A new mail today about fragment 6:
A flick of wrist, a towering tree
A streak of color makes the sea
A fragment poised on painter’s knife
The art of painting things to life
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Art? Eh? It’ sounds intresting!
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I wonder if the unknown illiomancer could have been Helen Wilde (http://burrowinthefray.com/among-those-who-did-not-die/)
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Moving my thoughts over here.
I don’t think it’s Helen Wilde the practitioner is referring to. Helen was born in 1919, and the document says the canvas was used sometime between late 1910’s and early 1920’s and was born in England. (Helen was born in America.)
It could be one of Helen’s parents. But after looking into them I don’t see either of them as a noted artist, and her dad at least was born in Pennsylvania.
It might be a teacher or mentor of Helen. Helen apparently discovered her powers from a ‘particularly forthcoming powder room painting’. Which means she may have been in the home of someone she knew when she learned about Illiomancy for the first time.
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I’m gonna scroll though all paintings made during 1910s and 1920s thats listed on Art UK to see if theres an artist that fits the bill. please wish me luck ;v;
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All I could find was what @Kelsey did, Vanessa Bell
This painting to be exact. I personally think it’s sorta funny that the title says “Life” in it, since we’re looking for an illiomancer.
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The artuk page is great! And there are many magic victorian garden scenes, but the artists dont really fit, what we are searching…
I thought about the books hint “A flick of wrist, a towering tree
A streak of color makes the sea” - Could that mean, we are looking for something with water on it + maybe a sailing boat or indeed trees? - but maybe thats to directly ;)
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So, I have been trying keywords based on what we have so far (at BoB), even though I think there is something we are still missing.
I have tried:
vanessa
vanessa_bell
vanessabell
illiomancy
illiomancer
angelica
winter
solstice
wintersolstice
omega (for the Omega Workshop)
Bloomsbury
reflections
Edit: Found this http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/list.php?s=yu&m=a&aid=3901
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Well it was only a cursory glance but I’ve skimmed and searched every artist on this list who was alive and likely producing art from 1915-1925 and can’t find any who have a famous writer daughter.
So that was a bust. I can’t help but think we’re missing, or don’t yet have, some clue or context to help narrow this down.
Previous clues from the Book of Briars have often had explicit little hints buried in them. The recent line mentioning flags, or the 4th fragment clue mentioning ‘lock man’ as a hint to look into Brandon Lachmann.
I keep looking at that line ‘painter’s knife’ a lot. That strikes me as odd. Most painters don’t use knives, am I right? Is that signifigant?
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Actually Painters Knives are quite common…or at least in Germany the term “Malmesser” (which is the direct translation) is used to describe this little metallic not-brush-thingies, to draw acrylic or oil paint. 
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Thanks Cytter, any day I learn something new is a good one.
Alright so today’s wild(e) flight of fancy was to assume maybe it’s not a friend of Helen’s that she learned the craft, but a friend of her husbands. I spent a while looking through a few of the people in John’s past where he and Helen were known to hang out a lot, mostly Marshal Glasier and Karl Priebe and Gertrude Abercrombie. While all those people were interesting, none of them come close to being what we know of our unnamed Illiomancer. (None were born in England for one thing).
I’m not saying it’s time to ask for a hint or anything from the Book, but just to get the groundwork for that conversation under way, do we know how that’d work? Will the 2 remaining clue words we were given for fragment 5 still work for fragment 6? Has anyone gotten a new one?
Personally I’d like to wait until at least I see the fully revealed Page 6 before punting, but figure it can’t hurt to start talking and checking in with everyone once in a while.
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So instead of studying for my exam tomorrow, I’ve been researching this illiomancer. I found two that almost fit the description.
English, could have painted between 1910 and 1920, in a guild of crafters (the Birmingham Group and the Royal Birmingham Society of Artists), skilled in other crafts (wood engraving, stained-glass windows, writing, etc.), and daughter Barbara Sleigh was a children’s writer. Bonus: he was into fairies, elves, and all kinds of magical creatures.
Another person that almost fits:
English born, could have painted between 1910 and 1915 only, part of the Arts and Crafts movement, skilled in the craft of wood-engraving, had a daughter named Beatrice Crane that potentially did some writing (can’t confirm this 100%), has a piece of art in Merseyside called The Triumph of Spring
Seems like our clues could apply to quite a few people. I’ve been trying keywords in the book, but others should keep trying.
As for the clues, I would think they are still good for any fragment (I hope), and I thought we were supposed to receive more clues after each fragment is unlocked, but I’m not 100% sure.
I’ll keep looking.
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Great finds, Kelsey! I’m liking Bernard Sleigh and his map of Faerieland myself, done in 1920. Walter Crane fits well also, but the fact he died in early 1915 makes it tougher for him to fit into creating a painting in the timeframe we’re looking at.
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I’m liking Bernard Sleigh more and more - I found that he painted various parts of the Memorial Unitarian Church in Merseyside. Even if this is our unknown illiomancer, what are we supposed to do with the information? Try keywords in the Book or something else? Do we think that the work has to be a piece of work in Merseyside or was that just a hint to help us figure out the illiomancer?
Fun Fact: Bernard Sleigh was a founder of the Fairy Investigation Society, which Walt Disney later became a member of
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Bernard Sleigh also has a few paintings in Merseyside! And one in 1913, apparently a portrait of a man called William Downing
Personally, I thought that it was a painting we were looking for, but maybe its the painter?
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Yeah, I’m not sure what we do with this information either. I’m feeling pretty good about Bernard Sleigh. I’ve tried entering a few names from the map of Fairyland in the Book of Briars but no luck. That just feels like random guessing really. It’s a big map, not to mention his other works.
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So no progress for me in the past couple of days on this 
I’ll try looking for another artist. I have a feeling that we are looking for the work of their art that is specifically in Merseyside, so maybe we just haven’t hit on the right person.
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… I still hope that its Bernard Sleigh because the Fairyland Map and Fairy Investigation Society stuff are so cool! … But now we can at least hope, that Deeds will find and share some interesting things in “The Monarch Papers I”
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The other day I combed through the map of Fairyland and tried the name of every creature I could find as a fragment. I’m assuming these fragments are the fauna to the first keys flora. No luck.
If there’s something we’re supposed to be seeing there that tells us what the 6th fragment is I don’t see it. I still feel very good that it fits though.
There are 2 questions I have with the page 6 so far that Ive been pondering that may help (or may not, but we’re lost anyway so why not try).
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The page asks a few times who the Illiomancer’s mentor was. Perhaps it’s the mentor that’s important?
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The word ‘writer’ is underlined as if it’s important. Perhaps the illiomancer’s daughter holds a clue?
With a week to go to the solstice, I’m starting to get a bit worried we’re running out of time.
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