She had me at birds on skateboards. Sigh. This is the surreal, sweet, weird work of Canadian artist/illustrator Esthera Preda. Watercolor, gouache, and ink mixed with a healthy dose of odd, and voila… stunning work! Where does she come up with her ideas? Perhaps this will shed a little light:

“As a child, [Esthera] was read Hans Christian Andersen and Brothers Grimm fairy tales every night by her mother who escaped the iron curtain. She lived across the hall from her grandmother who was prone to night terrors. Although, she had wonderful parents, one of her favorite pastimes was to pretend that she was an orphan so she could build, with her brothers and sister, multi-level cardboard houses in the summer and igloo villages in the winter. The world that her art exists in lies somewhere between those ephemeral seasons, night terrors and folk tales.”

Ephemeral seasons, night terrors and folk tales… a perfect description, indeed!