matouenpeluche

Shadow Shot Sunday = Luna Park

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas Day and survived the Christmas feast! I had a traditional Australian lunch of the most divine selection of seafood: scallops, lobster, prawns and salmon. Desert was cognac ice cream and berries: raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and baked peaches in champagne. Goodness me! I think it was the best Christmas lunch I've ever had! 

Anyway, back to the matter at hand, here is my shadow shot submission. It is the top of one of two towers that flank the face of Luna Park in Sydney. They were modelled on New York's Chrysler building.

Shadow Shot Sunday, by the way, is a fabulous meme set up by the gorgeous Tracy of Hey Harriet! Anyone can enter and here are the instructions on how to do so!

Meanwhile, here are more Luna Park shots.

 

Luna Park was opened in 1935 so all the architecture and artwork in the park is very art deco. It has had a checkered fortune over the years but these days it is in very fine form having been meticulously restored quite recently.

My Dad used to take me there quite a bit when I was little so I am very fond of Luna Park - I have a lot of happy memories associated with it. However, these days I am more interested in the historic art deco sculptures and art work in and around Luna Park rather than the amusement rides themselves.

These cartoony paintings below are by the legendary Hoppy Arthur 'Art' Barton.

Next to Luna Park and probably built around the same time, is an olympic sized swimming pool which has recently been refurbished. I was super pleased to see that they had kept all the delightful and quirky decoration around the perimeter of the pool.

They're fun, aren't they?

Hope everyone is having a great holiday - I know I am!

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)

Bonjour le weekend!

(Image from here)

Oh Happy Friday! Here's a classic cat drawing by Théophile Alexandre Steinlen called "Horrible fin d'un poisson rouge". Sometimes I feel like this harassed goldfish (but without the ghastly ending!) during the week at work and sometimes I feel like the cat. Perhaps in reality I'm the bowl - certainly by Friday I feel a little "cracked" and in need of some serious R'n'R!

I have been quite busy this week and haven't visited as many blogs as I would've liked to - so I'm sorry I've been a bit 'absent'. I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone in cyber land this weekend! 

Meanwhile, here's some more gorgeous Steinlen Art Nouveau loveliness! 

(Image from here)

(Image from here)

The coming of the great cat god...

Now this is an end of the world scenario I could possibly be OK with...

Happy Friday folks (or Thursday afternoon as the case may be...).

(Cartoon "The Coming of the Great Cat God" by Ronald Searle, 1968 from here)

Martin Sharp

This is Sydney artist and legend Martin Sharp circa 1970. I went to a terrific retrospective exhibition of his work at the Museum of Sydney last week.

Martin Sharp, born (1942) and raised in Sydney, is seen as Australia's number one pop artist. He is best known internationally as the album cover artist for Cream's Wheel's of Fire, the exploding Jimi Hendrix painting and the Mr Tambourine Man Bob Dylan portrait.

 

(Top two images from Art and Australia Vol.47 Spring 2009)

(Disraeli Gears LP Cover from here)

He also co-wrote songs with Eric Clapton, published scandalous (for the 60s) magazines, restored and renovated Sydney's Luna Park, was friend and collaborator of (Tip Toe Through the Tulips) Tiny Tim, designer and artist for beautiful Sydney event posters in the 70s and 80s and a whole heap of other things! Actually, the exhibition itself is a real 4D experience with all his posters and knick knacks displayed in the one huge room. I've decided to go back sometime soon and properly photograph it.

 

(Top: Babylon the great is fallen, fallen. Revelations 18 v2. 2000 - 2006 from the Spring Historic Houses magazine. Bottom three images are postcards from the exhibition: The Sydney Opera House is ten 1983, Tiny Tim, The Chameleon 1982 and Eternity, Haymarket! 1977)

  Martin Sharp was a hero of mine when I was a young cartoonist and illustrator in Sydney so this exhibition was a real treat for me to go to. His posters like the one above of Sydney's Haymarket particularly remind me of my youth and memories of Sydney at that time.

Hope everyone is having/ will have a fabulous weekend!

This is Max.

Max was the creation of master cartoonist and illustrator Pericle Luigi Giovannetti. Isn't that a wonderful name? Anyway, Giovannetti started drawing for the now defunct Punch magazine after World War One and launched little Max in April 1953.

Max was such a hit with his wordless pomposity and general shenanigans that Giovannetti even wrote several books starring the one and only Max himself.

(Image from: Non-Stick Plans)

Unfortunately, all the Max books are now out of print but I've been surfing Amazon and I think I might have found a second hand copy...

Here's another Max story:

Both cartoons are from the book: Punch, All Creatures Great and Small published by Prion.

Happy Thursday evening everyone - hope your weather is a little tamer than it is here in Sydney! I am currently listening to 100 - 120 kilometre icy gale force winds (blown directly off the glaciers of the Antarctic) rattle my windows! And to think last week was a sweltering 34 degrees!! Go figure!

Ah Chas - you know me so well...

I have a morbid fear of hairdressers and Chas Adams has more or less summed up why I've only ever been twice. Those two visits were to get an expensive drinking straw perm (basically an afro that took about eight hours to do) which I promptly turned into dreadlocks. That was when I was at Uni by the way - fear not gentle readers I am no longer a rastafarian feral drawing machine these days - I have a neat bob which I cut myself. Much easier to maintain!

So, take it away Chas...

...and Weber has summed up why I have a problem with boutiques. I much prefer the anonymity of a department store.

You can find these and many more cartoons here.

Happy Friday!

Happy weekend!

This is how I feel most Friday afternoons - how about you? The drawing above is by an amazingly imaginative Edwardian/ Art Nouveau American cartoonist and illustrator: Winsor McCay. This image is from his "Little Nemo in Slumberland" newspaper comic strip which ran from 1905 to 1914.

The strip was about the sleeping dreams of a young boy called Nemo. (Incidentally, did you know "Nemo" means "Nobody" in Latin?)

Each evening Nemo would have these fantastic and surreal dreams in which he would be trying to reach "slumberland" and King Morpheus. In the last frame it would always be a drawing of Nemo in his bed or out of his bed in a tangle of bedclothes woken up by his adventures.

McCay's drawings were elegant and full of action. The one below is a particularly famous scene where Nemo and his friend Flip go for a ride on Nemo's bed which has sprouted legs.

Although not terribly popular at the time, the Nemo strip gained more of a following in the late 20th Century. One of Winsor McCay's biggest fans is Mr wild thing Maurice Sendak. I think you can see McCay's influence on his style.

All images here are from google images and you can find out more about Windsor McCay and Little Nemo here!

Have a lovely weekend all!

P.S....and don't forget my giveaway at Pikaland!

Happy Friday + a cartoon...

THE MAN WHO LIKES TO TALK POLITICS
Arnold Roth/1977

I'm not entirely sure that I understand this cartoon 100% but perhaps I understand enough of it to find it funny. Then again I could be wrong! ...all I know is that anybody who talks politics for too long or too fast leaves me feeling a little like these penguins.

...and I think it's a fine piece of cartooning.

A choice Arnold Roth cartoon from 1977. Born in Philadelphia in 1929 Arnold, amongst other things, did record covers for West Coast Jazz musicians such as Dave Brubeck.

This is another cartoon form my Man Bites Man book.

Happy Friday one and all!...and have a glorious weekend!!

Happy Friday!!

 

A bit of prime 1963 silliness by cartoonist and short story writer Lou Myers from one of my favoutite cartoon and illustration books "Man Bites Man : Two Decades of Satiric Art". You can find it here on Amazon.  

Happy Friday everyone!