*** Wild is the Wind ***

Here is my latest digital work for a blog banner. Kind of reminds me of a Bank Cheque...maybe $40,000,000 dollars worth....I wish!ha! Had fun creating this.


After a Desktop Publishing course, buying DreamWeaver, using an online free Photoshop trial and Polyvore I think I may just be getting it...yippe!
Just goes to show where there is a will there is a way.

I always wanted to create digital graphic work but after a bad teacher experience the scar remained with me for years until eventually it receded in the last year and thanks goes to my two wonderful kids who lately have taken a bit of their time to show their mom a few tricks they learned from their high school computer teacher. Really a good teacher is a must for one to excel and this fellow is great and I thank him for teaching my kids well and making the learning process fun. And I in turn also benefit.

Blog Banner *** Dreams ***

Just a tiny post to show the new Blog Banner I am working on. These past few days have been wonderful and full of sunshine. I don’t know exactly why, maybe the extra vitamin c or the spring like air but I feel rejuvenated with a burst of energy … that is for creativity.
Had a great family day today but of course way too short, looking forward to the March Break. Tomorrow will be seeing me go for my first mammogram…yuck! Hopefully it will be okay and when I return, straight to the computer to do some changes to the banner…yippee…in my dreams…other chores to attend to I’m afraid but maybe later…want to make another banner and avatar as well.


To view larger version of this banner scroll to the bottom of page...

I will be posting the banner on Etsy once it is completed.





Goodnight and Sweet Dreams.
Hugs Annabelle

~ Doria ~

ROUGH Unfinished SKETCH....


I began blogging quite a while back and essentially it was to create a journal for my kids. I didn’t realize until just recently what I was capable of and even amazed myself!

For the past few weeks I have been immersed in mixed media. A while back, a little over a year ago, I came across a beautiful artist on Youtube who not only had gorgeous art work but had an infectious nature. Funny, and knowledgeable and excellent at giving lessons on Mixed media, SuziBlu brought a smile, many smiles to my face. When she offered an on line class, there was no question if I was going to take it but when?

I have been very down in the past few years with the change our family had to bear. Not only that, but less than adequate health and loss of dear friends has made my life, somewhat blue. Depression was not mentioned and probably shunned by many, a word that unfortunately many shy away from when essentially the way to beat it is to acknowledge it and confront it by change of mind matter!! In fact, I lost a few blogging acquaintances due to lack of posting and dark material content, if you can call it that.
But I am one who also luvs the dark side of art in many forms, writing, photography, film, whatever stirs up the passion in me and progresses to beautiful works of art, I will definitely experiment in. Life after all is both light and dark, and one has to grasp that notion to understand and appreciate it even more.

Blogging and SuziBlu brought out the artist in me. I have always luved writing and art and now with the internet at my figure tips… I am unstoppable, well to a point; I still need to address daily life and my family which comes first!!!
I have always adored the idea of writing a book, a dream of mine, and never for the life of me, thought I could ever draw more than a stick. What I have posted here, I am very proud of. I have never in a million years thought I was capable of such a thing. I know it is just la di da as my husband and kids call it but I luv my Little Mermaid. And maybe, if I can do this, which I didn’t think was touchable, then anything is possible.

One of my mottos is “where there is a will there is a way” and seriously, I have found the way to art through SuziBlu…..and encouragement to excel through my artful mediums by comments like this one left by Deborah Grasty:


Annabelle,

I loved reading your blog - you need to be a writer - I loved reading your posts - so well written. I, too, have 'a love affair' with England. We spent four years living there and I would go back in a heartbeat - if only I could. Deborah Grasty

And my reply:

Wow, thanks for the lovely compliment; makes my night to dream about becoming one at my old age! You just jogged my memory of the old gal from England; I think she is in her nineties and just published her first novel. She intends to donate the profits for keeping seniors at home instead of a nursing home if they are well enough to do so. The story of her charity gift sort of reminded me of how John {Robert} Merrick spent his last years in a nice home dwelling section of his hospital and how much joy he got from it, I thought what a lovely idea! I can’t recall her name, but she did give me inspiration when I first heard her speak on the CBC earlier this summer, but then I forgot all about it, until tonight, strange how things seem to unfold.
What was very interesting about her story was, she had kept a journal in her trunk, I believe. Just recently it got published, again another of many magical tales originating from good old romantic England, our united passion.
My daughter is a natural when it comes to weaving a tale; I think she will be pursuing literature. She will probably be our writer in the family.
I started out with this blog in hopes of enticing my children into seeking their passions and paths in their life by reading mom’s journal…I think somewhat; it is working well with that original intention. What came out of blogging that I didn’t expect was my realization that the passions I had within, transformed into tangible conceptions I never realized I could create, that I possessed, somewhat …a bit of ability. I began writing poetry on a friend’s suggestion and started creating art.
It is people like you who find the time to give a compliment that triggers that hidden, shy and insecure self into view and makes them proceed on the path. Thank you for doing so. Someday, someone’s dream may be fulfilled, weather it’s my children’s, a friend like you, me or just a stranger passing by.
Hope you get to go back to England someday; it is a place I will always long to see once more before I die.

Annabelle

p.s. Also if anyone has any information pertaining to the British gal I am talking about in my reply to Deborah, I would be more than grateful in receiving.

Miranda's Grotto

Click on the pictures to view a closer image of the detail incorporated in the work.


My fourth in the series of Ordovician Fossil Art


I have been in love with these fossils from years back of my discovering their Secret Garden. They come in shades of amber and rust, cream and yellow and somehow imbue the essence of "Grand Marnier" in their subtle sparkle. Like my favorite Liqueur of France they instill serenity and relaxation when gazed upon and carry you to another magical land. Simply irresistible and dreamy!

Late at night when all is still and very, very quiet….

Myspace Glitter Graphics




I'm Dreaming by a Moonlit Sea...

Magnificent Obsessions and Passions of My Heart

“You’ll not be able to get away from it! You’re too far in! It’s got you! …A form of insanity, maybe; but you may as well come along –”

I pondered on this passage for a while the other day and I suddenly realized that I been caught in a trap! But a beautiful trap!
I truly believe that I’m in love with the idea of being captured in this snare, a spellbinding web in which it sustains me…with wondrous Dreams, Music, Art, Words, and Happy Thoughts … All Passions of My Heart!


On any given day I may take a solitary walk down a winding way lost in the countryside of Tuscany. Once there I am enamored by the lovely beauty of a warm golden field of sunflowers dancing in the breeze to Luciano’s Nessun Dorma! I may even get inspired to write an Italian poem from the arresting experience.
Girasoli, Fiori Blu
Nessun dorma, senza tu….

Or may be wandering along the beautiful and enthralling pastoral valley of Wiltshire and be arrested in the beauty of Stourheads enchanted eighteenth century garden with its secret grotto lined in flint and volcanic Italian rock sheltering the statue of the sleeping nymph while water cascades over her mossy slumber bed.

And then the next night I may just slip back in time and become drunk of cuoreblu listening to Ashrams intoxicating violins playing a haunting melody of ancient echoes and somehow mysteriously without intention find myself in old Victorian England in the haunting mansion of “The Innocents”. The one and only best film adaptation of the novel by Henry James ~ “The Turn of the Screw”. It has to be the one movie I had seen as a child that I never really ever gotten out of my mind and has in reality haunted me to this day for there is always that imminent thought: “someone could be watching me through the window” an habitual reaction to drawing in the curtains when night falls. Definitely it is without a doubt, the scariest psychological ghost story I have ever come to meet.


I read once that a home was a mirror of the family’s happiness and virtue; a place to which one could escape the harsh, demanding and perilous world outside. And so I, along with many others have now found shelter and security in our blissful home. In a way our Dear Victoria has captured are fancy all over again; the Bliss of Home!



I have always longed for the old limestone home filled to the brim with antiquities, not necessarily costly but old and worn by others, my connectors to the past. To have a room with a view of infinite wildflower fields joined by the sea and pass the mornings and nights and all the in-betweens.






But my dreams of the old home in far off seclusion overlooking the sea never did materialize, although most importantly I was blessed with a lovely family and home. My home, my castle in all its imperfections… it is my safe haven. The place from where I view the world.

My journey embarks from the private room of my studio! A place to me far removed from the outside world and yet at a touch of a key I am somewhere distant from the physical place which I call home. In the comfort of my chair I see the world in virtual reality; and meet friends from places I dreamed I would visit someday.
Obviously there are dreadful sites out there but you have the choice. Most times I come away with an exhilarating feeling of fulfillment and contentment. It is really in all essence the poor man’s way of living life extravagantly without the means!

Like anything that is pleasurable can become addictive. There has to be a happy medium to everything one does or else it can take hold and suck the life right out of you! Gaming, dating, music, food, art, nature, literature, travel are all but a few of people’s addictions or are they?

In retrospect we have always loved many of these things; its part of life and the web is an extension of our environment. It makes it easier and more accessible to information and communication than ever before. In seconds we have what we were probably looking for some time if not for years before the internet evolution. Many have found their ancestors and their secrets for better or for worse…ha! I found out recently that I have a younger American brother….So I guess I have connections in the States as well as Italy and Argentina and Australia and Germany to name a few of my gypsy family roots!!!
The information that is available to us is beyond ones understanding of the scale it extends; its infinitive!

Upon reflection, when I surf, I actually enter into another world; a world of dream and inspiration, of beauty and of loss. At times I find I get completely compelled, lost and mesmerized with a site and If my husband or kids call out to me I may be inclined to have not heard them consciously, thinking that it must be someone calling their kid outside until enough times the blaring of my name will sound out and I’ll snap out of it and come back to ground zero…ha-ha….still a child at heart! But I know my limit and when the laundry piles up or dishes and the beds aren’t made or that I want everything in the world; that in its self is an obvious indicator that I’m spending way too much time on the keyboard and looking glass.


As a child born under the cosmic sign of Pisces I have always been prone to being a bit of a Romantic, actually rather an extreme incurable one to be more precise in describing my nature. I can’t stop favoring so many of the Flickr pictures that I come across but that is due to my leaning to art…mosaic…creations of sorts!


Even as a little girl I showed an Passion to decorate the Hearth for Christmas!!!!!

Regrettably, I’m a terrible photographer and subject and ultimately haven’t learned the art form. So I reside on others art and take in their beauty to create a magic tapestry, a crazy quilt, a memory collage or simply just a Flickr mosaic of life!

Back some 45 years ago you would have found me in a vast white field of daisies over looking the sea; busily lost picking all that I could see, not knowing when to end my gatherings while my mother was calling out to me to come…..if that would ever happened!!!! I always was one to be captivated by the beauty of nature and the work of man. Such things I came to learn weren’t worth importance to my evolution of successful maturity although now I can afford the luxury of such retreats. But I must say these so called unimportant values in a sense make the fabric of a person and who they become.


And so when you see a sunset that takes your breath away or a moment in time you have never felt before, take heed and observe in the silence the beauty that surrounds you. Pull out that camera you just bought and make the memories that sweet dreams are made of and upload them to any of the numeral sites that are available to you to use for free like ; Flickr, Webshots, Picasa just to name a few. And if your hearts desire is to view old film stars and songs of the past check out Muirmaiden on Youtube.

Bear in mind life is yours for a very short time and one should live life to its fullest. I have taken that aphorism and am living by it.
For a moment I get to live in some else’s red slippers and see what it would be like having and owning the things I dreamed of having but in the end my heart belongs within the visually imperfect home to the richest home one could ever dream of having. The family and their home is where the heart takes rest and views the web of the world. I may be caught in the web but for only short periods of time, for I know that it is another ones life out there I view and that mine rests here in the real passions of my heart!




Affairs of my Heart ~ A Poem

Affairs of my heart… I’ve fallen under your magical spells
Pinned to my spirit with brooches of jewels and of shells
I love all that is and all that shall be
Imparted upon this restless, unreeling happiest heart that is me

Words floating on air, sparkling and luminous… as pretty as a golden -haired lass
Encrusted with the twinkle and glitter of mica, crystal and glass
Love, dreams…imagine and wish to Believe, maybe a little naïve… do I Dare?
Fairies and mermaids do really live here!
With flowers and lace entwined in their wavy long radiant hair!




Darkness descending within this old house; winter is here!
Spirits of the night come to me near
Come close; be still, while I in joyous pulse write… by the candle’s vanishing light
As snowflakes outside softly drift down to the silence of the night


The hearth burns a jolly fiery glow and warmly gives call
Whilst twilight quietly fades into the rosewood hall
And the music takes note; embarks on its journey twisting and winding in graceful flow… in its gothic delicate dance …

And then begins the faint echo of the weeping and strange violins.


Summer’s wildflowers now have all gone with the wintry chill
But the tuberose, slender and tall keeps company with the curious cat precariously poised on the sill
Intoxicating in its sweet-smelling and heady perfume
I’m lulled into a false state of sleep under the broom

The owl patiently sits on the wood of the very old oak that resides in the little country courtyard
Above hangs a plump milky white moon in a sea of twinkling stars that keep him on much heedful guard
Books… threadbare and olden; keepers of lyrical words;
Senses wild with delicious enchantment I’m blissfully bestowed!
And the night of the winter lays quietly still under a white shimmering blanket of sugary snow

Annabelle 12/2007


Some of my Obsessions and Passions of my Heart... A listing of the glittering stars that make life magic:



I have listed here for your pleasure:

Zsaj…My first addiction to collecting gorgeous ethereal photographs
http://www.flickr.com/people/98474349@N00/

My mosaics:
http://www.flickr.com/

Paul Potts sings opera
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DelJrP3P7tA&feature=related

Freddie Francis the cinematographer responsible for creating the atmospheric mood of the film “The Innocents”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s61Lz0CqY8Y

Eerie Clips from the movie “The Innocents”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhqQEnASvJ0

Or if you are in the mood for a good deep sleep visit
Gentle ghost classics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-01ID1O_n8



Or just reminiscing on the Vintage Blonde Bombshells of Hollywood or other movie screen stars Muirmaiden has a beautiful collection
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJvuz64vTvA


For a complete resource of Victorian literature, poetry and art one must visit: http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dgr/dgrov.html


A beautiful site with a secret garden you’ll sure want to explore: http://www.follytowers.com/stourheadtrail5.html



A beautiful and haunting Italian band who has completely entranced me from the time I discovered them through a fabulous Italian disk jockey’s website who herself is an inspiration of sorts
http://www.ashramusic.com/ “Maria and the Violins” and here http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=71645906



And then of course here is an itsy bitsy list of the many, many blogs I obsess about and the stuff that dreams are made of… The Bliss of Home:


Victoria the ROMANTIC magazine has come back! ~ http://www.victoriamag.com/

http://wwwbeyondthevintagepath.blogspot.com/

http://www.beyondthevintagepath.com/page/page/653262.htm

http://karlascottage.typepad.com/karlascottage/

http://monicaanderson.blogspot.com/

http://prettypetalsboutique.blogspot.com/2007/08/sparkling-kind-of-wish.html

http://www.missduffys.com/

http://www.cindyellisart.com/index.asp

http://wwwcindyellisartcom.blogspot.com/

http://www.queenoftarte.blogspot.com/

http://www.onehundredwishes.com/

http://www.fadedrosecottage.com/

http://monicaanderson.blogspot.com/

http://www.romantichome.blogspot.com/

http://sweeteyecandycreations.typepad.com/

http://www.thebowerbirdsnest.blogspot.com/

http://www.natashaburns.blogspot.com/

http://jeannesbliss.blogspot.com/

http://ltthings.blogspot.com/


http://izabella.typepad.com/

For lovely authentic Italian cuisine by a Swedish chef and photograher
http://www.lucullian.blogspot.com/


And this is only a minuscule part of my beautiful relationship with the fascinating and intoxicating web!

Annabelle 12 / 2007