Monday 31 August 2009

Brilliant Bawden

























































The above images are by the British illustrator Edward Bawden (1903 - 1989). They were commissioned by the luxury Piccadilly grocer Fortnum & Mason as part of their marketing campaigns from the 1930's to the 1950's.
All of these reproductions are taken from The World of Interiors, November 2007 pp. 69 - 74.

Sunday 23 August 2009

A Brilliant Blog Part 2: Things to Make










Above: as in the previous post, a selection of pictures from the wonderful Agence Eureka. From a time and place where shiny new toys were not so easy to come by. There are hundreds more like these on the site -- print them out in any size and make yourself an entire town to live in. Or even better: be inspired and make up your own!

Friday 14 August 2009

A Brilliant Blog: Part 1











All images from Agence Eureka, the most brilliant blog I have ever come across. Go there now -- but you may never want to leave your computer again. Who is this crazy French woman with too much time on her hands, a collection of incredible ephemera and a lot of patience for scanning?! I have no idea but I am eternally grateful. Her connected 15,000 image strong Flickr site is amazing too. Some of the images are very high quality indeed...hmmm....
I discovered this blog via a couple of links from Carson Ellis's site (as you do). If you know the band The Decemberists, you'll be familiar with her gorgeous artwork.



Saturday 1 August 2009

A Lady's Load

Above: Yesterday I completed this wooden assemblage of painted and saw-cut figures, inspired by those in the costume treasure trove of Racinet. They are part of the Lady series which I started a month or two ago. I might pause with them here as I have the sudden idea to paint odd subjects on a completely different sort of material (I'm so mysterious). If the results are worth showing, I will post them here in due course. Above: the lady and her load, disassembled and resting on a quilt that I made a very long time ago.