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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Mine is a Long and Sad Tale


Those words were spoken by the Mouse in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865. This book has never been out of print since that time.

Mine is a Long and Sad Tale is oil on canvas, 12 x 16.

I created this painting for Steve Worthington's Mouse Project.  Steve has asked several artists to create a painting featuring one of his bronze mice. The images will then be compiled in a book and the proceeds from the book will be donated to animal shelters.

As many of you know I'm a huge fan of Alice in Wonderland. I've collected over 300 copies of this book, many with different illustrators. Yes, those are copies of the book in the painting (well, actually on of them is Through the Looking Glass). Since the book was written during the Victorian  Era I wanted to give the painting a Victorian feel.

You can see the Mouse has arrived after someone has extinguished the oil lamp and put her glasses down after spending an evening reading. The reader has stopped on the page featuring the Long and Sad tale which is written to resemble the shape of a tail.