Uninvited

"Uninvited" - oil on Yupo, 19 x 20.  Available here and at Artfinder.

“It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,” - March Hare, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

The rabbit hole is deep and twisting...and sometimes leads to oddities.

Alice has taken us somewhere curious this week.  She has claimed her place in this alien landscape, where she may or may nor feel at home, and may or may not rule over insectoid creatures. Her "face" is unreadable, but her body language is pretty clear - "I belong here", says she.  I wouldn't dare argue with her.

Uninvited

Alice herself is an oddity in Wonderland - an oddity among a curious community of weirdos. In trying to make sense of the nonsensical, her frustration mounts. Maybe we are all trying to make sense of the nonsensical in these odd times?  But maybe the lesson here is just to embrace our own whimsical weirdness.

When I personally let my own peculiarities and oddities fly their flags, I feel much more content, less stressed and more self-accepting.  It sets the inner critic back on her heels (as you might imagine) and then...THEN is when the real creativity begins. 

About the art:  using a prompt which included "insectoid Alice in Wonderland" and some references to artists both fantasy sci-fi and classical, the AI bot spewed forth a veritable smorgasbord of ideas.  

​In this one, using thinned oil paint to begin a muted background and then drawing in the sketch on top, I embraced the idea of Alice sitting on a chair which was, itself, insectoid.  Allowing the darks to come forward makes a lovely bit of drama.  With the Yupo, the paint can be moved, removed, scratched through, layered translucently  or thickly.   And there is a bit of all of that in here.

The Liddel family, whose girls inspired the names for Alice and her sisters in Alice in Wonderland. (Photo: NATIONAL MEDIA MUSEUM/ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY/SSPL/GETTY IMAGES)