matouenpeluche

Happy Halloween and congratulations Christopher Lee!

(Images from here)

So, Happy Halloween! Even though we are not huge Halloween people us Australians I have been noticing the celebration getting more popular here every year. And I totally approve! It's a heap of fun and a great excuse to dress up and have a party! We had some interesting characters at school yesterday: Spider man, the devil, and a fairy - but my favourite was a very pretty lady bug.

While surfing the web this morning I saw that the beloved Hammer house of horror Meister himself Christopher Lee (seen above as Dracula) was knighted yesterday. Keith of Coolness is Timeless has a terrific post about him here if you'd like to read more. 

I have also been thoroughly enjoying my Art Nouveau birthday book. Here are some more paintings by artist Fernand Khnopff which I thought were a little on the eerie side and perfect for Halloween today...The painting above is The sphinx or Caresses (1896) and the one below is I lock my door upon myself (1891).

Happy weekend all you lovely people out there!!

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!!

The Queen's Sister.

Another thing I did on the weekend was watch a BBC adapted for television film  called "The Queen's Sister" about Margaret Rose, the Queen of England's late sister. I'm a bit of a sucker for gossipy bio-pics. The drawing to the left, which is now in my shop as a small print, was inspired by the Queen's sister and is called Margaret.

Margaret in her prime was a real beauty with an 18-inch waist and sparkling blue eyes.

She was madly in love with Peter Townsend, the king's equerry (a kind of personal attendant to the King)when she was barely out of her teens but when he proposed, Parliament and the church said "No" because he was a divorced man. Eventually, after several dalliances, she married high society photographer Antony Armstrong-Jones. Here they are at their wedding in 1960.

 

Antony Armstrong-Jones was made Lord Snowdon and Margaret became Princess Margaret, Countess Snowdon. Antony introduced her to the groovy people of London's social scene people like Mick Jagger, Peter Sellers, Rudolf Nureyev e.t.c. Here's a rather fetching photo her husband took of her in the bath.

They divorced in 1978 and Margaret's health deteriorated after a lifetime of heavy smoking and too many late nights out partying. She died in 2002.

I thought this bio-pic would be fun and racy and capture a bit of the swinging sixties but it was a bit flat and tedious and ultimately a disappointment. It didn't paint a very good portrait of Margaret at all and I think you need to make your main character at least a little endearing in order for the viewer to identify with them. The Margaret in this film was an utter boozy bore who destroyed every party she attended with her insistence upon singing and staggering around like a drunkard. You were cheering for Antony's team which is not right because he, I've read, was not the most pleasant of character's either.

Anyway, I don't care how bad it was because my boyfriend brought home season two of MAD MEN last night YIPPPEEE!!! I'm saving it for the weekend!! 

Happy hump day everyone!!