Readings Has You Covered
Belated Happy New Year Greetings dear readers! I have been taking an extended holiday from posting in my SNAP journals, but this week I am back.
As happens every year with increasing difficulty, I went on my usual hunt for a wall calendar in early January. It seems not many people use them these days, because very few bookstores sell them anymore, at least here in Melbourne. I travelled quite a distance on the word of a work colleague, who said the bookstore Readings had a wide range (Readings won Bookstore of the Year at the London Book Fair in 2016).
Happily, my friend was correct, and I finally settled on ‘Vintage Book Cover Posters’, culled from the New York Library. The calendar is published by Catch Publishing, and is printed on nice uncoated, textured stock, which is always one of my essential criteria. Unfortunately, no information on the books or the illustrators is included. It is certainly a pleasant calendar to while away the year with however, and is a nice segue from last year's calendar.
Happy March!
An Edwardian Selfie
Eeep! The last few months of the year have just slipped away so quickly, and once more the only posts on this Sketchbook blog are calendar pictures one after the other. I’ve already blamed my old iMac last time, but it does inevitably get busy at this time of year.
Our Edwardian family here are getting ready for their Christmas selfie, a charming festive scene to end the year on. I love the small details in this painting, like the Dutch tiles on the fireplace, the decorated tree ornaments, and the way the child is playing with this new technology, pretending to take the cat’s photo with a box! And the cat is posing perfectly, of course.
It will soon be time to start the annual hunt for a calendar, but in the meantime, I hope your December is full of pleasant business and fun as you wind up the year.
The Windmills of Montmartre
Hello! Belated November greetings, in part due to my poor old iMac dying a wheezing death and my website become partially inaccessible. I’m now up and running with a new iMac and all the latest whizz-bang software, so I am delighted to bring you this charming illustration of two black cats and a windmill.
I love the wobbly, hand-drawn text, the roughly-hewn windmill and muted colour scheme in this screen print. It’s easy to see the inspiration behind the vintage-style illustrations and fonts that are so in vogue today. The nostalgic charm with which they imbue designs is very appealing and uplifting.
I’ve not been to Paris, so it was interesting to read that once there were thirty windmills standing atop the hill of Montmartre – it must have been such a distinctive sight, though now there is only one functioning windmill left.
I hope you are having a happy mid-November!
Rice Flour
Belated October greetings: hello! This month’s calendar picture features a little girl with her feline companion. Reis-mehl translates from the German to ‘rice flour’, so perhaps she is enjoying a rice pudding? Who can say, but it must be good since she has rosy cheeks. I like her Mary-Janes too.
Here in Melbourne spring-proper has finally burst into bloom, which, since the spring equinox was on 23 September, is not surprising, but it is exciting! Today is forecast to be a particularly glorious 26°C, and lunch al fresco has certainly given me rosy cheeks.
Happy October!
Warhol’s Captivating Sense of Fun
Looking at Cecil Beaton’s illustrations immediately put me in mind of Andy Warhol’s own illustrations, which I have always preferred to his fine art output. In the 1950s and before he became his own brand, Warhol worked in the advertising industry as a very successful artist. He even won several Art Directors Club awards.
Warhol moved to New York in 1949 after studying commercial art at the Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh. And for the next ten years he worked on Madison Avenue, illustrating fashion, in particular shoe advertisements for I. Miller and other advertising clients; LP covers; and several books, such as 25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy, Love Is A Pink Cake, and Wild Raspberries.
He returned to drawing in the 1970s, continuing to his death in 1987, but probably his most famous are the shoe drawings, which were published on Sundays in the New York Times, with captions written by his mother. (I must say I much prefer Warhol’s shoe illustrations to the work of another famous shoe illustrator, that of Manolo Blahnik.)
There is a lovely, light unselfconsciousness in Warhol’s drawings; in the imprecise linework that charms; in the whimsical creatures that inhabit the drawings – unicorns, yapping lapdogs and well-to-do pussycats wearing pearls. The sense of fun is captivating.
Images found on Pinterest.
