Practical Magic Blog Party 2011

Welcome and thank you for joining me today. Anna from Frosted Petunias is hosting this marvelous blog party and I'm thrilled to be one of the participants in it. I hope you enjoy what I’ve prepared for the occasion. I just finished baking some pumpkin muffins with walnuts and chocolate chips and they're waiting in the kitchen so go on in and help yourself.

This has to be my all time favorite kitchen. I love the dark plank floor and beams and the open shelving and tile work. I'm not sure I'm as crazy about the stove as I am about everything else in the room but I could make myself love it if I could have the kitchen and the house to go with it.

“Practical Magic” has been one of my favorite movies for over a decade. This is one of the few times that I liked the movie better than the book only because the movie has such lovely visuals. I love the story and the characters in the movie but most of all I love the house. It is my dream house and although I can never live in it nothing is stopping me from drawing or painting it. The house is beautiful inside and out and the grounds surrounding it are wonderful as well. My love of this house is why the drawing at the beginning of this post is my first offering for the party. The drawing is done in colored pencil on Bristol vellum. It has been double matted and will fit into an 11" x 14" frame.

Since I love working with paper mache clay I felt a need to make something with it for the party so I’ve made a small figure of each of the Owens women. The tallest of the four is Fran who is 8 1/2" while Gilly the smallest is just over 8" tall.

Shown left to right are Bridget, Gillian, Sally and Frances.

Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman were perfect in their roles of the Owens sisters and Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing did an equally wonderful job portraying the aunts Fran and Jet.

The first piece I completed for the party was this portrait of the sisters Sally & Gilly. I used the cover of my DVD as a reference for the painting. This piece is acrylic on canvas board.

Although Sally and Gillian are the main characters, there are three sets of sisters. The aunts are so feminine and wouldn't you love getting a chance to spend time with them? Now if I could just find out where they shop for their wonderful outfits. I can't remember the last time I wore a hat but if I could find a shop that sells clothing like this I might just have to see what I'd look like all gussied up.

 

When I painted the four figures I used colors that you might find in a garden as the garden behind the house plays a major role in the movie and because the colors are very romantic as are these lovely women. 

The other set of sisters are Sally's daughters and they are completely charming. I especially liked them in the scene of the pancake breakfast and them running off with the pitcher of syrup.

A potion in the making



Breakfast in the garden

I'm sure that you'll agree with me when I say the sisters seem to attract very handsome men into their lives. Officer Gary Hallet played by Aidan Quinn could melt any female's heart, young or old.

You can't fault Gilly for being attracted to Jimmy, played by Goran Visnjic. The man is sinfully sexy, too bad his personality needed a makeover.

Now you see what I meant about the visuals. Alice Hoffman wrote a wonderful book, I loved every word, but don't you agree the movie has some terrific visuals?

I'll be leaving this post up until next Saturday, October 1st and on that day at 12:00 noon  I'll name the winner of the colored pencil drawing of the house similar to the one shown at the beginning of this post. The one shown above was accidentally destroyed in a work shop mishap. Don't ask. I think the replacement may be even better than the first.

If you're interested in entering the drawing let me know by saying I want to be entered in the drawing in the comment section of this post. There is no need to be a follower of this blog to enter but if you are a follower you will receive an additional chance to win.

There are many other sites out there who are participating in this blog party so before you continue on to the next site I wanted to thank you for stopping by.

September 25, 2011

I want to take a minute to thank all of you who have visited with me over the past few days. I also wish to tell those of you who have participated in this wonderful blog party how much I enjoyed visiting your sites and seeing all of the amazing ways you celebrated this shared obsession we have with the Practical Magic movie and book. I've tried to make it to every site to see what you have put together. It was very time consuming but well worth the time spent in front of my computer. Because of this party I've found blogs that I may never have visited and many where I want to return over and over. If there's a Practical Magic party again next year I hope to be able to be a part of it. To sum up, thanks to all of you for making this such an enjoyable experience.

Sneek Preview

I have been working on pieces for a blog party that I'm participating  in later this month and because projects don't get finished as fast as they once did I haven't gotten much else done. These little figures that I'm going to show you were supposed to be part of my offering for the blog party but I decided that instead of saving them I'd show them to you now. They're not as large or as detailed as most of my pmc figures because I'm trying to come up with something that doesn't require as much file work as my usual pieces. I've discovered that the easiest thing for me to do is paint so I'm relying on the painting to give them detail.

The first little figure is Fran and she's my favorite. I love the way her eyes turned out.

She was supposed to be holding something else but I wasn't happy with the thing she was holding so I cut it out and she ended up with this little sprig of flowers.

Next is her sister Bridget also called Jet.

I haven't found the right flowers for her yet so she's empty handed.

This is Sally and she's also waiting for me to find just the right flowers for her to hold. It's really a shame that I can't find what I'm looking for.

Last but not least we have Gillian, or Gilly. Lucky for me the white flowers show up nicely with her green gown or she would have been flowerless as well.

These are the Owens women, and they are witches. I realize they do not look anything like the ones you're used to seeing on Halloween but they are four of my favorite witches.

There is a type of doll of Japanese origin that is made of wood called a Kokeshi doll. On one of the blogs I follow the doll artist named Susie McMahon has come up with very attractive cloth and clay dolls she calls Sukeshi and if I can create a similar style using pmc that I like I might call them Makeshi dolls.  Sounds like a terrific name for a doll, I just don't know if I can come up with anything worthy of it. These are experiments along those lines but I don't think I'm going to be calling them Makeshi dolls, that name is reserved for the real deal.

As always, thanks for stopping by.