably. I have always provided these resources for FREE and would like to keep them that way, so I have added a Donation button to those pages. If you use my printies or DIY pages, please consider making a small donation - every little bit helps!

I've also added a "Support This Site" page with some banners linking to a few merchants I thought my visitors would enjoy and find useful. Use my links whenever you visit them - I receive a small referral fee on any purchases by customers who enter using my links. There is NO extra cost to you, and you will help keep my DIY pages free!

Free shipping until January 20th!

If you've been waiting to stock up on miniature books or accessories for your dollhouse, then now's the time! From now until January 20th I'm offering free shipping on all orders on my website. I can't make all this snow go away, but I can make it a little more fun to be stuck inside - so pop on over and do some shopping!

Grace's Honest Dating Profile

I originally posted this on Facebook, but since I find myself so hilarious I decided to share it with my mini-friends, too (I guess I should add "easily entertained" to the bio). I was watching a cheesy dating reality show on tv where everybody was describing themself as perfection incarnate, and decided I wanted to see what an HONEST dating bio would look like. So I wrote one. (Note: Although every word of it is true, this is a joke! I am not actually looking for dates. Unless you are Tim Roth, then yes, baby, yes I will marry you.)

I'm a lazy slob who watches tv all the time, and it's rarely the Discovery channel; give me a crappy zombie movie over an Oscar-nominated sob-fest any day. (Which isn't to say I don't like sad movies, I still cry every single time the Highlander's wife dies, even though I've seen that movie like a hundred times.) I still listen to the same music I did in high school and I don't know who any of those bands on Saturday Night Live are. I don't watch Saturday Night Live.

I don't cook, I only clean my house a few times a year, and I occasionally go to the grocery store in my pajamas. I say I like to hike, but I usually end up watching movies instead. I'm a procrastinator, although I keep meaning to fix that. I'm smart, and funny, and loyal, and kind. When my gay best friend does my hair and makeup I'm gorgeous, so if you take me somewhere nice I'll call him. The rest of the time it's sweatpants and no makeup. I have a gay best friend. No, we have never dressed up as Will & Grace for Halloween. We were gonna, but he'd already done all his Joker makeup before I thought of it.

I'm a coffeetarian. I'm also old-fashioned, so you will have to move the heavy stuff. I will iron your shirts. I speak three languages and expect you to speak at least one. I am well-educated (I dropped out of college like five times) and love to read, but I will not correct your grammar. I have scars both emotional and physical, but I still have all my parts and they're still in the right places. I have a tattoo. I like kids as long as they belong to other people. I love animals and they mostly love me, except horses for some reason. I think they're stuck-up or something.

I'm an aritst, which means I'm really poor. But it's the only job I could do in my pajamas that I could still tell my mother about. Someday I'll finish my novel. I'm a terrible singer but I like to sing anyway, in the car with the music turned up loud enough to drown me out. I can play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on four or five different instruments and "Stairway to Heaven" on one. I can sew and I can fix things, because I read the manual. I do crossword puzzles in pen. I try to learn more about wine, but I always forget it as soon as I learn it. I don't like sushi. I love pasta, and green chile, and pasta with green chile. If you know how to make a cream sauce, you will totally get laid as soon as I wake up from my nap.

PS I would like a guy with his own power tools. That's not a metaphor.

AIM Magazine Supplement: 24 Christmas Tutorials

The January edition of the free AIM magazine is a very special issue, bringing together all the projects from December's AIM Advent Calendar. That's 24 free tutorials - Christmas trees, ornaments and decorations, holiday furniture and home decor, cookies and cakes, holiday flowers, and so much more!

The AIM magazine is a FREE monthly dollhouse & miniatures magazine brought to you by the members of Artisans in Miniature. Packed with articles, galleries, tutorials, and miniature news! Regular features include show reports, member profiles, featured blogs, artist interviews, and smaller scales. Read it online or download it at http://www.artisansinminiature.com.