Autumn Leaves

Autumn has always been my favorite season. As soon as Labor Day is over I start anticipating all the wonderful things I love about the season. Here in the Northeast the air is already beginning to chill and I am on the lookout for the changing of the leaves. As a child growing up in South Jersey I spent hours in our yard collecting different leaves, seed pods and acorns. I decided to try to capture these moments from my childhood and put them all in one painting. Researching all these familiar leaves and seeds was like going home again. The Tulip Poplar, the Sycamore and the Sweet Gum feel like old friends. Just looking at them all together brings the scent of woodsmoke to my mind and puts me right back in my Parent's yard all those years ago!

Prints are available for purchase in my Etsy shop The Curious Kitchen

Woody the Waterbug

Text conversation between my roommate and myself:

Lisa:     I spotted a waterbug in my studio the size of a kitten

Cajsa:  Eeeeeaaaaaahhhhh!  I have two follow up questions:

            1  Did you name him?

            2 Have you painted his portrait?

Lisa:     You are a real comedian

Cajsa:  Seriously, did you kill it?

Lisa:    No but I chased him into your room so no worries there

It turns out she knows me very well so here is his portrait, I hope she likes it...

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Mr. Softee Says..

Have a great end of the summer. Don't forget the ice cream.

You can read more about Mr Softee's portrait here.

Victorian Sock Monkey

I just received an interesting portrait commission that I am very eager to begin.  A lovely customer from my Etsy shop Curious Portraits, contacted me about painting a portrait for her nephew of his beloved sock monkey but in full victorian dress!  She loved my original sock monkey portrait whose model was my dear friend Keith's vintage childhood toy. She also loved my Cat Dandy portrait and wants me to take my inspiration from the two paintings.  I love doing portraits that will be given as gifts because I always feel so much love behind them.  It will be a surprise Christmas gift so I have plenty of time to finish it!

Two Handsome Men and a Richly Roasted Coffee...

I recently did an illustration for the Rabbit Coffee Roasting Company's premiere coffee label. They just had a very interesting article published about them and their company in Opulence magazine and I thought I would share it. Being such a coffee enthusiast myself I found their story and all  the subtleties of the coffee bean roasting process so fascinating. It was such a pleasure working with Iain Yeakle on this project and I am so pleased with the final product. I am however waiting for a sample bag of these rich, velvety beans to reach find it's way to me...

Two Handsome men and a richly roasted coffee bean, what more could you ask for?

Curiously Portable Portraits

I have been very pleased over the years that my portrait brooches have been so popular in my Etsy shop Curious Portraits.  I have however been asked many times if they were available larger. The original size was 1" in diameter and I have happily found that the bronze settings I use are now available in an oval format of 1 1/4" x 1 5/8" which is absolutely perfect. I really enjoyed setting up a photo template that would be consistent for the series and chose my treasured vintage edition of The Tales of Babar for the background. Since Babar was perhaps the first anthropomorphic animal to win my heart  I thought it would be a fitting tribute. Now you can take your Curious Portraits with you wherever you go! I will be adding more portraits in the shop including all your Halloween and Christmas favorites.

Beautiful and Delicious

I was working away in my studio the other day when I detected the unmistakable sound of a squirrel in my living room. I say unmistakable because, unfortunately this is not the first incidence of a squirrel intruder in my apartment. I went to the window just in time to see a grey, fluffy tail disappear through a freshly chewed hole in the screen. I opened the screen to look out and was horrified to see the culprit making off with my prized, handmade tomato pincushion in it's mouth! I shudder to imagine how I must have appeared to my courtyard neighbors, hanging out the window yelling "drop it!" to a fleeing squirrel. I watched helplessly as he leaped from the fire  escape onto a tree in the adjoining courtyard and proceeded to shred the once beautiful pin cushion to nothingness. I stood transfixed at the absurdity of the situation but somehow realized that this was a rare photo opportunity and managed to snap this shot before the item was completely destroyed.

I simply could not fathom why a squirrel would be so attracted to a pin cushion, aside from the fact that I feed my courtyard squirrels during the winter months and by so doing erase their natural instincts to avoid human contact. In my experience they never cross the border of the squirrel/human existence unless there is a powerful motivation such as an open jar of peanuts taunting them from within. It wasn't until I related the story to my dear friend who had in fact presented the pin cushion to me as a Christmas gift that the whole thing made sense. He had purchased the pin cushion for me from Jane McMillen  after I admired the one he had bought for himself and he informed me that they are stuffed with none other than crushed walnut shells! Suddenly the whole incident made perfect sense and I couldn't really blame the squirrel for simply using it's natural resourcefulness to find food. My only fear was that he would ingest some of the fine, decorative pins adorning it but fortunately I found a neat pile of pins along with my needle threader on my windowsill where he must have painstakingly pulled them out before making away with his bounty. Jane has since very generously offered to replace my beloved pin cushion and I really must admit that the whole thing now ranks as one of the most absurd and amusing stories that I will enjoy telling for years to come.

Here is a photo of the original item, hand stitched with love from wool and yes, crushed walnut shells. Truly beautiful AND delicious. You can purchase similar items at Jane's Etsy shop Little House Home Arts.

Revisting The Well Bred Dog & The Well Bred Cat

I've been busy working on the new website and today realized that I neglected to include my two books, The Well Bred Dog and The Well Bred Cat! I pulled them out to scan and arrange them for presentation and was reminded of that wonderful year when my dear friend James Waller and I were working on them together. It was such an exciting project. Sometimes I would do the painting first and he would come up with a clever biography for the dog or cat and sometimes he would have an idea for a story and I would then compose a portrait to accompany it. It was a truly wonderful experience to be collaborating with someone I felt so connected to both personally and creatively.

Some of the subjects were dogs and cats who belonged to friends or who lived in my neighborhood and some were eagerly waiting to be adopted at the Humane Society of NY. Here are a few of my favorite portraits:

Copies of the The Well Bred Dog can be purchased here and The Well Bred Cat here.

Of course I had to include the portrait I did of my two dogs at the time, Toby and Bingo. Bingo was less than a year old at the time!

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Animal Spiritualism

One of the founding members of the esteemed Society of Psychical Animal Research established in 1880, Edmund F. Renard was one of the first animals to explore unexplained phenomena including phantasms, apparitions, spirit writing, thought transference and mesmerism. Like many of his fellow Victorians, his inherited wealth made it possible for him to study and catalogue numerous cases of unexplained events.  A leading scholar of his day, he was able to infiltrate and ultimately expose many purported mediums and in so doing increase his credibility when events arose that remained unexplainable. At a sitting with the much celebrated spirit communicator Madame Eusapia Volpe, the spirit of his beloved mother spoke to him and he remained forever a believer of the paranormal, claiming the experience gave him comfort and peace. He sat as president of  SPAR from 1880 until 1892.

Pioneering Animal Scientists of the 19th Century

I have long been interested in the place animals have had in the sciences , particularly in the 19th century which was such an exciting time for science with so many diseases being researched, when space travel was just a dream and the idea of spirits and the world behind the veil was at it's height of interest. I thought it was time to honor some of these pioneering animal scientists in a series of portraits. Here are the preliminary sketches for the first few.

The first one naturally features a squirrel. He is shown mixing a delicate balance of chemicals in pursuit of a cure for rabies, distemper or another of the animal diseases that were once so devastating. 

The second is of a prominent Fox who was a founding member of the Animal Society of Psychical Research which strove to research spiritualist activities from a scientific point of view. . 

This bear was perhaps the first to study Astronautics and Rocketry. A true advocate of animal space exploration he dreamed of one day landing a bear on the moon.

The fourth in the series so far is one of the first rabbits ever to consider  space travel a possibility. He was also a great experimenter in time travel and teleportation.

Hippity Hop!

The Rabbit Coffee Roasting Co. recently licensed one of my paintings for the launch of its new espresso roast. The packaging is making a most timely debut, with Easter weekend right around the corner. I just love how my Victorian White Rabbit looks on the label!

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Uncle Omelette makes a splash

My portrait of Uncle Omelette was recently featured in the Manhattan User's Guide in their Food and Drink section and I couldn't be more pleased! He was included in a group of wonderful selections from Etsy, all with a vintage kitchen theme.  Manhattan User's Guide is a fantastic site that emails you daily with just about everything you need to know about what is going on in New York City, all five boroughs! In my opinion they have great taste and a terrific sense of humor.

Click here to see the whole post.

Uncle Omelette by Lisa Zador

You can read more about the creation of Uncle Omelette in my blog post "Uncle Omelette: Creepy Food Icon or Ideal Husband?". Prints are available in my Etsy shop Curious Portraits!

Acorns, anyone?

I  have just finished my latest portrait of a Gentleman Squirrel. Since I love food and entertaining so much I thought I'd picture him serving up a tray of his finest roasted acorns to his guests. It is done along the lines of my other victorian inspired animal portraits but I amped up the color a bit as I thought the grey suit complimented his grey fur. As with my other squirrel portraits I've used my "pet" squirrels from my courtyard that feed daily on my fire escape as my models. Prints and also portrait brooches of the Gentleman Squirrel are available in my Etsy shop, Curious Portraits! 

Lisa Zador - www.CuriousPortraits.etsy.com

Celebrating Curious Couples

Happy Valentine's Day!

Fox Couple-Lisa Zador

Acorn Men-Lisa Zador

Rabbit Couple-Lisa Zador

Victorian Cats-Lisa Zador

Dove Couple-Lisa Zador

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Ginger Mania!

Devoted Dog Lover or Maniacal Traditionalist?

OK, so every year I like to have my dog Bingo photographed with Santa. I know it may sound excessive to some but most dog parents would agree that these magical moments with your pet captured in time are priceless. I usually go down to the Petco in Tribeca as they are always so nice and accommodating but this year I just couldn't make it down during Santa's hours because of work. However, I located a Petsmart on Broadway and Houston that had Santa today only until 4:00 but naturally, as luck would have it, I had to work until 4. Yesterday I phoned them and simply would not take no for an answer. Always polite I begged Santa to stay until 4:30 when I would have just enough time to run home, grab Bingo, stuff him in his bag and run over to Petsmart. He kindly agreed and everything was set UNTIL nature decided to deliver a blizzard today.  I was late getting out of work and when I got home I had to rummage through my closet to find my boots and THEN stuff Bingo into his bag and head out. The wind was in my face all the way as I walked across town (not a cab to be found). I could feel Bingo's bag vibrating as he shivered inside but I didn't care, I HAD to get that photo. I run into Petsmart only to be told Santa had just left but might still be in the store so I began to run up and down the aisles calling "SANTA, SANTA...." until someone took pity on me and located him by calling his actual name which was Mark. He put on the suit and took Bingo in his arms and only then did he inform me that I was supposed to bring my own camera!!! Of course I had forgotten my phone in my frantic rush to get there on time but this very kind Santa offered to let me take the photos with HIS phone and email them to me.  I admit that he may have been motivated by fear of this maniacal dog mother with wet and bedraggled hair and a wild expression in her eyes ready to burst into tears if she did not get that photo but I prefer to think it was just good old Christmas spirit that was at the heart of his kindness. I felt so satisfied with myself for keeping up my annual tradition that walking home too quickly and smiling benevolently at the snowflakes I slipped on the ice and literally fell right on my bum, feet up in the air! Thankfully Bingo was secured in his bag and sustained no injury but I am going to have a lovely bruise tomorrow. It was all worth it, I got my damned photo against all the odds and  Bingo got a new Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer toy so we are now filled with CHRISTMAS CHEER! Merry Christmas everyone!

Bingo and Santa 2013

Bingo safe at home with Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

New Curious Christmas Ornaments

I am so excited to finally have my new Christmas ornaments for sale in my Etsy  shop, Curious Portraits! I've been having so may requests for ornaments featuring my curious portraits and I have been busy researching the items I needed to make them. I finally found the perfect little bronze frames  2" in diameter and the glass cabochons that fit inside. I am so pleased with how sweet they look. They come with a red satin ribbon for hanging and arrive in their own red felt pouch tied with a mint green satin bow ready for gift giving. You can now hang Victorian Mouse, Cat Dandy, Santa and Elf Squirrels, Polar Bears, Snowmen, Foxes and more right on your Christmas tree! Happy Holidays to everyone!

Two Wonderful Blog Posts about Yours Truly

I want to mention today how honored I am to have been featured on two wonderful blogs this week!

The first is by Evelyn Pelati, a talented jewelry designer who has a knack for finding interesting artists, craftsmen and designers to write about on her blog.  Just click the image to read more of her post about yours truly! You can see her beautiful jewelry on her website: evelynpelati.com

The other one is called Papoose Clothing by Ashley Duggan Smith who makes the most adorable and charming children’s clothes. Just click the image to read more of this wonderful post. You can find her unique clothing line in her Etsy shop Papoose Clothing.

Thank you Evelyn and Ashley for your very kind words about my work!

Face Your Deepest Fears this Halloween!

My dog Bingo is facing his deepest fear (of water) this Halloween for his annual card. He has bravely donned his diving gear to explore the mysteries of the deep. I hope he will be an inspiration to you. A very Happy Halloween to everyone!

Prints of Deep Sea Bingo are available in my Etsy shop Curious Portraits!

A Custom Kitchen Towel Design for a Fabulous Abode

I am so happy to finally be able to post this new kitchen towel design.  I finished it nearly two months ago but because it was to be a surprise I had to sit on it until I could get it to it's intended recipient. It was designed to celebrate my friend's wonderful beach house in Cherry Grove, Fire Island where we have spent many happy hours surrounded by colorful people and amiable animals eating, drinking and always laughing. I incorporated as many of the key elements as I could fit that make this place special such as his favorite deer and the squirrel that lives in the roof not to mention the drag personas they have come up with for the Pines Invasion every July 4th. It is a magical place and I truly wanted to honor it in the  kitschiest way possible.

It is available for purchase at my Etsy shop The Curious Kitchen.