What's in a Fairy

What indeed?
Not long ago I was looking fondly at an old children's book of mine, an illustrated copy of Enid Blyton's The Folk of the Faraway Tree. One picture in particular caught my eye as it looked very similar to one in book about faeries I had recently bought by Brian Froud and Alan Lee.

The Beautiful Fairy by Georgina Hargreaves from The Folk of the Faraway Tree (1984).

Leanan-Sidhe from Faeries Deluxe Collector's Edition
described and illustrated by Brian Froud and Alan Lee (2010).

It should be noted that the original edition of Faeries was published in 1978 however the collector's edition featured new art and I really couldn't tell you if the picture of Leanan-Sidhe was new or not. According to The Enid Blyton Society the earliest edition of The Folk of the Faraway Tree featuring Hargreaves illustrations was published in 1983.
So which came first? I couldn't tell you. Does it matter? I'm not sure.

In any case I like both these pictures and find it pleasantly spooky that I should end up with both of them on my bookshelf.

My To Do List

Today is a beautiful sunny day, but cold as we head into winter (Yes Queensland can be cold). I have many things on my today list.

1. Write this blog.
2. Have a shower (very important).
3. Take little Scooby for a walk.
4. Get some new cards up on Etsy (This one is WAY overdue).
5. And practise my craft (in this case art but I should really work on some short stories too).

For number 5 I plan to implement a exercise I read about in the backlogs of Melissa Haslam's Blog, in which she glued a picture of an artist she liked into her visual journal and drew off of it mimicking their style and technique.
The pictures I have chosen to do this with are as follows;

 

Spring by Alphonse Mucha, 1896.

 Island of the Dead by Arnold Bocklin.

 Merlin by Alan Lee, 1999.

 Waiting by Audrey Kawasaki.

 By Brett Manning.

 Andromeda by Edward Burne-Jones, 1888.

 Metamorphoses by Kelly Mckennan, 2009.

And of course the woman who gave me the idea in the first place; Paper Cranes by Melissa Haslam, it was incredibly difficult to choose which of her painting/drawings to use.


To keep up to date with the words and pictures I'm sharing now head on over to my new website, www.sarahfallon.net.  I'm talking reading, writing and all kinds of daydreamy things.