matouenpeluche

Charlotte = new print!

This is Charlotte and she loves to dance. The tango is her favourite but she's also quite partial to the fox trot, the charleston and the flamenco. She has been known to inspire the odd choreographer too and several dances have been thought up with her specifically in mind. You may recall "The Charlotte" which was incredibly popular last summer.

However, it is her dream to one day star in a Busby Berkeley musical...

(Image from here)

(Image from here)

...and I can't blame her for that!

Happy Monday all - and yes, the weather has settled down from yesterday's scorching 41.5 degrees Celsius (= 107 Fahrenheit) to a very reasonable 20 degrees Celsius (ahhhhh....much better!).

Yipee! It's the weekend!

(Image from: Decades of Fashion: The Hulton Getty Picture Collection)

Happy weekend all! This is a photo of British singer Cliff Richard doing the jive. If I could do the jive then by golly I'd be doing it now! However, I can't so this is what I'll be doing instead:

1. Drawing - oh yes! There are quite a few gals and birdies swimming around in my head just waiting to manifest themselves onto a nice bit of art paper.

2. Eating - my boyfriend's amazing cooking. Saturday night is traditionally his cooking night and he the master chef!  

3. Talking - to my Dad's cat Harry on the phone. No, seriously! Every time I phone Dad, Harry rouses himself from the deep slumber he is usually in on some piece of furniture and comes over to the phone and has a good chat to me. ...and there is such import and meaning in his meows I can't tell you! I'm serious!

4. Walking - on Sunday with any luck. The weather has settled down a bit today. It's been colder than winter this past week and wetter and windier. However, I read Sunday might be a bit more reasonable in the weather department. Hopefully, I'll get a good four hour walk in. Fingers crossed!

5. Tidying up - the living room looks like a shambles! It's been a full on week at work what with exams, marking and reports to write and unfortunately the living room has borne the brunt of it.

And you? Have you anything grand planned for this weekend gentle bloggers? 

An American in Paris.

If you're at a loose end one evening and you've watched all the good movies at the DVD store, you could do worse than rent this classic bit of gorgeousness: An American in Paris.For me, it's right up there in my top twenty all time great movies. 

It stars Gene Kelly at his charming athletic best, Lesley Caron as the quintessential French cutie and of course George and Ira Gershwin's fabulous music. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli; his dreamy technicolor sets are gobsmackingly wonderful. Both Vincent and the sets won academy Awards at the Oscars that year (1951).The film itself won Best Picture.

However, it is the epic 18 minute dance sequence at the end that really knocks your socks off, particularly when Gene does his outrageous best to bring iconic French paintings to life.

It really is something!

You can read more about the film here!

P.S. There is a terrific giveaway of my work over at Pikaland!

I'm so happy - I could do The Madison.

If I could express how I feel about the end of the working week in a visual way I think it would be this scene from Jean Luc Godard's Bande à part.

The iconic Madison Dance sequence in this movie is pure heaven! You can watch the scene in all it's 2D black and white glory here! 

If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it! It's the story of would-be criminals Franz and Arthur who meet the lovely Odile in an English language class. Odile tells them that there is a large amount of cash hidden in her aunt's house where she is staying and convinces the two boys to stage a robbery in order to get it. The sub-plot involves both Franz and Arthur vying for Odile's affections. There is a lot more to the story than that of course and it is utterly charming and pretty - but I'll let you discover that for yourselves should you choose to watch it!

Happy weekend one and all!

All American Girl.

Here's one of the drawings I did on the weekend. I've called her "The All American Girl Next Door", although I think perhaps that's a little long winded. I'm always so surprised when I finish a drawing because I never ever know what they will turn out like. When they are finished I feel quite separate from the finished piece and think "Well hello there! Where did you come from?" She's now in my shop!

The concert on Saturday was wonderful - such a great talent! However,.... being a visual person I'm a little hesitant to admit I was perhaps more mesmerised by her sparkly dress than by the piano playing! Hopeless person that I am. I did appreciate the music though I swear! The other thing I noticed was how incredibly relaxing it was to sit there in the audience and listen to her play.

I trust everyone had a great Mother's Day and a relaxing weekend!  

Japan.

When I was about 10 or thereabouts, I was lucky enough to go to Japan for a few weeks with my parents. Gee it was amazing! So different to anywhere I'd ever been before! Tokyo was like a cross between "Blade Runner" and some exotic department store. Kyoto, on the other hand was like a fairy land of pretty red lanterns and trees and Zen Buddhist Temples. I liked the Buddhist temples the best. You'd take your shoes off at the door and then tip toe around stopping and sitting from time to time to contemplate a moss garden or a perfectly raked gravel yard.

I've also read that in Japan there are trillions of radio stations. Of course there are the usual music, news, talk back stations but there are also stations which only have waves crashing against cliffs and other ambient sounds to sooth the soul. I even read that there was a station dedicated to train station and platform noises so the businessman late home from work because of a "meeting" could use this as back ground noise whilst ringing his wife. I don't know how true that is!

So, here is my modern Geisha girl listening to her designer radio station in her pretty kimono. She is now a large print in my shop!

Grace and Sharon strut their stuff!

 

There was a lovely sunset last night which I couldn't resist photographing. I got this shot round about 8:00pm. After taking this photo I popped over to Hyde Park in the city as advertised to see Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings who were as amazing as I thought they might be. After watching  the Dap-Kings for about half an hour the magnetic attraction of seeing Grace Jones in the Domain proved too much and we went over to see what she was up to. Wow! The crowd was enormous! And she was fabulous! What a gal - sassy, on the ball and extremely entertaining. We didn't actually wiggle down to the front (there must have been close to 250, 000 people!) but sat on the grassy slope in front of the Art Gallery where we could see Grace up close on a screen but also as a dolly on stage strutting her stuff! It was a fun free evening's  entertainment to say the least!

A Chinchilla and The Sydney Festival.

Something new for me! Not a gorgeous gal or pretty bird but small rodent from South America! This is an ACEO I now have in my shop. It's a chinchilla - a native to the Andes in South America and famous for it's fabulously silky fur. They are very tiny - 12 inches long and unfortunately are pretty rare these days because of their pretty fur coat.

Meanwhile, it's very fresh today in Sydney - very strange! It's actually cardigan weather would you believe it! I am really looking forward to tonight though as it's the opening of The Sydney Festival and the entire city becomes one great big gigantic live venue. That original '80s uber cool diva  Grace Jones is playing in the Domain tonight and in Hyde Park are the Gypsy Kings and Queens along with Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings. The Dap-Kings are becoming the talk of the festival incidentaly. They are described as "old-school soul and funk" and "the analogue essence of Stax and the Motown sound of the '60s". Wow! Unfortunately, the Dap-Kings and Grace are playing more or less at the same time! Ah! Drat! What to do? I think I'll be putting on my runners and hot footing it from one venue to the next! But, the jewel in the crown is the Robert LePage play I'm going to see next weekend. This play is 9 hours (!) long and I cannot wait! LePage is a Canadian playwright and film director and he's out-of-this-world good. I'll let you know what it's like to sit in a theatre for nine hours with your favourite playwright  next week! (I think there are breaks hopefully!)     

The boyfriend...

Ok...well I'm currently recovering from seeing the most beautiful film I've seen for a long, long time. It's Ken Russell's musical "The Boyfriend". It was made in 1971 and and is set in the 1920s. I remember seeing it some time in the late '70s on telly. I liked it then in my green state but have been unable to find it on DVD to see what I think of it now. Then I had the bright idea of You Tubing it and some utter saint has put the entire film up! Oh bliss! The story is a good natured look at a theatre troupe trying to catch the eye of a visiting Hollywood producer who has come to watch them. This in itself is hilarious! But the best part is Ken's extraordinary sets and costumes. The mind boggles at he sheer imaginativeness and prettiness and beauty!! ...and the tap dancing and singing is pretty decent too. I don't want to rave too much because you'll think I'm a bit of a loony! But really: "sublime" is not too strong a word to describe it in my opinion. Oh! ..and it stars Twiggy who is pretty good actually - she won two Golden Globes for her performance.

...and now for something completely different , I thought I'd show you this new drawing I did recently for my Etsy shop.... she's a little lady at 10 X 15 but still very stylish despite her small size!

Meanwhile, Sydney's weather is lurching around from a chilling 7 degrees in the morning to a quite mild 20 degrees by 12 noon.I'm not too unhappy - particularly as the sky is the most brilliant blue you could imagine - but it's difficult knowing what to wear in the morning! Layers I think are the solution! Yes, layers!