Hide and Seek

click to enlarge in gallery view

Some time ago I have been kindly told that learning some basics in drawing and painting would benefit my work. I don't have any formal training and for me it was just playing with colours and experimenting with different techniques. I wasn't particularly keen on drawing white boxes and contemplating perspective. So I worried  that the fun would be over and it  would all start to be serious like going to school again. It can get frustrating sometimes, (where's the poetry in this?etc.)
but I have an excellent teacher and after a short course in drawing we moved to tonal painting of still lives. I have a long way to go but am quite pleased with the results and I think they make a nice setting to show my new silk dress and shoes, new to me that is, since I bought them from Oxfam Online Shop, they are good as new and fit perfectly. Can't wait to wear them outside. If you have a wedding reception coming up don't forget to invite me.

Away with the Fairies

I have been planning on doing a few outfit posts presented in an imaginative, visually stunning, ehm, something along those lines, way. If you have been losing sleep over... what should I wear for an elegant outdoor activity such as birdwatching, this is my sophisticated suggestion.



We haven't spotted many birds but if you look carefully you may notice that the camera was able to register little winged creatures. Now, I am not the sort of person to believe in fairy nonsense however we are in the presence of strong scientific evidence.


Why have they appeared? What are they trying to tell us? Have they been attracted to the little woman wearing an unassuming yet perfect attire for the occasion when what they usually see are huge human beings in Lycra and fleece? We will never know.

skirt: Orvis from Ebay
suit: Charity shop
holdups: TopShop
shoes: bespoke
Visual Effects Supervisor: Zoran

Postcard from Ljubljana

Hello! This is a post about a watercolour, my new business card and a colorized old photograph. None of this seemed interesting enough on its own, so I've put them all together hoping they will produce a dazzling effect on you, my three or four devoted readers.



So let' start with the first item. For all the people from far and distant places, here we have for you a very realistic portrait of Ljubljana, where I live, (pronounced something like "lubiana", the lj is challenging for non-Slavic speakers, I think). It has a Dragon Bridge, a medieval castle, a river runs through it, there are men and women ,as you can see, enjoying watersports, the sun is always shining and everyone is cheerful except when it rains and then it's a different story. Have a look here.


Next is the front and the back of the business card I've designed recently, very pleased with how it turned out- (dusty) pink and green, my favourite colours.





Last, is Zelda Boden, a circus performer from the twenties. I love old circus photographs, magic and sad at the same time. I wanted to make her as beautiful as possible in colour. I wonder what was her act about and how her costume really looked like.

The Snake Lady Strikes Again

I was delighted to have the opportunity to perform my Snake lady act again at the Red Dawns Benefit Party on the 29th of December. The event was organised in order to raise money for the Red Dawns Feminist and Queer Festival which takes place in Ljubljana every year in the begining of March. So in two months time I will be performing my show Stitches at the festival and that is something I am definitely looking forward to.

The party last week went really well,- here is the " tragic death scene" for you to contemplate, twice, it involves some serious cavorting on the chair and finding a sturdy one proved to be not an easy task... To see more pics from the event click here.

In today's post I wanted to show how I manipulated the original black&white photograph in Photoshop adding colour, a great tattoo, a lace glove, vintage effect and nice lighting again with a lot of help from Zoran What do you think of the result?
If getting or removing a tattoo was as easy in real life I would have loads of them already and lace gloves in every colour and...



Photo Courtesy of Simona Jerala

Merry Christmas

For the past few weeks I have been enjoying the poetry by Christina Rossetti which is so perfect for this time of year. Click on the link to see her portrait made by her brother, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Hope you like this bit of her poem.
Wish you all the best in 2012.

A Christmas Carol

... What can I give Him
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring him a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,-
Yet what can I give Him,-
Give my heart...

Experimental Cabaret : The Snake Lady

City of Women is an annual festival here in Ljubljana which showcases female performers. This year the festival offered an experimental cabaret workshop with Marisa Carnesky which I was lucky to attend. Marisa is an experienced performer, show woman and lecturer from London (make sure to check her website) and above all a very friendly and warm person. I had been really looking forward to this workshop and it didn't disappoint me. I would definitely recommend it to anybody interested in cabaret. I thoroughly enjoyed the four days and especially performing at the end in a club (Gromka) with the rest of the participants.

Here are a few pics from my Snake Lady act which was a huge success
with the audience at least that was my impression :-) .

Theater Design for a Children's Show

Zoran and I just finished working on an animation that was used
in a children's show as a scenography and was projected on the
backdrop. I started by making drawings of what was needed for
a particular scene( a street view, an interior, a cat...) and then
Zoran edited them in Photoshop adding some animated elements
as well.
Here are some examples on a smaller scale of course and you
can see us in the little picture above.

I Wish I Was (Part Two)

I wish I wasn't so slow... I took the pictures of this collages some time ago when it was still very warm, you can see the rays of the late summer sunset captured in the images and then recently I added the words in Photoshop. I have lots of cheerful ideas for part three, four, fifteen... of this uplifting series and will probably remake Part One (scroll down please) with my greatly improved computer skills :-)

Living In A Box

This time I fell into a box, so there is little me showing the two summer dresses
I have been wearing with great pleasure over the long and hot summer we had in this part of the world until two days ago.











The navy polka dot one was made by Zoran a year ago, the floral one, which is made from the finest cotton available to mankind :), Acorn from UK, was done by Z. and myself two months ago. The pebbles in the collage, on the other hand, have travelled all the way from Greek Islands and are a kind gift from Spela. I definitely plan to make more cotton dresses for next summer since
they are elegant and comfortable at the same time. Granny chic, here I come!

Elephant In A Box

Meet three new little friends of mine: Sausage dog, Albert the Indian Ellephant and Mina the Terrible Mouse. Lately I have been having fun taking pictures of them in a cigar box and in the Chinese box for ink painting.
Hope you like them.

Not For Me

Beware! The video that you are about to see is not for the faint-hearted since it contains scenes of violence.







I am currently making a new show that will be full of roses, tango, drama and perhaps some animation. This is my first exercise in stop motion - chopping roses's heads proved to be very relaxing and therapeutic. More scenes of goriness coming soon.

I Wish I Was

I've been thinking for some time now of making a booklet of collages and maybe a pop-up book which is moveable and three-dimensional. This is my first attempt in that direction and I am quite pleased with the results.

My Little Monsters

Let me introduce my new best friends: Frankie (from Frankenstein) and Principessa (meaning princess in Italian).



Since human relationship can be very difficult and disappointing I decided to create ideal companions for myself. They are soft, small, silent, accomodating and always agree with me.



They love the outdoors a lot that's why I took them for a picnic in Tivoli Park the other day.



Most of their time is spent in a red shoebox so they liked the change very much. They've came up with amazingly original ideas for this photo session.




Here is a piglet hidding and I made a dog as well for Frankie and Principessa but it is not very photogenic and today I gave it away to a human friend. There is an elephant coming soon, I hope, I am having a bit of a creative blockade.




So this is my idea on how to improve the quality of life, avoid disapointments and have fulfilling relationships.
Dear virtual friends, I will let you know if it works so you can try it too.

Winter Wedding

"The spirits of the dead are in constant state of yearning".
Kazuo Ohno




The third part of my show Stitches is called Winter Wedding and was influenced by Japanese dance - Butoh, Japanese ghost stories and movies, especially Akira Kurosawa's Dreams.





Years ago I studied and performed with some Japanese Butoh dancers and that experience made a lasting impresion on me. I've been thinking about making my own version of a "ghost dance" for a long time...ghost or spirits are a popular subject in Japanese theatre and literature.





In Japanese folklore there are spirits that are kept from a peaceful afterlife because of some powerful emotions and keep returning to the physical world. For example ghosts of those who died at sea or samurai -warrior ghosts or, my favourite:), the seductress ghosts, who have a post-death love affair with a living human.




These spirits haunt a particular person or place until their purpose is fulfilled and they can move on to the afterlife. They usually appear between 2 and 3 a.m., the witching hour for Japan, when the weils between the world of the dead and the world of the living are at their thinnest.






The ghosts are represented by wearing a white kimono, which is used for funeral rituals and the hair is long, black and disheveled, they lack legs and feet and their hands dangle lifelessly from the wrists.

Coral Sea

Coral Sea is the second part of my show Stitches.

I know, I know you all have been impatiently waiting for this second installment of Splendor:-) In case you are new to this blog or you've missed the first part I urge you to scroll down and have a look at Broken Beat first!!!





After the black and white world of Broken Beat we are now immersed in colour. The animation is done after my watercolours of sea, seabirds, waves, palms...
The movement is circular and fluid as opposed to the mechanical, "broken" and doll like of the first one.













I have been fascinated by mermaids since early age, I think it started with bedtime stories about Ulysses, the legendary Greek king, and his voyage that my father used to tell me when I was little. Those beautiful and sinister mermaids are what I remamber most vividly to this day. And later I read a story about these creatures and in a children's book; in this weird version the mermaid would eat the sailor's ears after she had seduced them. The illustration of sailors on the island without ears was really, really spooky. And of course I adore H.C. Andersen's version, in which the mermaid endures terrible suffering to become human because she had fallen in love with the prince. Oh, the drama...