BEAUTY: Mixed Media--Annie Montgomerie

Regular readers know I have a thing for human figures with animal heads. I find them intriguing. I am drawn to them. They tickle me. And sometimes they scare me. In a good way.

There is a bit of all that in the wonderful work of UK artist Annie Montgomerie who puts animal heads on the plastic bodies of baby dolls. The results are magnificent. They look as if they could come to life at any moment, ask to play in the yard, ask for lunch...

She clothes them in vintage doll clothes, some made by hand long ago, and accompanies them with tags bearing cryptic, poetical sayings like "Finders keepers," "I can see my house from here" and "I won't go."

Montgomerie sells her creations at her Etsy shop but they go fast so check often. Go to her website for details.

http://www.anniemontgomerie.co.uk/

BEAUTY: Art--Kelly Louise Judd

Kelly Louise Judd shows her dark, Victorian-inspired artowrk on a website obliquely yet fittingly titled "Swan Bones Theater." Her paintings bring to mind visions of the Brothers Grimm, Tim Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" and the Black Forest-filled Brothers Quay film "Institute Benjamenta." Judd also works in soft sculpture to bring her gently ominous visions to life; her enchanting anthropomorphic figures are clothed in voluminous Victorian dresses, just like the subjects in her paintings.

Top to bottom: Lead Us, Lantern; Forest Sleep; Why The Willow Weeps; Perched; The Mockingbird and the Hare; Edwardine, two views; Wilhelmine, two views; Odila 

http://swanbones.com/main.html