The White Rabbit: Hels is playing my tune!

Artist: Hels Sheriden
Blog Post: Ink on My Fingers
Location: Wellingborough, United Kingdom

Well, first off, to get the full effect, this post needs a soundtrack!!! The minute I saw this fabulous mini-book by Hels Sheriden, The White Rabbit began to play in my head. . . and it stayed there for days!! So grab a cup of coffee, hit the play button and enjoy Grace Slick singing with Jefferson Airplane and feast on some eye candy!   NOTE: I absolutely hate going to blogs where the music starts automatically, so please notice that autoplay is turned OFF, so you may enjoy this post with or without the soundtrack as YOU choose!  NOTE: To honor Hel's style of blogging, I am muttering in little tiny text...

Here on The Altered Alice, I am going to share the eye candy and send you back to Hels' blog post for all the details on the stamps and embellishments she used, the lavish use of Distress Ink (both painted and sponged), fabulous embellishments and book construction info.  You can click on any of the images to see an enlarged view!

I love the colors Hels used, and the way she kept the backgrounds simple and really let the stamped images shine! In fact, other than the single background color on each page, the only coloring is on the characters themselves. The use of either the foliage silhouettes on the rabbit pages or flourishes on the other pages gives the book a very cohesive feeling as you pass from color to color. The typewritten lyrics are in keeping with the era of the the original Attwell illustrations. The way she has used 3D embellishments throughout is also wonderful - a touch of assemblage running through all the pages.

Hels is using some charming Alice in Wonderland stamps from the The Artistic Stamper, featuring the artwork of Mabel Lucie Attwell.   Mabel Lucie Attwell was a well known British children's illustrator with a trademark style of round cuddly infants, and some of  those are also available as stamps from The Artistic Stamper! You can see a sampling of the her original color Alice illustrations here. I hope The Artistic Stamper will continue to release more of Attwell's Alice illustrations!  Of course I now *need* these Alice stamps quite deserately, and I mean ALL of them!  Do you think The Artistic Stamper would trade them for ad space? ;-)

I particularly love the vintage look of the characters, which were drawn by Attwell for a 1910 edition of Alice in Wonderland. The simple outlines and lack of cross-hatched shading provide an interesting contrast to Tenniel's original woodcut illustrations! The style actually reminds me of the British art pottery of the same period.

Hels is a talented mixed media artist, and she teaches workshops so check her blog to see what's scheduled. I really love her assemblage style collage canvases, truly inspiring! Her work has been published multiple times, including appearing on the cover, in The Craft Stamper, a UK stamping publication. She is the Creative Coordinatior for The Artistic Stamper Creative Team, and is on  Design Teams for Gingersnap Creations, The Stamp Attic, Craft Stamper Magazine, and Bubbly Funk's Bubbly Scrumptious and Vanilla Sugar.

Please visit Hels' blog to read all the details! You will love her lively style of writing, you can almost HEAR her sitting next to you having a good chinwag, waffling on as she would say! Not only will you see lots of wonderful mixed media projects featuring Grungeboard, metal tooling, and 400 ways to use Claudine Helmuth Traditional Tan paint, but you can also play along with her Sunday Stampers challenge. Just think, all that and Wednesday updates on the state of her Room of Stash, and Alfie the Cat updates too!

So what are you waiting for? Go leave Hels some love and please leave a comment for me before you go!