~Photo Art~

I truly believe that if we keep telling
the Christmas story,
singing the Christmas songs,
and living the Christmas spirit,
we can bring joy and happiness
and
peace to this world."
~ Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993),

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

EVERYONE!!

Once upon a time,
I thought faeries lived only in books,
old folktales, and the past.
That was before they burst upon my life as vibrant,
luminous beings, permeating my art
and
my everyday existence,
causing glorious havoc.
~Brian Froud

Swan Lake
Prague 1970.
Illustrated by Ludmila Jiřincová.

Mireille Havet (1898, Médan, Yvelines - 1932)
was a French poet, diarist, novelist, and lyricist.

She wrote lyrics for songs composed by 
John Alden Carpenter and intended for Éva Gauthier. 
She wrote a novel, Carnaval, published in 1923.
She was friends with Jean Cocteau and Colette,
who referred to her as “la petite poyétesse”.

Her diary, which she kept from 1913 to 1929,
was only found again in 1995,
and published in 2003.

(source: Wikipedia)

“The fairy poet takes a sheet
Of moonbeam, silver white;
His ink is dew from daisies sweet,
His pen a point of light.”
by Joyce Kilmer

Art unknown to me

“The world could truly use a few more elves.” 
by  Susan Branch

art unknown to me

 

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people and
the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and to endure the betrayal of false friends.
To appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better whether
by a healthy child,
a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;
to know that even one life has breathed easier
because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

 
  “Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories
and love of kindred, and we are better throughout
the year for having, in spirit,
become a child again at Christmas-time.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder

art by Charles Gates Sheldon
(1889-1961)

   
Illustrations by saffronlungs
 dA l tumblr

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!
XXX

~An Award

I got an Award ;o)
thank you very much
Jelle Bakker

I’m glad and proud
you give me this honor.
XXX

I will honor Christmas in my heart,
and try to keep it all the year.

quote by Charles Dickens
art unknown to me

Christmas Eve in the City of Toys

From Nutcracker of Nuremberg,
A Christmas Fantasy Based upon the Old Hoffman Legend; written and illustrated by Donald E. Cooke
(John C. Winston Co,1938)

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND
AND
TAKE TIME TO READ A BIT
XXX

Along the clover-field I ran
To where the little wood began,
And there I understood at last
Why I had come so far, so fast
On every leaf of every tree
A fairy sat and smiled at me!

From ‘Fairies and Chimneys’ by Rose Fyleman
First published by George Duran
Source

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),

One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),

No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen - and kissed me there.

a Christmas poem by Walter de la Mare
~LINK~

“In my world, everyone's a pony and
they all eat rainbows and poop butterflies!”
― Dr. Seuss

Art by Jim Daly

~ LINK ~

Johan Jacobs (1881-1955)
Dutch artist
www.johanjacobs.nl

Johnny Longnose
Illustration by Stasys Eidrigevicius

Blanche Jennings Thompson
is the author of Silver Pennies
published 1929
illustrated by Winifred Bromhall

A Collection of Modern Poems for Boys and Girls.
The cloth hardcover is green/aqua/teal with
a black silhouette of a girl reaching to the sky,
with silver pennies falling from a silver moon.

19 short folktales written by Richard Adams
with illustrations by Yvonne Gilbert
and Jennifer Campbell

I found this nice book (1980) on a fleamarket,
my edition is in dutch!

In this volume Richard Adams has collected
together nineteen enchanting folk-tales from
almost as many parts of the world - from Europe
to China and from Polynesia to the Arctic Circle.
Each has a special magic, an aura that is sometimes
beautiful and fascinating, sombre and frightening,
or exciting and colourful. But what unites all these
stories is the essential quality of folk-lore,
something that transcends the boundaries of nations,
of custom and time, that gives them their permanence
and universality of appeal. 'Authors need folk-tales,'
Richard Adams says, 'in the same way as composers
need folk-song. They're the headspring of the narrator's art,
where the story stands forth at its simple, irreducible best.
They don't date, any more than dreams, for they
are the collective dreams of humanity.'
In order to preserve as far as possible the immediacy
and directness of authentic folk story-telling, each
of the nineteen tales is presented as being told by
an imagined narrator to one or more hearers at
a particular time and place, sometimes past,
sometimes present. However, the reader is never told
the identity either of the teller or his hearers,
but is left free to infer both them and the occasion
solely from the narrator's own words.
This original technique adds a novel dash of piquancy
to this fine collection.
Click here! 

~Melanie Delon

Born in 1980 In France, and as far as she can
remember she has always drawn. But on paper.

Melanie studied archeology and history of arts,
then she went to a gamedesign school (for 2 years),
which just was not her thing.

She discovered Photoshop in 2005, since then
Melanie has became addicted to it.
All subjects are interest, they just have to talk to her,
but fantasy and dreamy subjects are her favourite's.

.
LINK HERE to see more
.. .   ..

“I believe a leaf of grass is no less
than the journey-work of the stars.”
—Walt Whitman, born June 5, 1819

Lello & Irmao in Porto, Portugal
usually makes the various lists of  The Top 10
Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World. 
It opened in 1906 and  features stunning Art Deco
woodwork, a stained glass ceiling, and ornate
shelving with a dramatic staircase up
the center of the store.

~Vintage book

A  little book full of black and white drawings
and color plates like these.
It can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg.
 

The Man in the Moon
Came tumbling down,
And asked his way to Norwich..

  The Lion and the Unicorn
Were fighting for the Crown;
The Lion beat the Unicorn
All round about the town.

” If you don’t be be quiet ” shouted the lad to the troll,
” I’ll squeeze you just as
I squeeze the water out of this stone. “

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A wonderful illustration
by Theodor Kittelsen
found HERE!!!

with thanks to Mette.
xxx

Literature takes you places.
Where do you want to go first?

"Second hand books are wild books,
homeless books;
they have come together in vast flocks
of variegated feather, and have a charm which
the domesticated volumes of the library lack."
- Virginia Woolf

by Vicente Romero Redondo 1956

HAVE A
VERY LOVELY AND SUNNY DAY!!!

“He’ll be famous — a legend — I wouldn’t be
surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day
in the future — there will be books written about Harry
— every child in our world will know his name!” —

J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

backcover of a Victorian storybook
(sorry don’t now the title)

Charles Dickens with daughters Katey and Mary in the garden at Gad's Hill Place in Higham, Kent -
home of Dickens' family from 1858 until his death
in one of the rooms in 1870,
and which is about to open its doors
to the public for the first time.
www.dailymail.co.uk

HAVE A LOVELY SUNDAY
XXX