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Happy Friday!

My goodness! Friday already! All I can say is: PHEW! Is it just me or does everything speed up around Christmas? May be it's just me!

These drawings here are by one of my favourite cartoonists: B. Kliban. He is best known for his endearing plump cats that get up to all sorts of mischief like sitting in hot tubs whilst playing with a rubber ducky or doing a spot of yoga. However, he was also a fine illustrator and seriously fond of his pussy cats: Norton Nitty, Burton Rustle and another one whose name escapes me.

While I am too big to lie on the telly like this guy above I'll be doing plenty of what he's doing, i.e. relaxing, this weekend!

(All images from "Never eat anything bigger than your head", "The biggest Tongue in Tunisia" etc which you can buy here)

Book covers and illustrations...

So, I have trudged up the hump that is Wednesday and I am at the summit and it's a good view from up here! My hump day was made all the more pleasant and actually thrilling due to Gabbi's posting of my work here! Gabbi's blog is one of the wonders of cyber space as far as I'm concerned so it is an absolute honour to catch her eye! Thank you so much Gabbi!

Meanwhile, I have been perusing all things book and here are a few of the goodies I found...

(Aaron Judah book cover from here)

(Charles Harper illustration from here)

(Charles Harper Illustration from here)

(Flook book cover from here)

Hope everyone's week is behaving itself - and thank you kindly for all the drawing love!!

YIPPEEE! It's Friday!!

 

Happy Friday one and all! How good does it feel? It makes me feel like dressing up like one of these eccentric Sock Monkeys! 

These images are actually from a mini-calendar / bookmark set I bought on my travels during the week. They are so fun and imaginative and full of personality. There's a different Sock Monkey for every month of the year. This is the link for the company teNeues that produced it.

...and pardon me for not visiting blogs and replying to comments - I've had terrible internet trouble but all seems to be well now!

I hope everyone has a restful and relaxing weekend!

Birthday Books (part II)

 

Here are another couple of books I got for my birthday. The image above is from Dali: The Impresario of Surrealism by Jean-Louis Gaillemin. Again it is a compact book full of his work and terrific photos of Dali at various stages during his life. It's great seeing all his work together - he really was the prolific genius in my opinion. There's also plenty of biographical info about him too from cradle to grave so to speak.

To the left is the cover and the painting on the right is one of Dali's with the impossibly wonderful title: Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening, 1944.

The next book I am very much looking forward to reading. It's called Me Cheeta The Autobiography and it's by James Lever.

You remember seeing those old black and white Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movies on TV in the wee hours of Sunday morning? No? Well a whole bunch of Tarzan movies were made in the 1930s and 1940s in Hollywood and the Cheeta of those films wrote this book (ahem). Anyway, it's supposed to be utterly hilarious and a gripping read! I'll let you know! The image on the Left is the book's cover and the one on the right is a painting by Cheeta called Study in Purple and Turquoise #6: 'Water'(2001).

I trust everyone is having a lovely restful and relaxing weekend!

P.S. The lovely Christina of Down and Out Chic is having a fabulous giveaway of Diana's (City Lights) photography! I suggest you hot foot it over there to enter!! Just think...you could win this gorgeous "Couch" print! 

Birthday books (part I)

I got some great books for my birthday. This image by Koloman Moser (1899) is from a small book simply called Art Nouveau. It's chock full of glossy colour illustrations and photos but more importantly it explains the difference between the terms "Art Nouveau", "Secession", ""Belle Époque" and "Arts and Crafts". It's also quite compact so I'll be able to read it in bed!

Here are two more classic images from the book: Peter Behrens' The Kiss from 1898 and  Alphonse Mucha's Sarah Bernhardt "La Plume" 1896.

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun with this book!

Happy Friday everyone and many thanks for your birthday wishes!! They made my day!!

What I've been up to...

Apart from drawing, I've been having a fine old time in Sydney town of late. Last Friday I went for a glorious walk (as previously mentioned in Shadow Shot Sunday) around the foreshore. This is a shot of one of the five or so charming islands that sit in Sydney harbour. This one is Shark Island. You can see the city behind it.Here's another (less romantic!) view of it:

Below is Strickland house. I was more or less standing in front of this historic and famous building when I took the photos of the island. Did you see Australia with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman? Well, this is the house in the beginning of the film that everyone is running in and out of!

Apart from going for walks I've been reading. As readers of this blog might recall, I am head over heels about Mad Men. I remember watching it and the big big boss said he was reading this book:

So, being a good Mad Men follower I picked it up the other day when I saw it in my local book store. So far it's proving to be quite the ripping yarn! At 1168 pages long I think it will be keeping me entertained for a couple of days to come. I have been reading quite a bit of it recently because my internet service has been appalling of late and when it goes down I have been dipping into old Atlas Shrugged to fill in the boring bits! Thank you Ayn Rand for preserving my sanity!

Lastly, I'm not sure if anyone recalls seeing this series or not. I certainly didn't watch the first run of it on telly (1969 - 1970) but I adored watching re-runs of it in the 90s.

(Image from Manny the Movie Guy)

Be still my beating heart! UFO! A while back my boyfriend saw my eyes light up like pinball machines when we chanced upon the 26 episode box set of this piece of fantastic retro goodness in a favourite record store. He hadn't actually seen it but my "oohS" and "AHHHHs" were a good enough selling point for him!

It's a series set in 1980(wow!) about UFOs (obviously!) and a secret organisation called S.H.A.D.O = Supreme Headquarters Alien Defence Organisation. This organisation lead by Commander Ed Straker, seen here on the left, has the mission of protecting earth from organ harvesting aliens that are hell bent on - well, abducting humans...to...harvest their ...organs. It's pure GOLD!!! I read that they are even going to make a movie of it quite soon as Paramont have bought the rights and it will instead be set in 2020!

One of the best bits is of course the moon base and these ravishing gals in purple wigs that run it. Gosh! Below is the very cute Lt. Gay Ellis (Gabrielle Drake) and there she is again with one of her "men". I can't tell you how on the money and capable this woman is!

Finally I'll leave you with a link for the opening credits of this glorious show. I drive my boyfriend to distraction by whistling, humming and la, la, la-ing this theme tune at inappropriate times of the day. He's very good natured and puts up with it!

Here's the LINK!

 (Image of Ed Straker from Den of Geek, Lt. Ellis and the two gals from Original Rocket Dungeon.)

Happy happy joy joy - it's Thursday!!

P.S. Thank you everyone for all the Jeremy love!

Dogs in Vogue.

While surfing the internet last night I chanced upon this delightful book due to be published on the 8th October: Dogs in Vogue. It has all the classic pup shots plus a whole swag of others. I love this one of Lee Radziwill (above) taken in 1960 with her pug Thomas. Here are a couple of others...

Aren't they gorgeous? I love the expressions on some of the pooches' faces - bless! They really are the stars! From top: Lee Radziwill by Henry Clark, Balanciaga hat by Henry Clark, Jean Shrimpton by Eugene Vernier, model and ball and dog by Gjon Mili, another Henry Clark and smart suit by Karen Radkai.

You can find more Dogs in Vogue here.

Happy Monday everyone!!

Bonjour Le Weekend!

YIPPEEE! It's the weekend!!...and this is how I feel - particularly as I have a whole two weeks off!!! Can you believe it? I can pretend I'm a bohemian artist for two (count 'em) whole weeks!!

*Ahem*

O.K. now that I have got that out of my system I'd like to introduce you to my new favourite photographer: Philippe Halsman (1906 - 1976). Halsman, the Latvian born American portrait photographer, is probably one of the most famous photographers of his generation. He was not only responsible for taking iconic photos of anybody who was anybody but was also responsible for the "Jump Book".

 

Halsman said at the time, "When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears." Halsman even created his own philosophy of jump photography, called "jumpology". He published his iconic book in 1959 and it had up to 178 photos of everyone from Oppenheimer to Marilyn to Nixon to The Duke and Duchess of Windsor in full flight.



I am a big fan of his other photos too some of which you have probably seen before. These two of Salvador Dali are very nice I think.





Images from top are: Philippe Halsman and Monroe, Bridget Bardot, The Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Salvador Dali and skull, Savador Dali and Rhino. All Photos are by Philippe Halsman and you can find them in Google images. You can also read more about Halsman here - he had quite an extraordinary life!!

Have a super duper weekend all you glorious bloggers out there!!

and

don't forget the GIVEAWAY of my work at Gabbi's and Jess' blogs!!

What the papers didn't mean to say - scandalous stuff!

I rediscovered this little gem of a book my Dad had bought way back when. It was published in Britain in 1965 by an Austrian flautist of all people. Its  gentle humour is pretty lovely and despite my sophisticated 21st Century self I laughed out loud to a couple of the newspaper bloopers.

...and in other news, Sydney has been having unseasonably warm weather: 29 degrees for goodness sake!! Anyway, it was rather lovely for walking around in - I shall post the photos we took tomorrow.

I trust everyone is having a lovely Sunday!

An award and some loveliness.

Happy Monday everyone! What better way to start the week than by being given an award and by passing it on! Gabbi, that high priestess of all things blog, has given me a "You are a Great Read" award! Merci Beaucoup mon amie! I'd like to give it back to you and then pass it on to the following fine bloggers: Jess, Tracy, Lilly, Susann, Kate, Trudi, Linda, Tina, Brinja and Christiana! By the way, Gabbi herself has a sublime post at the moment about all things bookish that really is the bee's knees - it is epic and lovely at the same time - I think it really is a must see!

...and to welcome the new week, here are some charming advertisements circa early last century I found on my travels over the weekend...