Tower of the Sorceress
 by Amanda W. Crews
      copyright 1982

LEAPING PRINCESS STUDIOS
featuring
LAKE LADY PRODUCTIONS: The Art of Amanda W. Crews
Stationery & Prints




Come in...to
Mina's Castle
...and you may never be able to leave...
"Tower of the Sorceress"
by Amanda W. Crews

copyright 1982, 2015






Mina's Castle...the Heart of Leaping Princess Studios
                            ~ Be Here Now ~

Mina's Castle, the Heart of Leaping Princess Studios

Hello, and welcome to my pages!
I am Mina, the webmistress of Leaping Princess Studios and your "cyber-contact" for
Amanda W. Crews and Lake Lady Productions;
and I will try to answer any questions I can about this talented artist,
and the prices and availability of her work.
If you are interested in purchasing item bearing Amanda's artwork,
click on the "Order Now" buttons or PayPal shopping cart buttons posted throughout these pages.

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Should you have questions, or special requests, please contact me for further details.
If you'd like to be added to our e-mail list, simply write "e-mail list" in your message area.
We send out occasional notices regarding Amanda's art and updates to these pages.


What Leaping Princess Studios is All About...
Through these pages, I hope to present to you some beautiful things you may not have seen before. My interests are in art, such as Lake Lady Productions, fantasy realism, the Pre-Raphaelites, and the Romantics. For more on the arts and theatre, visit my delightful friend, LaVivienne. I enjoy beautiful clothes, including jewelry, and fabulous treasures are to be found at my friends' sites, Camias Jewelry Designs and Brandi's Dream; music, such as the Beatles, especially George Harrison (good-night, my love...\), Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks, Kate Bush, Melanie, LOVE RiOT, which evolved into Milkshake, Beethoven (the music you are hearing is his passionate "Egmont Overture") and Tchaikovsky. My three favourite actors are the incredibly talented Johnny Depp, Gary Oldman, and Ron Perlman. I adore all three of them, and hope to eventually post a links page for sites devoted to them, as there's some really great stuff out there. My favourite TV shows are NBC's "Grimm", Fox's "Sleepy Hollow", Syfy's "GhostHunters" (though the best ones were with Grant Wilson), and cooking shows, especially anything with Chef Gordon Ramsey. At the bottom of this page, you will find a section on faerie tales and myths, such as The Arthurian Legends, Beauty & the Beast and the masterpiece of horror stories, Bram Stoker's "Dracula".






Clara Meets the Nutcracker Prince


"Clara Meets the Nutcracker Prince"
by Amanda W. Crews
copyright 1995

A scene taken from "The Nutcracker", a popular Christmas ballet, performed to the timeless score by Tchaikovsky. Surrounded by sugar plums and Christmas lights, Clara's Nutcracker Prince has come to life, and saved her from marauding mice. He takes a moment to introduce himself to his mistress, and invites her to join him in a journey through the snow. With such a companion, who could resist?









Caer Llyr
by Amanda W. Crews
copyright 1986 Lake Lady Productions

"Caer Llyr"
by
Amanda W. Crews
copyright 1986

The castle of Llyr, a Welsh god of the Underworld, associated with the sea. In later stories, he became King Lear. His castle is a ephemeric place, difficult to find, and treacherous to access. It may loom like a mirage in the sunset, or disappear completely in the ever-changing mist.





















































Soul Portrait by Amanda W. Crews, copyright 1983
"Soul Portrait"
by
Amanda W. Crews
copyright 1983



























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Favourite Faerie Tales, Legends and Medieval History
Illustrated by Amanda W. Crews

Through this page, I hope to explore some of my favourite stories. We all started with faerie tales, and weren't they they best when they were the Grimmest? While many of today's tales have been sanitized, older versions showed more brutal justice. In the early tellings of "Cinderella", the ugly step-sisters hacked off parts of their own feet in vain attempts to fit into that coveted slipper (which may have been made of fur). In the conclusion of "Snow White", the wicked queen is sentenced by the Prince to wear red-hot iron shoes, and dance until she died (perhaps an earlier version of "The Red Shoes"?). In "Rapunzel", the cloistered heroine was banished to the wilderness to give birth to twins, after a few secret trysts with her Prince were discovered by her guardian, by way of Rapunzel's growing belly. At the end of "Little Red Riding Hood", the big bad Wolf ate not only Grandma, but also the noble woodsman who came to save Red; but in the magical way of faerie tales, the woodsman was able to chop his way out of the Wolf's stomach and save not only Red, but also her Grandma, who was still in the Wolf's stomach, relatively unharmed.

Presented here in more detail are a few Arthurian legends, which evolved from both Celtic history and Welsh mythology; "Beauty and the Beast", a timeless tale which embodies a myth found in many cultures; and the enigmatic Dracula, stepping gracefully from Romanian history into English literature, he walks among us, even now. Read on...





The Arthurian Legends

THE LADY OF THE LAKE
MERLIN AND VIVIEN
THE HOLY GRAIL: A Christian Mystery


THE ARTHURIAN LEGENDS
There are as many versions of the tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table as there are storytellers. In exploring these stories, I have referred to the books I have on hand, but there are countless other variations, and I encourage you to find and read as many as you can.
Here are some books I recommend to get you started:

Idylls of the King, Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Morte D'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory

The Mabinogion, translated by Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, or the more widely-accepted translation by Lady Charlotte Guest

The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, abridged from Malory by Alfred W. Pollard

Celtic Myth and Legend, Poetry and Romance, Charles Squire

Novels by Evangeline Walton, based on The Mabinogion:
Prince of Annwn
The Children of Llyr
The Song of Rhiannon
The Island of the Mighty


To continue, click below on one of
The Arthurian Legends ~
The Lady of the Lake (currently under construction)
Merlin and Vivien (currently under construction)
The Holy Grail: A Christian Mystery (currently under construction)




Beauty and the Beast
The story of Beauty and the Beast is, indeed, as the Disney song suggests, "a tale as old as time". We can trace its origins in many forms and from many cultures. The core of the story is evident in the ancient Greek myth of Psyche and winged Eros, and in Andromeda's imprisonment by the Serpent. It resurfaces in medieval times in the tale of the beautiful princess held prisoner by a fierce dragon, awaiting rescue by a brave knight; and in the myth of the unicorn, a beast so rare and pure it could only be captured by a virgin, doomed to be slain by the hunters who used the maiden to lure the magical creature.
The faerie tale, as we know it today, was written in 1756 by Madame Leprince de Beaumont, and the terrible face of the Beast changed form with each new illustrator.
In 1946, producer Jean Cocteau filmed a French version, which is now available on video with subtitles. This black and white art film was so innovative, it is still being copied. Shelley Duvall's "Faerie Tale Theatre" gave us a very similar TV version. In 1983, with the release of her album, "The Wild Heart", singer Stevie Nicks gave us her song, "Beauty and the Beast", later noting that the song was inspired by Cocteau's movie, and dedicating the song to "Vincent and Katherine" [sic ~ in typical Nicks fashion, rock's Oracle offers information through yet another mystery].

To continue, click on
Dracula
Illustrated by Amanda W. Crews

Prince Of Wolves
by Amanda W. Crews
copyright 2000
"Dracula." The very name conjures an image which holds us in its hypnotic sway.


In 1897, Bram Stoker published Dracula, a fabulously entertaining horror story of a vampire's blood-thirsty attack on the good, God-fearing citizens of England. That story has been copied and re-written perhaps thousands of times, most notably, as a stageplay. That play was then adapted for theatrical release in 1931 in one of its most endearing and enduring forms, directed by Tod Browning, starring the unforgettable Bela Lugosi as the Count, and featuring Helen Chandler, Edward Van Sloan, and Dwight Frye. Lugosi's Dracula is a classic, and though it has been both revered and spoofed, it continues to fascinate new generations. In 1999, Universal re-released this classic with a new soundtrack. With no disrespect to the musicians, the mix is heavy-handed, and, worst of all, does not include Tchaikovsky's "Swan Lake", which seems an integral part of the original movie.
In my opinion, the only other film version to hold a candle to Lugosi's is Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 "Bram Stoker's Dracula", starring Gary Oldman, intense as the undead count, and featuring loveable Winona Ryder and irrepressible Anthony Hopkins. Coppola's version more closely resembles the original Stoker book, while serving to introduce the historical Vlad Dracula. As Stoker is known to have been inspired by a Romanian historian of his day, this aspect is not out of line with the story.

To continue, click on
Dracula - A brief history, featuring illustrations by Amanda W. Crews

Visit these pages!
You haven't seen my website until you've visited these pages:

The Arthurian Legends ~
The Lady of the Lake (under construction)
Merlin and Vivien (under construction)
The Holy Grail: A Christian Mystery (under construction)

Beauty and the Beast - Follow this link, into the Tunnels!

Dracula - A brief history, featuring illustrations by
Amanda W. Crews


LAKE LADY PRODUCTIONS
The Art of Amanda W. Crews

LAKE LADY PRODUCTIONS - The Art of Amanda W. Crews.
The official homepage for Amanda's art! Note cards and prints are available. VISIT NOW!


Rumours on the Edge of 17





Rumours on the Edge of 17 - Artwork by Amanda W. Crews, inspired by Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac during the "Rumours" era, now available for the very first time as Note Cards and Prints on Paper. If you're a fan of the band or the artist, you have got to have these! You'll also find Amanda's "Nixies" here.

Banners, Links and Favourite URLs - Have fun on this page filled with graphics and links to my friends' and other favourite web pages. Submit your URL or banner in exchange for one of ours.

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Lake Lady Productions &
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