About Me

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Hi, My name is Irene Owens. My greatest passion in life is Art. I love drawing portraits, painting whimsical pictures and illustrating for children. I also collect children's books and hope to one day get one of my own picture books published. I have a shop on Etsy where I sell my prints, hand painted pendants and mirrors. In this blog you will find artists that inspire me, brilliant handmade creations and my own art. I hope you enjoy my posts.

Wednesday 29 February 2012

Miki by Stephen Mackey

Before we say goodbye to February and welcome Spring, here's some Winter magic from a gorgeous book by Stephen Mackey. It's a cute and fun story about friendship and Christmas miracles.

















Monday 27 February 2012

Zzzzz A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na

My ten month old son LOVES books. It's amazing how long he can sit still when being read a book. We have a big box full of chunky colorful books, mostly about animals. Books with flaps and bits you can scratch and stroke are Riley's favorite.
As lovely as these books are, they would never find a place in my personal collection of children's books. From artistic point of view they are not particularly inspiring and so I happily let my son chew the pages. However, there's one book that lives on my special shelf that ticks both boxes - brilliant for wee babies and grown up lovers of children's books. Il Sung Na's Book of Sleep is just so cool! I love quirky, imaginative characters, and the pages are hard so you don't need to worry that little hands might rip them :)











Saturday 25 February 2012

Chiho Makino

Trying to fight jet lag by staying up till at least 9 o'clock. My husband and son have failed miserably and are now snoozing together.
Everything is starting to look a bit fuzzy around the edges and I think I'm starting to dream... I have this same feeling when I look at paintings by Chiho Makino. Aren't they lovely?













Friday 24 February 2012

The Water Babies

My Mum is a true mermaid. She lives in New Zealand  and pretty much stays in the ocean starting from October and until April. She got me this beautiful book as a gift (it's about her!)
I really loved the combination of gorgeous photography and drawings.














Tuesday 14 February 2012

Varya Kolesnikova

We are currently on holiday in New Zealand and I thought I'd take some time off from blogging. Yeah, right :)  I came across Varya's online portfolio the other day and her images made such an impression on me I just couldn't wait to share them with you.








portfolio