Les Bonnes Fees, September 2008

The September issue of Les Bonnes Fees is now online–so settle down with a cup of hot chocolate, something to eat, a box of tissues, and get reading!

In the meantime, have a look at our new autumn site template, here, and let us know what you think. The illustration is an Ivan Bilbin, from The Beautiful Vasilisa (and I’ll post more on her later).

Before I go, a little pretty for a rainy Sunday afternoon…

Poster for Salon des Cent, Eugene Samuel Grasset, 1894

Have Some Tea

Kacchan, the artist, has other fun tea set items in their etsy store, including this delightful I-very-much-now-need-to-go-find-cake strawberry shortcake ring:

Strawberry Cake Ring

I think it’s time to go looking for a cream tea…

spent the better part of today marking up pages for Fees. I’ve never liked tweaking code, but a very fun part of making the pages is finding graphics. While trying to find an illustration, or a piece of clip art suitable for Merrie Haskell’s Rampion in the Belltower (more on this soon, and be sure to keep an eye out for Merrie talking about her experience as a carillonneur interest in carillons), I stumbled upon this site, a clipart library provided by the folks at Florida’s Educational Technology Clearinghouse.

Of genus Amaryllis- A genus of bulbous plants, natural order amaryllidac?, with large, bright colored, lily-shaped flowers upon a stout scape—Whitney, 1902.

All the images are in the public domain, and most of them appear to come from some lovely-sounding old books. This illustration of belladonna, for instance, is from William Dwight Whitney, The Century Dictionary, an Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language (New York: The Century Co., 1902).

These images of dragonflies, too, are so pretty that I think I may be actively searching for something dragonfly related soon!

And then there’s the fairy tale art. A quick search yields 78 records for tower, while decorative letters, famous people, and literary characters each have their own category.

Fairy tale, meantime, returns 158 results, including illustrations (see below), borders, and letter art. Images are available as .gif or .tiff, and instructions on downloads and use are provided at the bottom of each page.

And finally, an image to catch your fancy on a late Tuesday night…

The Fox’s Brush

From The Brothers Grimm and Louis Rhead, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Stories and Tales of Elves, Goblins, and Fairies (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1917)

And of course, comments on this page are still welcome–our LiveJournal community is just to provide more of an open forum.

These Words, print from original watercolour illustration by Rima Staines.

The first issue of Les Bonnes Fees is coming along nicely; here, as promised, is a little more about our cover artist.

Based in the UK, Rima Staines is an artist who works with wood and paper, and her artwork clearly expresses a diverse range of interests and influences–including, of course, folklore and fairy tales.

Telling Stories to a Tree, print from original watercolour illustration by Rima Staines.

As she says of herself, Rima’s “curiosity leads her through the many worlds of words, languages and lettering, books and stories, puppetry, nature and interesting people, music, superstitions, folklore and fairytales, and most of all the otherness that can be found on the periphery of our lives, the strange and grotesque, the absurd and unnerving … that topsy turvy in between place where things are not quite what they seem…”

A Button House for a Button Mouse, print from original pencil drawing by Rima Staines, digitally merged onto an old cracked background.

Rima is working on an original piece for the Les Bonnes Fees cover; prints will be available through her Etsy store.You can also visit her at The Hermitage and her blog, Into The Hermitage.

These Words, print from original watercolour illustration by Rima Staines.

The first issue of Les Bonnes Fees is coming along nicely; here, as promised, is a little more about our cover artist.

Based in the UK, Rima Staines is an artist who works with wood and paper, and her artwork clearly expresses a diverse range of interests and influences–including, of course, folklore and fairy tales.

Telling Stories to a Tree, print from original watercolour illustration by Rima Staines.

As she says of herself, Rima’s “curiosity leads her through the many worlds of words, languages and lettering, books and stories, puppetry, nature and interesting people, music, superstitions, folklore and fairytales, and most of all the otherness that can be found on the periphery of our lives, the strange and grotesque, the absurd and unnerving … that topsy turvy in between place where things are not quite what they seem…”

A Button House for a Button Mouse, print from original pencil drawing by Rima Staines, digitally merged onto an old cracked background.

Rima is working on an original piece for the Les Bonnes Fees cover; prints will be available through her Etsy store.You can also visit her at The Hermitage and her blog, Into The Hermitage.