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photo from www.peterrabbit.com

Over holiday break, I finally watched the movie Miss Potter, starring Renee Zellweger as Beatrix Potter. It was a sensational movie, and I watched it with awe and amazement. Mostly because it was fascinating to see how Beatrix Potter created her books and fought for her books and didn’t even know how much money she had made from her books! If you are a writer of children’s books, I highly recommend watching this movie (especially if you’re an author/illustrator).

Your children may have a treasury of Beatrix Potter books on their bedroom shelves. These are popular gifts to give when children are born or at their first birthdays. Some of the other volumes besides Peter Rabbit (1902) are:
#The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin (1903)
# The Tailor of Gloucester (1903)
# The Tale of Benjamin Bunny (1904)
# The Tale of Two Bad Mice (1904)
# The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle (1905)
# The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan (1905)
# The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher (1906)
and many, many, many more!

Why do people still love the cautionary tale of Peter and his siblings: Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail, over 100 years after Beatrix Potter wrote and illustrated it? In my opinion, her drawings are wonderful, timeless, and bring her characters to life. Everyone can relate to really wanting to do something naughty like Peter, and sometimes not being able to resist an adventure even when your parents warn you not to do it. Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cottontail provide the “good” example, which children often find themselves also following–thank goodness for their parents. Let’s face it: Peter Rabbit is fun. Beatrix Potter is a wonderful illustrator and storyteller. Those kinds of things are just not going to die.

Parents and teachers have been using Peter and his friends Jeremy Fisher, Benjamin Bunny, and Squirrel Nutkin to discuss right and wrong actions, childhood dilemmas, story elements, and illustration techniques for a century. Let’s hope that this trend continues for another century, at least, Beatrix sticks around! Make sure to check out this great website, The World of Beatrix Potter for more information with a special section for parents and teachers.

BTW, there’s still time to win a copy of Ellen Jensen Abbott’s book, Watersmeet, by leaving a comment on Tuesday or Wednesday’s post until 8:00 p.m. CST.

"I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea; and she gave a dose of it to Peter! One tablespoon to be taken at bedtime." - from "Peter Rabbit" by Beatrix Potter

This illustration was done in watercolors and charcoal. Anyone know if a charcoal pencil--or something similar to charcoal--that's waterproof? I prefer to outline my images first, but that's not possible with regular charcoal.

I don't know if any of you out there have seen Miss Potter, starring Rene Zellweger, but it's a charming film and romantic to boot. I thought for sure most of it was fiction, but after doing a little research--it happened to be VERY close to the real life of Beatrix Potter. Very very inspiring.

Well, a belated Happy 4th of July to all those celebrating. Hope everyone had a relaxing day off. We lazed about the house, watched neighborhood fireworks from our balcony, and finished the evening off watching "Miss Potter" which I very much enjoyed. As a children's illustrator, I'm somewhat mortified to admit that I think I've only read one or two of Beatrix Potter's books, although I adore the illustrations. We have a book that's a collection of a few stories, but I think I'd like to get the entire collection in the small format in which they were originally printed. I think I'll add it to my Amazon wishlist...

Still no new art to show - hope to be back with some soon. So I'll post some pictures of this past weekend's hike. The beginning of the trail in Solstice Canyon (Malibu) was paved and followed a spring-fed stream. The scenery was nice, but kind of ho-hum - nothing we hadn't seen before. After a while we came upon the ruins of the Roberts' house and things started getting interesting. The house was just about completely gone, but patios and portions of walls and a ridiculous number of fireplaces dotted the landscape:












Just beyond the ruins, and upstream, the creek consists of a series of multi-level rock-pools and small waterfalls decorated with maidenhair fern. We decided to boulder-hop our way upstream to see what we could see.












After a long walk along the creek took a couple different side trails both of which traveled up out of the canyon and along the mountainsides into dryer terrain and sweeping views of the land and ocean.












We traveled back down into the canyon, boulder-hopped a portion of the stream that we hadn't seen yet and then, exhausted, took the next opportunity we had to get back onto a level trail to head back to the car. I'd love to go back after some rainfall - some people we ran into said the water level of the stream used to be significantly higher in the past and that there used to be really great swimming holes all along the creek. There's also supposed to be a 150' waterfall at the end of a different trail - maybe we'll come back some day for that one!

Miss Potter turned out to be a two tissue film - that's how many I got through owing to crying at the plot. No, the plot wasn't that bad - it was the sad moments: such as Beatrix arriving at the Warne home, the day after her fiance Norman Warne has been buried...

I'm not a huge fan of Beatrix Potter's books - possibly because I came to them too late (I was in my 20s before I first read them, to a young charge whom I was babysitting), but I read Margaret Lane's biography some time ago so I know the essentials of the story. I thought this movie got most of them right. The film follows the fortunes of Beatrix (Renee Zellweger), who is still living with her parents, when she succeeds in getting her children's stories about rabbits, mice, a duck, and other animals published. She is represented by Mr Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor) who, despite the scepticism of his brothers', truly believes in the merit of the stories and actually dares to argue with Beatrix over whether the illustrations should be done in black and white or colour: she says black and white as small rabbits can't afford books with colour illustrations, he says colour, but if they cut down the number of illustrations to just 31, they can all be printed on one sheet of paper, thereby reducing the cost *and* allowing the reader to see Peter's famous blue jacket. Warne and Potter find themselves attracted to one another and he proposes at her parents' Christmas party. However, Beatrix faces opposition from her mother (Barbara Flynn) who sees her daughter's work as unladylike and unbecoming to someone of their social station (she complains that Norman is a "tradesman", but that earns short shrift from Beatrix, who points out that their money is founded on the "cotton trade". She does receive some support from her father (Bill Patterson) and in the end, she comes to a compromise with her parents - she will secretly become engaged to Norman, but his family must not be told and she will go to the Lake District with them for their annual 3 month trip and not see Norman during that period; if she still felt the same about Norman after that time, then they could marry. Unfortunately, Norman develops a bad cough and by the time that Beatrix learns that he's seriously ill and heads to London, he has already succumbed and had been buried the day before. Since their engagement was secret, there was no chance of the funeral being put off until Beatrix managed to arrive. Betarix remains in London, rather than returning to the Lake District, and tries to draw but none of her drawings turn out as she intends.

Eventually, Norman's sister Mille (Emily Watson), in whom Beatrix had confided about the marraige proposal, visits and persuades Beatrix to get out of the house and start living again. She decides to use some of the money she has earned from her "little books" to buy Hill Top Farm, in the Lake District, in order to preserve it from the developers' and she moves in. She is helped in her property buying (Hill Top is just the first of many farms that Beatrix buys) by William Heelis, a country solicitor whom she knew when she was a child and he was a young man. And after a few years, she marries him and becomes a successful farmer and land owner, as well as a successful author and illustrator.

It's interesting that the studio picked an American to play a quintessentially English role; but, Zellweger does a good job, I felt. She portrays Beatrix Potter's eccentricities without ever resorting to stereotypes and it celebrates those who are unconventional. Beatrix talks to her illustrations and Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddleduck and Mrs Tiggywinkle all respond (thanks to the magic of animation). Ewan McGregor is an interesting choice for Norman Warne - he is shy, uncomfortable and ill at ease, entirely unlike any character McGregor has played in the last few years and yet he is completely believable, he even manages to sing ! The chemistry between Zellweger and McGregor is very strong, and it was actually Zellweger who sent McGregor the script after she enjoyed working with him on Down with Love in 2003.

The supporting cast in this film are wonderful; Barbara Flynn is full of disapproval and jealousy (it's ages since I saw her in anything but I'm delighted to see she's as much fun to watch as she ever was !), and Bill Patterson plays the role of glowing paternal pride to perfection (I loved his line about Beatrix being famous and everyone but her mother knowing it !) Emily Watson, who had given birth four months before filming began, decided to "play [her] role plump" (according to a radio interview I heard on Sunday night) and makes the manish Millie quite believable.

This is a beautifully shot film (the Lake District is gorgeous and somewhere I really want to visit again), full of interesting, if eccentric, characters whom I found myself genuinely caring about (hence the two tissues !). I recommend it.

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Another biopic I want to see (thanks to the trailer) is Becoming Jane - a film about Jane Austen starring Ann Hathaway as Jane Austen, James Cromwell as Jane's father, Julie Walters as her mother, and the redoubtable Dame Maggie Smith as Mrs Gresham (who is also disapproving of a young woman who writes !) It's out here in early March (and with Charlotte's Web out in early February, I could get into the cinema habit !).