Watercolour words . . .
I’m about to start working on the work in progress at last. ( what else would you do but work on a WIP) And in trying to make contact with my muse and to gain inspiration, I’ve spent hours looking at books, photos and the internet. I’ve spoken in other blogs about the strange places I find my inspiration, places like the wonderful French haberdasher’s Sajou. And now I have just been given a link by a friend and it is so beautifully astonishing that I know I’m going to get heaps of ideas from it. The site is www.architecturalwatercolours.com and under the section called Notecards and within the sub-section labelled Chinoiserie is the most stunning collection of the fantastic and the real in Asian inspired architecture.
My fantasy novel is tentatively titled The Shifu Cloth and the female protagonist is imprisoned in a secretive province called The Han, loosely based on a subtle combination of China and Japan. What better inspiration could there be?
I can imagine Isabella being guided to the lake pavilion by the son of the House of Han as he tells her that he too must escape this place, that he must explore the world outside the Great Wall that surrounds Han and that if she’ll let him, he’ll contrive a way for them both to leave. Perhaps even with the help of the Fox Lady and the fox spirits.
I’ve spent hours examining the work of these wonderful artists, discovering in the process that they have introduced a blog within their website as well and I can’t wait to render into my written fantasy world what they create in watercolour.
I adore these illustrations, and their architectural alphabet is just as inspiring. I want so badly to have the coffee-table book, but it’s insanely expensive.
Ooh. So nice.