Julia Humpfer: HerbstKind and Dreams

This morning, while I was drinking my coffee and browsing the web for some inspiration, I stumbled across these wonderful prints. I love the simple palette and intricate line work of Julia Humpfer's illustrations. Her drippy watercolor backgrounds remind me of the series of drawings I made last spring.

I have had some very vibrant dreams lately. I am hoping to put some of the images into some new drawings. Last night I was befriended by a beautiful deer, after I had run away from home and sought refuge in the wild forest. When I was re-captured, I hid the deer in my room between my clothes hanging in my closet. I could talk to the deer and it could understand me, but it couldn't talk back, it just made soft grunting sounds.  I was quickly sent away to a mountain school for witches, housed in a cold stone castle, where I learned to interpret secret messages coming from a small silver figure of a woman with a large bell skirt. The messages were from Xena the warrior princess.

Spring Bird

A few nights before this, I was escaping from two talking mountain lions who had the ability to walk on walls.  They were after me because I had not packed my suitcase fast enough. Interestingly, gaudy costume jewelry was the only thing I packed into the suitcase. The whole dream took place in a retail store that had closed for the night.

As I remember, David was calmly shopping in the dark while I was being attacked. 

Dragon

Of course my favorite dream of recent weeks is the one where I am living with giant (as in the size of a house) talking bunnies in the woods. The rest of the dream was pretty complicated and it involved escaping (yet again) from bad guys who I believe were trying to smoke us out of the forest with torches. There were some gruesome scenes that took place in a castle, but the talking bunny part was pretty wonderful. I believe Albus Dumbledore also showed up at one point. 

Balloons

So: themes of forests, bad guys, castles and talking animals. Pretty good material for some new pictures I think. Today, however, I have to make a trip to Raleigh (30 minutes away) to stock up on some panels for encaustic work and an encaustic workshop I am teaching with my friend Shannon in Washington State next week. I am sure I won't even get to start on any new drawing today. But the ideas will roll around in my head while I am driving back and forth from the art store. I hope that actually being in a forest next week will provide the perfect environment to begin the new series.

Have a happy, creative Friday everyone!

Gird with Birdy