Hello, and welcome!
I am Olga - a former theoretical physicist who turned to the dark side (i.e. tech) before becoming an artist, among other things. These days I live, paint, and raise my multi-species family 🐈 🐕 in Paris, whereas this corner of the Internet is home to my biggest art project to date: Aliciraptor’s Adventures in Wonderland. Who is Aliciraptor and what is she up to? So glad you asked.
It was the year 66 000 000 BC (give or take a million). A massive asteroid was headed straight for the Yucatan peninsula (which was yet to be named as such at the time). The inhabitants of the Cretaceous Earth were holding their breaths watching the impending catastrophe, that threatened to wipe out life as they knew it. As the asteroid was making its way towards them though, a comet passing through the Solar system deflected its course, saving the non-avian dinosaurs from extinction and setting the Earth history on an entirely different path. Okay, maybe not entirely different.
Over the millions of years that followed,
dinosaurs and other vertebrates continued to evolve alongside each other. At some point, several dino-species took a clear lead, developing larger brains, the use of tools, language, and culture, as well as shedding their feathers in the process. The result was a civilization that is remarkably similar to that of the human post-asteroid universe in almost every way - except that homo sapiens got replaced with dino sapiens 🧍🏽↔️ 🦖
It is in this parallel world that Alice, a seven year old velociraptor living in Victorian England, found herself at the center of most peculiar events. It all started when she saw a White Rabbit running through a field and followed him down a hole in the ground…
Check out all of the illustrations featuring Dino-Alice’s adventures,
paired with excerpts from the original text by Lewis Carroll (a respectable math professiraptor in the dino-world):
Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do. She was considering whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
Alice had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, so she ran after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
Either the well was very deep, or Alice fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her. When she looked at the sides of the well, Alice noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves; here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs.
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage, not much larger than a rat-hole: she knelt down and looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains!
But, alas for poor Alice! She had forgotten the little golden key on the table and she could not possibly reach it: she could see it quite plainly through the glass, but when she tried to climb up one of the legs of the table, it was too slippery.
“You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” said Alice, “a great girl like you to go on crying in this way! Stop this moment, I tell you!” But she went on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the hall.
Just then Alice heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was: at first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.
The Mouse said in a low trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and then I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.”
It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there were a Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures. Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.
They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the bank—the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and uncomfortable.
First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (“the exact shape doesn’t matter,” it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no “One, two, three, and away,” but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over. However, when they had been running half an hour or so, [they] were quite dry again …
Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about, and called out to her in an angry tone, “Why, Mary Ann, what are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan! Quick, now!” And Alice was so much frightened that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without trying to explain the mistake it had made.
She went on growing, and growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor: in another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and, as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney.
Alice swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find that she began shrinking directly. As soon as she was small enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside. The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.
Alice stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large blue caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded, quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice of her or of anything else.
“And just as I’d taken the highest tree in the wood,” continued the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, “and just as I was thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come wriggling down from the sky! Ugh, Serpent!”
“But I’m not a serpent, I tell you!” said Alice. “I’m a—I’m a—”
“Well! What are you?” said the Pigeon. “I can see you’re trying to invent something!”
The cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.
”I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
“Really, now you ask me,” said Alice, very much confused, “I don’t think—”
“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away, comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would twist itself round and look up in her face with a puzzled expression.
“You may not have lived much under the sea—” (“I haven’t,” said Alice)—“and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster—” (Alice began to say “I once tasted—” but checked herself hastily, and said “No, never”) “—so you can have no idea what a delightful thing a Lobster Quadrille is!”
In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large dish of tarts upon it: they looked so good, that it made Alice quite hungry to look at them—“I wish they’d get the trial done,” she thought, “and hand round the refreshments!”
Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that she knew the name of nearly everything there. “[The King is] the judge,” she said to herself, “because of his great wig.”
At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.
