Into the Woods

Although I did post this to my art blog, I wanted to post this here too. This was my creative piece for the day for a Fatbook I am in. I was on a deadline, I had Alanna a good part of the day so I could not work in the studio; I went digital. The back of the piece is another digital illustration, with a snippet from a poem "Into the Woods":

Oh where have you been all day
That you have been so long away?
Oh, I have been a woodland child,
And walked alone in places wild.
Bright eyes peered at me everywhere,
And voices filled the evening air;
All sounds of furred and feathered things,
The footfall soft, the whir of wings. (by Dorothy Baker)

Oh I am indeed a woodland child, ripped out of Long Island and moved to the heart of the Catskills at 12 years of age. I spent my teenage years in the woods, finding solace from my rotten life amidst the crumbling stone walls of farms long overgrown, under ancient trees black with disease, picking blackberries in the fields where deer bed down at night. And no, I never EVER got a tick and the most dangerous encounter was a baby copperhead snake. I sketched, I painted, and I wrote poetry in those woods.

I just got back from the movies. I saw Stardust which was fun, humorous, romantic, magical, full of fun special effects and a cast that includes a brief appearance by Peter O'Toole as a dying king(bravo!), Robert DeNiro as a cross dressing pirate, Clair Danes as the "star" spirit, and Michelle Pfeiffer as a witch trying to obtain eternal youth. Swashbuckling adventure and a good old fashioned entertaining movie. And the previews look to promise some more fantasy coming to a theater near you. And I LOVE a good fantasy!

To dreams and adventure everyday of my life, Patti