Fairy Finds

Along with the fairy paintings currently on display at Sovereign House are other fairy finds. There are the fairy purses of course, and now another one of Avril's crochet inventions, a little blue-finned mermaid with cascading golden hair. Like the fairy purses she is made of the finest, silkiest cotton thread, very beguiling to the touch. She fits charmingly into the palm of one's hand.

Some weeks ago I found a pair of child-sized chairs in my favourite charity shop and brought them home to sand down and repaint with a fairy motif. The weeks have slipped by with so many things to have ready in time for the show, but this weekend I finally finished the chairs and brought them into the gallery.

Here is the signature motif under the seat,

and here are the chairs, with daisy seats and winged back rests.

One of our young visitors pulled up a chair to sit and paint with me for a while. Working on scraps of watercolour paper we came up with these (fairy with a flower vine, fairy flying over a golden ship) and other miniatures, making up stories to go with each one.

On a table in the middle of the room are books, cards and ornaments. In recent years I did some designs for a giftware company and have a small stock of the resulting product. The Frost Fairy collection included these little cherubs,
and another group of ornaments was designed around my "Princess and the Pea" illustration,
with the Princess on her ladder, sets of Princess slippers,
and a trinket box of the Princess in her tall bed with (what else) a small golden pea inside, under all those mattresses.
The show continues until later this week, concluding another magical interlude at Sovereign House.