Photographer: STEVE PARKE @steve.parke
Model: TEE PIMENTEL @teepimentel
Wardrobe: JILL ANDREWS GOWNS @jagowns
Muah: NIKKI VERDECCHIA @nikki.verdecchia
Backdrop Paintings: NICHOLE LEAVY ART @nicholeleavyart
Jewelry: PARRISH RELICS @parrish_relics
Photographer’s Assistant: BRITT OLSEN-ECKER @brittolsenecker

We’re gazing into our scrying stones at a new year, eaking open a fresh tarot pack, planning a bright 25 of luscious flavors and fragrances, colors and charms. We’ve always been artists, but this year we’re itching to try something new: bake ourselves some jewelry, write a poem full of predictions and wishes, pick up a brush and paint a self- portrait—treat ourselves as the raw materials for new lives.

Welcome to your own personal Renaissance. Are you ready to be refreshed?

The cycles of birth, growth, decay, and rebirth are what define time itself: seasons of the year, transitions of history. So let’s go back about five and a half centuries and say it’s 1475. You’ve lived through a bleak time, what with the Black Plague (1347, then again and again) and the so-called Holy Wars that finally ended (more or less) in 1453, when Constantinople passed from the Byzantine Empire to the Ottoman Empire. Lately you’ve noticed that the world is more interested in business than in religion, which means that you’re mixing more with other cultures in a step toward globalization. People are paying more attention to people. And then you look around a bit more and rediscover the ancient Greeks and Romans: their intricate stories, their passionate gods, their love of the body in art.

Suddenly you know there is no more exciting time to be alive— and to be refashioning yourself into the person you want to be.

For this issue, we re-created the Renaissance with a dazzling dual cover shoot embodying two of the era’s most amazing icons: the Roman goddess Venus and the early Christian martyr Saint Catherine of Alexandria. We pulled these archetypes out of two famous paintings, dressed our model in lush Renaissance attire, stood her in front of exquisite hand-painted backdrops, and asked goddess and saint to speak to us through the centuries. Art and beauty might be eternal, but they must also step out of the frame once in a while, reveal their layers, and remind us who they are.

At first glance, these women could not seem more different. Botticelli’s Primavera (painted in the late 1470s or early 1480s) shows an exuberant festival, with pagan gods welcoming springtime—perfect for the theme of rebirth. Then Raphael’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria (circa 1507) presents a quiet conversation between saint and heavens, a callback to medieval themes of martyrdom and submission. And yet both of them are quintessentially the Renaissance.

What draws goddess and saint together is not who they were but how the artists presented them, the reverence that Botticelli and Raphael shared for the human … sidling all the way over into outright joy. Our talented team of artists felt it too. They utterly reveled in designing and sewing the costumes, painting the scenery, posing, photographing as much of the process as possible, and finding the modern superwomen within the timeless icons.

Indeed, is there any better way to spend a day—or an era?

Goddess of Mysteries

That stately but ethereal figure on our outside cover cannot be anyone other than Venus, goddess of love and beauty. She is an ancient goddess reborn (yes, Botticelli painted that Venus too), a somewhat serious spirit presiding over others’ pleasure: She is one of the ideals to which we aspire. She is also the mother of Cupid, who flies blindfolded over her head, aiming his arrow willy-nilly into a crowd—because you never know when love (or inspiration, or the dawn of a new age) might strike you.

Dating phases of creativity is always dicey, but we’ll go ahead and break the Italian Renaissance down into four major periods: the early gearing-up (1300–1450), the Renaissance generally speaking (1450–1500), the High Renaissance (1500–1520), and a long, lingering, late era (1520–1625) infused with Mannerism, spilling over into the drama of the Baroque. We’ve covered a bit of it all in these pages, from early angels to Queen Elizabeth, and of course, the flourishing art scene.

Botticelli was born around 1445 and belonged to that second phase. He was from a family of goldsmiths (formerly leather tanners), and he lived all his life in one neighborhood in Florence, with some forays to Rome. When he reinvented himself as a painter, he became known for otherworldly, fine- featured, slightly pensive-looking Madonnas. And then came Primavera, and it changed everything.

This huge painting (about 6 ⅔ by 10 ⅓ feet) is a nest of mysteries. We don’t even know what Botticelli might have called it—art historian Giorgio Vasari gave it the name we know, some seventy years after it was made. What we do know is that Primavera was the first large-scale painting of classical gods and goddesses undertaken since the classical era. Here we see Mercury, the Three Graces, Venus, Flora, the wind Zephyrus, and the nymph Chloris. People had heard of these entities but hadn’t seen them portrayed on such a scale. Botticelli’s masterwork is everything that Renaissance humanism and art were about—an expansion of beliefs and references, with a realistic sense of dimension in the space through which painted bodies appeared to move, and love at the center of it all (or just slightly off-center, anyway).

Now take away the party, the friends—just leave Cupid, because he’s part of who Venus is—and the ancient goddess manifests new qualities. Draped in bright colors over a pale gown, with the hint of gold armor over her heart, she is regal, commanding—a strong beauty. She can hold her own in solitude.

Botticelli’s Venus meets our gaze, her head tilted to the side. Flirting a little? Not if we look at her closely. She seems thoughtful, perhaps assessing us. Are we worthy of love?

Her hand lifts in greeting, or maybe she’s just about to make a pronouncement.

We might not have all the answers, but do we really need a reason to celebrate Venus? Shouldn’t life be all about love and abundance anyway?

Goddess of Transformation

To love, and to love beauty, means you have a curious mind and an adventurous streak—you want to experience the world as you find yourself in it. So our modern Venus, embodied by model Tee Pimentel, is not quite so judgy as Botticelli’s. She asks, What is love, anyway? How do you define what’s beautiful in your life? She has a sense of humor; having exchanged Botticelli’s blue-gray gown for one in diaphanous white, she crosses her arms, just on the point of laughing good-heartedly in our faces. But laughter is just one side of her. She’s also dreamy, passionate, serious, inhabiting each mood fully—a truly human goddess. She urges us to embrace all our emotions. And isn’t it just about time?

Our clothes have always signaled who we are to the world, and as our Venus decides to change hers, we discover new mysteries. The layers peel away. Designer Jill Andrews has added luxe elements such as the cloth-of-gold (a modern silk lamé) that glimmers beneath the filmy white overdress. That gold emerges as Venus’s sleeves, showing she’s precious through and through.

But our girl chooses not to stay Venus forever. When she steps into the Tuscan landscape of our second cover—both backgrounds painted marvelously by Nichole Leavy—she slips into a gown of iridescent blue silk chiffon with split sleeves, studded by 150-year-old gold buttons. Perhaps she is one of the

Muses: Clio for history; Polyhymnia for sacred poetry, song, and dance; Thalia for comedy and celebration. Or a new Muse for a modern age that embraces the past …

Why, incidentally, is there no Muse for painting? Some people say it’s because art must be governed by the goddess of beauty. Or maybe all of us are the Muses. Because even a so-called ordinary girl can change the world.

Breaking the Wheel

Take, for example, Raphael’s Saint Catherine of Alexandria, painted with the spiked wheel of her martyrdom, face turned to the heavens in ecstatic conversation. She too has been a guiding spirit for the Renaissance and beyond: intense, intelligent, sure of her convictions and her rightful place. Not afraid to suffer for her beliefs.

Born around 287, Catherine was a princess and a bookworm (girl after our heart) who converted to Christianity at age fourteen. She set about converting other Romans until the emperor Maxentius considered her a problem when she was about eighteen. He sent pagan philosophers to teach her a lesson and bring her back to the official state religion—and she out-debated them, even convinced some of them to adopt the new faith. Naturally, Maxentius threw her in prison. She held firm. He proposed marriage; she refused. But when he condemned her to death, she accepted with grace.

The method of execution was to have been that spiky wheel on which she leans in Raphael’s picture. It was a cruel sentence, with the executioner using the wheel to break victims’ bones and then leaving them to die. But when the wheel came out, Catherine touched it—and it shattered under her hand. So Maxentius ordered the executioner to cut off her head … and instead of blood, her wound ran with milk.

Saint Catherine has endured for more than 1,700 years as a model of intelligence and resolve. In 1428, her voice urged sixteen- year-old Joan of Arc to take charge of the French army; this princess also knew how to be a warrior.

Joan’s heroism was still within living memory when Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (even his name is a work of art) painted this picture around 1507. His Catherine embodied strength of character and grace, her body twisting away from the wheel that was meant to be her end and up to the heavens in which she trusts. And he painted her in ecstasy, plugged into the divine.

Our modern saint takes Raphael’s version a step further. She’s already shattered the wheel and kicked the pieces away; it doesn’t belong anywhere near her. When we first encounter her, on our inside cover, she meets our eyes immediately—chin up, proud and defiant, with a smile in the corners of her mouth. That’s right, she says, I’m still here. Page a little further into the feature and you’ll see that in her most Raphaelesque pose—eyes toward the sky—she has actually left the painting behind to plant her feet on the modern studio floor and channel the divine into this complicated world.

She shows up several times, too, in the work of Artemisia Gentileschi, who herself withstood torture to tell her own truth (see “When Women Painted the Renaissance” on page 28), and in paintings by Caravaggio, Titian, Vanessa Bell, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and others.

Catherine is a princess in the very best sense: a brilliant intellectual, a persuasive debater, with a magical-miraculous scorn for anyone who tries to tell her who to be. She doesn’t need a weapon to fight a war; she has her mind and her will, a complexity that might surprise even our Venus. A secret smile between poses hints at even more mysteries to uncover, perhaps a challenge for us …

Will you be a goddess or a saint?

We answer her just as we’d answer our Venus: Why choose? Be one, be both, be anything. This is your Renaissance.

Feature Image:
Photography by Marketa Novak
Model: Nela Boudová

I imagine a mature woman with long, flowing hair with some noticeable strands of gray. She’s bedecked in a many-layered gown of autumn colors and wears a crown of leaves, some fully turned, some still showing bits of green. At her feet a bountiful harvest shares space with a bevy of woodland animals, the hibernators looking just a little sleepy. In her lap she holds a jolly jack-o’-lantern from which a spiral of pumpkin-scented smoke curls. When she’s being more casual she exchanges the jack-o’-lantern for a large, steaming mug of pumpkin-spice latte.
—Megan Mays

To me, an autumn queen would be someone who embodies all the fruitfulness of the season, the abundance of the harvest, and the bright raiment adorned by the deciduous trees. She would understand the cycles of the seasons, embrace change, and not fear death, for she’d know that the ephemeral nature of life is what gives it such value. An autumn queen is whom I wish to channel as I reach and surpass my middle years, reminding me not to fear getting older but to embrace every season of my life.
—Kimberly Bea

I see a mountain path covered in fallen aspen leaves, a foot deep in yellows and golds, crunchy with that fresh deep mountain scent only aspens have. A bright yellow canopy of leaves casts shadows and creates a mysterious otherworldly glow as crows gather high in the trees and boulders. The cooler winds usher others into houses but calls to the woman who walks in the mountains on autumn nights.
—Candice Rose

A woman at ease and contemplative. The time for rushing is over; now it’s time for rest. She slowly meanders through the forest, singing the trees to sleep.
—@_elle_on_earth

I think of the crisp leaves crunching under our feet as we make our way through a leaf-strewn path. The birdsong high in the branches and the scurrying of the squirrels with acorns in their cheeks. The smell in the air of damp leaves and smoke from the fire. We’re dressed in our autumnal skirts, knit sweaters, and wellie boots, plodding along. We’ve donned our homemade brown wicker crowns adorned with the last orange, yellow, and red marigolds, and our noses tickle in their scent. Our excitement builds the closer we get to our bonfire and picnic, where we’ll make merry with friends and strangers alike.
—Deb R.

Everything about my queen is hues of autumn foliage and fall fruits: golds and tawnies, wheat and dark ale, ochre, umber, maple red or violet-black, grapes, orange pumpkins, and ghost-pale gourds, dried vines, and the deep evergreens that will scent the air and crackle in fires through the cold months ahead. She tints herself as she wishes moment to moment, from her crown of fallen leaves and rose hips to her dappled eyes to her warm gowns of velvet and rustling silk taffeta. She’s bejeweled with glossy berries and shining nutshells. Her scepter is a fallen branch.
—@saralindacloud

“Autumn queen” reminds me of dark fairy tales, powerful elven queens, and Mother Nature’s magical side—giving so many gifts of beauty yet revealing the allure of darkness at the same time!
—@jewelrynomen

I picture an auburn-haired enchantress draped in fallen leaves yet in reality a woman surrounded by her harvest— home-canned goods, squashes, dried food, pies, and the food storage she’s prepared for the winter months.
—@faerienicole

Golds, reds, and oranges. Harvest crown, flower embroidery on her dress. A woven basket with bread, scones, and cake.
—@adifferentmojo

Okay: It’s 2012. Ingrid Michaelson’s “Just the Way I Am” is playing on the radio. Crocheted slouchy beanies are in everyone’s closet, and twee is the fashion moment. I’m outside in the crisp fall air, leaves falling around me and littering the streets in hues of gold, pumpkin orange, and faded chocolate. I have colored tights on under my shorts and a Peter Pan–collared shirt. Life is perfect through my thick-framed plastic glasses that I took the lenses out of.
—@jonnyblacktypes

I think of all of us in this household—my daughter-in-law and me and, we suspect, soon her older daughter, who is a hedge witch in training for sure—who look forward to autumn all year long and then celebrate and revel in it commensurately!
—Jennifer Elizabeth Brunton

I imagine long skirts dragging along the crispy leaves in the forest. An autumn queen would surely be out enjoying the trails!
—Nicole Platania

Leafy crown. Tea party under the trees. Dancing fairies in autumn colors!
—@candy_morningstar

We’re thrilled to share the cover of our upcoming Autumn Queen issue, which will ship in September and which features a true queen, Vlasta Gerhardová, mother of Slovakian photographer Michaela Ďurišová, whose gorgeous portraits we’ve featured numerous times on social media as well as in these pages. How stunning is she?

This issue is full of autumnal delights and faerie queens and the night forest and bats and moths and bioluminescence and candlelight and black velvet cakes and we think it’s really rather epic and dazzling and cannot wait to show you more of it.

For now here’s just a peek:

If you’d like to pre-order the issue, you can do so at https://enchantedlivingmag.com/products/enchanted-living-issue-68-autumn-2024-print

If you’d like to subscribe, you can do so at https://enchantedlivingmag.com/collections/subscribe

And if you’d like to gift a subscription to a friend, you can do so here: https://enchantedlivingmag.com/collections/gift-subscriptions

Invitations to enchant this darker part of the year come from our friends at Moon Feather Hollow. They are on a mission to bring magic to your mailboxes!

Imagine, each month, as you sit down with a cup of tea and eagerly open your envelope from Moon Feather Hollow, you’re transported from your everyday life into a world brimming with whimsical creativity and seasonal wisdom. Let your inner child run wild as you explore the wonders of each envelope. 

A bonus Magical Moon Mail gift announcement will be included with every order placed by December 10th! The picture below includes some but not all of the contents. They’re keeping some of it a surprise.

Tune into messages through your intuition as you read stories of lunar lore and play with original moon-themed ephemera. Each includes some kind of quest or invitation to engage your creativity and imagination, plus small delights and surprises! Here’s a peak at one on the theme of Raven Witch Moon:

Start with a first quarter subscription and see if you love it. Explore the lunar themes of Sparkling Snow, Hearts & Hygge and Unfurling Fern in the first months of 2024.

Epiphany Oracle Quests are inspired by the medieval tradition of forecasting Omen Days. Since various calendars around the world did not match up there are days out of time at the end of the year. With 13 envelopes, you might enjoy the practice of opening one per day. Each could be an omen for a specific month in the coming year. Other’s have enjoyed opening them once per month on a new or full moon.

Inside each of 13 envelopes (plus a few delightful surprises), you will find an omen-seeking prompt, an oracle card, a tangible object chosen to engage your senses, and a few bits of ephemera. Every prompt opens the channel for a unique message just for you and becomes a guided practice in the art of divination. These can be ordered through December 10th.

The Dreamoire of Moonlit Alchemy is a creative tool and guided journal. As a gentle reminder to notice magical moments, it also makes a great gift! Weaving the subtle but potent power of the moon’s natural waxing and waning energies into your daily lives activates the magic within and connects you with the mysteries beyond.

And, it’s not too late to join Moon Feather Hollow in a digital journey of Holiday Hygge! They’ve pulled out the Snow Queen & Holly King’s trunk full of decorations, correspondence, books, notes and oddities to sprinkle throughout December to sparkle up your scrolling! Joyful emails with clippings and writings of facts, traditions and tidbits from many different times and traditions pair perfectly with your favorite snuggle spot and hot beverage.

How lovely is that? Sigh.

Photography by Kristin Reimer

I recently learned of a flower shop in Hudson, New York, that uses Mother Nature as its muse. This is no ordinary flower shop, where you purchase items that will die in a week or two, but a display of artisanal everlasting arrangements, consisting of dried flowers in an array of colors, textures, and shapes.

Introducing the Quiet Botanist, where you can smell the aroma from the streets! My background as a makeup artist and my love of color and flowers collided when I entered the space. It was a bit overwhelming at first, but I let my sangomas spirit guide me to the right flowers. Founder and creative director Rebecca O’Donnell, born in Australia and based in New York City, shared that this response is common with guests in her store. Upon entering, they calm down and the spirit world guides them in the right direction. That’s why she created the Quiet Botanist: out of a desire to slow down and listen.

I was always a quiet child who felt a magical connection to flowers and plants. When I was a little girl my mother took me to the botanical gardens. When she turned away, I picked a bunch of flowers and started smelling them. The scent overcame me, and my breathing became heavy. The next thing I knew I was dancing in a trance, but there was no music playing. In my head I heard the djembe, which is an African drum (pronounced gem like gemstone and beh like the beginning of bed).

I closed my eyes, and the smell, sound, and movement took over me being on earth. I remember opening my eyes and my mother just looking at me and shaking her head in approval. When we got home that evening, she said “welcome” and explained that our ancestors were from a very special group of magical healing women called sangomas (the Southern African name for witch doctor). She told me that the trance dance I experienced was out of my thinking mind or an altered state and that the dancing, combined with the gifts from the earth, such as flowers, herbs and plants, was used to heal. In Botswana and Namibia, women would sit in a circle, clap, and make tongue sounds (lay-lay-lay-lay), while the healers danced and danced. That day in Hudson, this is what I transcended to. In Africa, the word doctor always follows the word witch. Witch doctors are healers and respected in most of the tribes. I learned that day that this was my ordained destiny even before my birth (lay-lay-lay-lay).

My fate did not keep me in Africa. The pale tribes came before my birth from Europe to conquer the darker tribes and ship them off to distant lands. Africans were stripped of their names, culture, history, and freedom to some extent. But we were never stripped of our sangomas spirit. The sangomas live in our healing. The sangomas live in our food. The sangomas live in our dance. The sangomas live in our wombs. The sangomas live every time we see and smell a flower, pick an herb, and connect to this new place, our new existence. Our sangomas spirits are still rooted to our motherland.

In Africa, our witch doctor culture was loud! We praised! We danced! We drummed! We made noise (lay, lay, lay, lay). In our new lands we were taught to be quiet. We were taught to be submissive. We were taught to obey. To the pale tribe it looked this way but was never that! Our inner sangomas spirit, even when quiet to earthly ears, was always loud to the spirit and to the earth.

My silence had always been extremely loud around flowers, herbs, and plants. I speak to them, I kiss them, I cry to them. As an urban farmer I grow them and love them. They are an integral part of my well-being. They make my spirit sing, and sometimes my worldly body rejoice (lay, lay, lay, lay). I still pick up flowers, smell them and dance.

In Hudson, standing in her magical store, O’Donnell and I talked more about the Quiet Botanist. She shared that one of her current favorite flowers is the Banksia hookeriana, an Australian flower known to help with fatigue. The energy of this flower is said to give you vitality, strength, and inspiration. Another of her favorites is the bearded iris, which, if it were to speak to her directly, would say slow down, enjoy the process, downtime is essential to keep everything in balance. It would also say call your mum.

I shared that I had a similar connection with iris and its properties of royalty and wisdom, and that when I take in its scent, especially when I feel beaten down, I receive mental powers (lay, lay, lay, lay).

We spoke about our shared creative background. O’Donnell was a creative director until Lyme disease steered her on this new path where she is able to merge her creative skills and love of botany in a quiet environment.

The displays and arrangements in her shop are simply poetic! When I asked her about whom she would create an arrangement for if she could do so for anyone in the world, O’Donnell chose the poet Mary Oliver, whose poem “Invitation” is her favorite. She would create a large, wild foraged bouquet with flowers from upstate New York—Queen Anne’s lace, thistle, goldenrod, and daylilies—that would be hung to dry, and it would express how much O’Donnell appreciates Oliver’s talent. This sounds like pure magic!

I truly believe there is a quiet botanist in all of us (lay, lay, lay, lay).

Follow The Quiet Botanist on Instagram @thequietbotanist.

Find Karim Orange online at karimorange.com or on Instagram
@thatgirlorange.

See more of Kristin Reimer’s work at photomuse.com.

We wanted to tell you about Brazilian authoress Marcia Soligo’s stunning The Portals of Tartae saga. First is The Land with the Two Moons, which was released in 2019 and sold thousands of copies worldwide. The second, The Language of Trees, was just released and has become a bestseller, too. You can read (very very lovely) sample pages from both books at https://www.marciasoligo.com/books.

Here is a little description:

Olivia lives in the small city of Leve, a place with kind people and unnecessary fences where nothing really interesting ever happens. She is unaware of the mysteries of the world and dreams about a life of adventure.

Until she falls into one.

Olivia falls into another land, a place with magic and two moons gleaming in the sky. A world of warriors, sorcery, and secrets that she needs to uncover.

Once in Tartae, where old magic is still very much alive, Olivia learns more about who she really is: a witch and warrior. She embarks on a dangerous journey through enchanted forests and sinister castle ruins, but fortunately, she has the help of powerful witches, wizards, mythical creatures and the ancient Clan that vowed to protect the Portals.

Now Olivia’s mission is to reconnect with the mighty Portals so she can destroy them and reestablish balance in all the worlds. Should she fail, evil will spread as never before, nature will perish, and the world will change forever.

We feel we can relate. And look how pretty these books are:

Author Tamara Rokicki says about The Land with the Two Moons, “This novel is full of magic and adventure with a Lord of The Rings vibe, yet its approach is more modern and relatable.” Of The Language of Trees, The Biased Bibliophile says, “Once again Marcia wrote a poetic and beautifully composed story. That is one of my favorite aspects of these books, that the writing is profound and fluid. For this reason, among others, I truly thing these books could, and should, become modern portal fantasy classics. While I liked The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis has nothing on Marcia Soligo!”

Take a look and let us know what you think!

We also wanted to share some enchanted new artwork from Erin Ewer of Liquid Fae Studios. Isn’t that so lovely? Below, we ask Erin a few questions about her process, her studio, and enchantment generally:

What inspires you?
I draw my inspiration from the natural world and the imaginary space within myself. Nature gives me a wonderful place to start, and build new concepts, ideas, and creations that don’t exist in our physical space. My imagination has always been extremely active, and as a child that was what drew me to art. There were so many thoughts and ideas muddling up my head, and I wanted to make them real. Art was the only way I could pull my ideas out of my head and make them a real thing that I could look at and experience.

I discovered watercolors when I was about 14, and just fell in love with the look of them. I’d given up trying to paint years before, because I could never seem to get the paint to work for me. So I used colored pencils, chalk pastel, and other dry mediums instead. I decided to give painting another shot, so I pulled out my old acrylic paints and just added water. I was surprised. My first attempt was actually pretty good. Turns out I could paint after all.

I used this method for about a year before I asked my mom to buy me some real watercolors. I never dabbled in the cheap paints after my year of watered down acrylics, because tube watercolors mimicked the method I was already using, and cake pallets seemed like a whole new animal. My mom bought me 10 tubes that day, many of which I still have and use.

When I attended the Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design, watercolors didn’t seem to exist. We used every other medium in the world, but only twice did we pull out watercolors in my 4 years of attendance. Of course, that didn’t stop me from doing them on my own time. I spent those 4 years learning more than just mediums, however the ability to learn and use all the other options only pushed me further back to watercolors… Nothing can make that same look, where the light radiates within the paint.

How do you come up with ideas?
Often, an idea just comes to me. An image flashing in my head, that is as far as I’m concerned already complete. The trick for this one is getting it onto paper correctly Alternatively, I often have ideas that are just concepts, or I have a single piece of an idea that I think is really great, so using that I build around it.

Other times, I’ll just sit down and begin to draw things I like. I’ll start with a mushroom, jellyfish, or moth. Toss in some flowers, a woman, a bird etc… Building compositions is something that comes naturally to me, so I simply begin building with the pieces and blocks that I enjoy using the most. From this I refine the shapes, move misplaced things around, maybe add another moth. Now with a more solid conceptual sketch I use my light table to trace over the rough lines, and create a full drawing. I sometimes refine it one more time, especially if I plan on including it in a coloring book, and repeat the process with an ink pen, detailing the drawing even further. From here I will scan the drawing into the computer and scale it to the size I intend on painting (which is often larger than my drawing) and I transfer the design to watercolor paper.

What materials do you use?
I use watercolors, cotton rag cold press paper, and opaque white or china white. I am also a color-collector (I think a lot of us watercolorists are), as you can see by my pallets. My collection has grown so large that I have had to organize and label my pallets in order to know which color is which. These are only the colors I use regularly. I also have metallic watercolor pallets, and a few liquid watercolors. My color swatch sheet is how I distinguish between the colors that look so similar in the pallet, especially reds!

Where do you work? Can you describe your studio?
I collect many items and curiosities that I use to turn my studio into a space that encourages my creativity. Many of these things are found objects, nests that have been blown out of bushes during wind storms, stones, crystals, bones, seed pods, mushrooms, and numerous other things that the outside world leaves laying around. I feel like each item I collect brings the spirit of nature with it into my space, and allows me to draw on its energies to aid in my work. This is only a tiny portion of the things I have collected, and I love to stand and examine each piece. No matter how often I see them, they always seem to draw me in.

My studio is a strange mixture of business and personal. I try to keep my collection separate from business material, but you can see where plastic cubbies with framing supplies have weaseled in along folders and personal items. My “inspiration space” consists of found objects and curiosities, as well as small sentimental items, usually things gifted to me be friends or things I’ve had since childhood. I also keep artwork from other artists, and even my own work that has significant personal meaning.  This little space is where I keep everything that creates that spark of inspiration; the connection and awe from the natural world and the memories of childhood and loved ones. When I feel restless or am struggling with work, I often sift through my things on these shelves. I look through the books, review the cards, pick up and hold various items, and tidy and rearrange some of the displays. This seems to help me focus, and calms anxieties or restlessness. This is a personal, almost spiritual place for me. It’s almost like walking through a magical forest without having to leave my home.

This is the space in the house where I live. I spend work and recreation time in my studio, its where I have my morning coffee and where I eat lunch. For me, this space is my comfort zone, like my bedroom was as a child. It’s my personal space, my escape space, as well my work place. Most people often feel stressed in their work place, but even when work itself is stressful, the space never is.

And, finally, how do you stay enchanted?
A big part of my everyday life is my animals. I have domestic and wild animals in my life every day, and I am lucky to live in an area where I have the opportunity to walk outside and meet one of our local opossums, or discuss local affairs with our family of crows. All of the creatures that visit my yard are wonderful, and I have never met an unfriendly visitor. In the evening as the sun sets I enjoy watching our collection of orb weavers come out to spin their webs, and in the morning finding the many different and beautiful moths that have hunkered down, or watch the bumblebees enjoy my garden.

My garden is full of medicinal and magical plants, and of course your standard edibles and herbs. Toxic plants are a hobby of mine, so I have a lovely collection of nightshades, hellebores, aconites, and others. I draw a lot of inspiration and wonder from these plants.

My other hobby is mycology (the study of mushrooms), and I am always looking for mushrooms to collect, identify, and sometimes eat!

I find that being openly connected with nature and welcoming it not only into my life but into my home helps me maintain an overall feeling of enchantment. Outside of my studio I have a huge indoor plant collection, and my home is filled with images of nature, stones, crystals, shells, and numerous other items that won’t fit in my studio space!

Sigh.

Here are some natural creatures flitting their way into Erin’s work, via these luna moth enamel pins:

And this barn owl box for storing secret treasures:

And there are a ton more… You can see more of Erin’s art and products at https://www.etsy.com/shop/LiquidFaeStudios and on her website at http://www.liquidfae.com.

Now that we’re inspired to bust out some watercolors, we bid you adieu.

Until next time, stay enchanted!