the great Mesmer.

hypnotism, mesmerism... words that carry you away, maybe in a dark Victorian theatre or maybe in a far away land with magic carpets and snake charmers. 

the last couple of months have been a little hard on me and when i started on this image i was feeling tired. i really needed  rest but since i am a workaholic control freak and don't know what to do with myself when i am not on a tight schedule, i kept working.
accepting my incurable self i decided to draw myself a doctor so i can rest without actually resting.

the great Mesmer is looking deep into my eyes and tells me to slow down. i find his yellow eyes calming and hypnotising. his animal magnetism flows as he rests opposite my bed, giving me pleasant thoughts and beautiful dreams. :)




here are some interesting links i found  while doing a little bit of a research :

Want to know where the verb mesmerize comes from?  link.

what about the history of hypnosis.?

didi you know that Mesmer was  fond of dressing up in a cloak and playing ethereal music on the glass harmonica whilst this was happening? listen to how that sounds here.

Yes, there was a cat hypnotist! link

...And last but not least, a 40 minute video documentary presenting the fascinating history of Hypnosis and Hypnotherapy link

love

virginia diakaki shop

To be connected. With an invisible rope. Το another. To feel it. To be scared.To try to cut it. To fail. To grab the rope and pull. To fail. To give in. To the feeling. To miss.To pray. To wish. To crave. To hate the rope. To love the rope. To get tangled. To be confused. To blame. You. The other. To regret. To meet the other end. To feel heaven. To love. To crave. To give in. To be two. To be one. Tied. Tide. To be powerless. To be happy. To pull some more. To be angry. To be jealous. To try to cut the rope. To fail. To give in. To feel heaven. To accept the rope.

the marvellous Madame B

it's been crazy the past month. i have been constantly working on so many different things and last week i was feeling overworked and low on inspiration so it was such a beautiful surprise when i walked into my bedroom and found a parcel waiting for me on my pillow.
maybe it was not really a surprise as i have been expecting it for a long time but it was a gift and a fantastic one! the dreamy world of Madame B was wrapped in bubble wrap unaware of my long wait for it to come to my possession. when i unwrapped it and started reading all my uninspired mood left and i started again dreaming of new things i could make.

somethings have this power and Victorian photocollage sure is one of those things. the fantastical compositions and the liberty with which the artists worked in creating these images is so contemporary in my eyes. in the 1860's and 70's, so many years before collage became a medium for artists these women were cutting heads and pasting them on duck bodies. they were making geometrical patterns, whimsical environments and surreal compositions before surreal was even a concept.

for now 'The marvellous album of Madame B' is the only book of Victorian photocollage i have but its not going to be the last as i am forever hooked on these images.

the book

'The marvelous album of Madame B' features collaged and painted pages from a nineteenth-century album in the Art Institute of Chicago's collection,supposedly the work of Marie-Blanche-Hennelle Fournier (1831-1906), the second wife of the diplomat Hugues-Marie-Henri Fournier (1821-1898). 

in her album Madame B has featured a long list of diplomats, aristocrats,members of royal families, cats, dogs and children all combined with imaginative scenes of skilled watercolour paintings.

other Victorian photo-collages.

related links:

The Pastime of Victorian Cutups
Playing with Pictures, The Art of Victorian Photocollage
The Remarkably Modern Practice of Victorian Photocollage

Lewis Carroll's adventures overground

''Atkinson brought over to my rooms some friends of his, a Mrs and Miss Peters, of whom i took photographs and who afterwards looked over my albums and stayed to lunch.they went off to the museum, and Duckworth and I made an expedition up the river to Godstow with the tree Liddells: we had tea on the bank there, and did not reach Ch.Ch. again till quarter past eight when we took them on to my rooms to see my collection of micro-photographs, and restored them to the Deanery just before nine''

that was all Charles Dodgson, alias Lewis Carroll wrote in his diary on the 4 of July 1862, the day Alice's adventures underground  were created. it was a life changing day for Mr Dodgson but like everybody else he did not recognise it at the time.instead he seems more preoccupied with his other project: photography.

since his death a lot has been said and written about his fascination with little children. hundreds of analyses have contributed to the fact that  mr Dodgson, this stammering deacon, mathematician, writer and photographer went down in history also as a paedophile. well, it is certainly strange that most of his writing and photography is around little girls and maybe it is true but i cannot help being fascinated by his images.

they have a unique ability to move me in a deeper level and i enjoy looking at them and fantasising about the reality of that moment. did she ask for a glass of water? was it cold where she was sitting? what did she do before or after the sitting?

browsing at mr. Dodgson's photography is one of my favourite Sunday morning occupations and i have spent so many cosy hours in the wonder of his images that his bruised reputation fades in my mind.

the kiss

Just finished a new illustration i  really like! Its called The Kiss and it shows a cute bird,  hypnotised by the magical, wonderful, sweet  feeling of the perfect kiss.
I hope you like it! You can find it in my Esty shop here

first sketch 

making a creative mess (1st photo shoot for my esty shop )

This weekend i decided to do a photo shoot for my art prints  in my Etsy shop. Up until now i only had a thumb of the whole illustration and some details but i realised that it was hard for someone to understand what these images looked like in reality, how they would look framed or what is the actual size(cm and inches don't mean a lot when you don't see something). Moreover i usually do vertical  images and they don't fit well  in the thumbnail.

So, on Saturday morning i started something i though would take a couple of hours but instead consumed the whole weekend! It was a learning experience. i found out that taking a good picture of your product needs time and effort. I thought it would be a straight forward 'point the camera and shoot' thing but i was wrong. the first photos i took looked terrible. I had taken some photography classes when in university, back in the time when film was still in use, and i had done very well, or so i wanted to remember. Since then the only time i had hold a camera was on holidays. Now it seemed i had lost the ability to even hold the camera straight!

After the first cold shower, i spend the next couple of hours sipping hot coffee and reading some very helpful articles on handmedeology. Then i started opening every closet and drawer taking out what i thought was the perfect prop (most of the times it wasn't) , taking the photo shoot out in the balcony where i was freezing (but i had a great natural light),and then i started trying and failing and trying again. In the end i came up with something that maybe is not outstanding but is quite decent. I know i have a lot more to learn and will continue to read around the subject and someday i will have my perfect picture but after such a long weekend i think I'll just rest on my laurels for a week or two :)

Conclusion. Yes it was tiring and yes i did have to spend half of Sunday putting everything back but i enjoyed it immensely and  it made me feel creative on a new level. I actually look forward to my next 'photography weekend' !

first attempt 

final picture

a forest

Unidentified photographer 
Film still from "Die Nibelungen", directed by Fritz Lang 

In this vast human forest we start our lives. We wander through the trees in search for a clearing. In our journey we meet others, small like us. They sometimes help us, they sometimes don't. We see older trees that have already found their place in the sun and have grown big with their branches wide and green and we get caught in their shadows.

Our journey is long and tiresome and we can get hurt but we keep pushing and moving forward. Some clearings are only for resting. In some we would like to stay but the ground is sterile and we wisely decide to go.

There are dangers in the forest and things are lurking in the dark but as the time goes by we learn how to protect ourselves. We learn about the poisonous trees and we stay away. With each year the forest becomes less frightening. With each year we become more and more a part of it. We now are not the smallest trees there. We see others more fragile than us wondering lost and frightened and we can help them if we want.

We never forget the reason we keep moving. We are still looking for that special place. And one glorious day we see it from afar. We recognize it immediately and when we reach it, it feels it was always waiting for us. We push our roots in the soft soil and they magically grow around us. Our branches extend upward and with the warmth of the sun they blossom. We are here. In the place where ‘here', means home.