Happy Sunday! Time is flying by and we’re already 10 days into July… So here’s a new instalment of Inspired by!

Inspired by is a blog series by my friend Riikka and I. We decide on a theme (and that theme can be anything from a film, a book, a painting, to an item, colour scheme or material) and then we create something with that theme or thing in mind.

We keep what we’re making a secret until reveal day on the 10th, when we show you and each other our creations.

This month’s theme

Was of course a no brainer… At least on my part! It had to be Alice Through The Looking Glass!

I had been looking forward to this film for so long! Harold and I went to see it on a Friday morning. Not a very popular moment for visiting the cinema, so we had the theatre almost to ourselves!

The story of Alice Through The Looking Glass has very little to do with the book. Most of the book has already been told in the first film, that Riikka and I covered in this Inspired by last year.

In this film Alice returns to Wonderland to travel back in time in order to rescue the Hatter. Many of the characters from the first film return and there are a couple of new ones too, like Time and his Seconds.

All in all the film left me a bit… ‘meh’. I loved all the visuals, especially the costumes and I thought the animation that is played with the credits was a nice surprise at the end. It was an enjoyable film to watch, but it will not make my top 10 of all time favourite films.

The Chinese Dress

I should have known that this would be all about the costumes again… The costumes for this film were made by Colleen Atwood, a triple Academy Award winning costume designer.

She won one of the Oscars for Alice in Wonderland, but she also designed the costumes for Dark Shadows and Snow White and the Huntsman, the films that got Riikka and I started on this Inspired by adventure.

I guess I’m a fan… and it makes me want to watch all the films she has worked on. Fortunately I don’t have to do this right now!

I knew my point of inspiration from the moment Alice appeared in her first amazing, colourful Chinese costume… I was obsessed!

I wanted to work with paint again and I grabbed one of my art journals. I did not have a plan. I printed some photos of the dress that I found on the internet, looked for similar paint colours in my stash, gesso-ed the page and… started to paint.

I worked on this journal spread for three days. Not enire days of course, but I did not finish it in one sit. In fact: I don’t feel it’s finished yet.

This morning I was thinking that there isn’t enough depth and there isn’t enough white. I’m also still thinking about some text on there. But for now I’m going to call it finished.

Conclusion

It was fun to do a film again! I also loved playing with paint again. I think it was a good exercise to work on one thing for a longer time.

I had carved out more time for this Inspired by than I usually do. And STILL I don’t feel I had enough time. Which is funny, because time is a theme (and a character) in the film.

Anyway: I think it could still use something. But it’s also just a journal page… I don’t need to save Wonderland with it. So let’s not overthink it!

Now… I can’t wait to see what Riikka has created! You can visit her on her blog: Paperiliitin!