Sunday 25 May 2014

TASTY PICTURES

Readers of this blog will know that I am a lover of photography and, among the many specialist exponents of that art, I have particular admiration for those who photograph food for cookbooks and cuisine journalism.

Romas Foord (left) is the stepson of a friend at The Magic Circle and his own unique camera magic has recently won him two major accolades as one of the winners of Books, Broadcast and Journalism Awards given by The James Beard Foundation and the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Award for 'Visual Work of the Year'. The book that contains this award-winning photography is Historic Heston, in which Heston Blumenthal takes a journey through several centuries of British food.

Romas Foord's photographs are exquisitely composed, stunningly lit and, as a result, are achingly beautiful, evoking the feeling of 17th Century still life paintings of the Dutch Masters.

Look and marvel...








Glorious aren't they?

Romas Foord has a wide variety of photographic styles in his portfolio - here are a few examples...






...Now go and visit his website and enjoy more delicious images!


Sunday 18 May 2014

FRANKLY CAPRICIOUS

We all have our favourite films, some of us also have favourite directors: Hitchcock, perhaps, Lean, Spielberg, Ridley Scott or the Cohen Bros.

One my favourite Favourite Directors is a man who made a whole slew of my favourite pictures – the fact that many of them garnered Oscars and have gone on to be ranked among the greatest American movies ever made, suggests that my passion is one shared by many, many others. I am talking about Francesco Rosario Capra - better known as Frank Capra – who was born on this day 117 years ago – May 18, 1897.

Some people referred to his films as "Capra-corn", but those without an aversion to the use of polemic and sentiment in the cinema, see his movies as being life-enhancing reflections of the struggles, dreams and aspirations of a generation of Americans and, wider than that, millions of ordinary folk the world over.

Those films include: Platinum Blonde, The Bitter Tea of General Yen, the five-Oscar-winning It happened One Night, Mr Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take it With You, Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Meet John Doe, Arsenic and Old Lace and, to my mind, his greatest film (though it was less than  successful when it was released in 1946) It's A Wonderful Life... 


Among the stars who populated this American Dreamworld were Clark Gable, Claudette Colbert, Jean Harlow, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Ronald Colman, Carey Grant, Lionel Barrymore, Barbara Stanwyck, Jean Arthur and James Stewart, seen here at the end of in one of the great scenes in cinema: Jefferson Smith's filibuster speech in congress observed by the implacable Claude Raines... 


You can discover more about Capra in this radio feature that I made for the BBC's arts programme, Kaleidoscope, in 1997, to mark the filmmaker's 100th birthday... 

Frank Capra - It's A Wonderful Life Story



Thursday 15 May 2014

HERE'S A PRETTY HOWDA-DO

From the back of a cupboard comes...

This charming elephant tea-pot...


...er... NOT!

Tuesday 13 May 2014

WELL, I'LL BE BLOGGERED!

Well, after 1,781 posts (including this one), some 150,000 page-views, 9,350 comments (thank you, dear readers), this little blog of mine is, today, celebrating its 8th Birthday!


Click on the following links to read a few of my all-time favourite blog posts that you may have missed...











ENJOY!!

Wednesday 7 May 2014

ILLUSTRIOUS ILLUSTRATIONS


So what is it all about...?

Any regular reader of this blog will know that I have a number of favourite illustrators – some of whom I am proud to call my friends. One such is John Vernon Lord (left: self-portrait, aged 22), a prolific illustrator who (like several of my favourite illustrators, past and present) has an astonishing capacity for creating pictures of the most amazing detail and complexity...

Over the years, John has used his unique gift for pen-craft to embellish an eclectic slice of literature from Aesop's fables, the Icelandic sagas and the Arthurian legends sagas to the nonsense worlds of Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll...


...not to mention his classic children's book, The Giant Jam Sandwich, which has been in print now for over forty years...


April and May 2014 are turning into a positive John Vernon Ward-fest as two new books hit the bookshops.

Last month saw the publication of Drawn to Drawing, an elegantly produced volume containing a wealth of previously unpublished material from the artist's sketchbooks and diaries, along with memoirs from Lord himself.

This essential chapter in the history of twentieth (and twenty-first!) century illustration offers an insight into the life and working practices of a master draughtsman is, as the publisher declares (without risk of being charged with hyperbole), "a must for any illustration fan". As you can see here...






The singular delight of this collection are the reproduction pages from John's notebooks and diaries that he fills with microscopically detailed sketches and doodles that demonstrate the discipline and penmanship of the miniaturist. You can see here just how small these consummate creations are...


And here are a few of those pages to marvel at...





Drawn to Drawing has an introduction by Posy Simmonds who writes:[John Vernon Lord]  draws words and writes pictures. He is a draughtsman of philosophical reflection… He is not the only illustrator who works from black line, but he is one of the few who uses it with such virtuosity..."

The book also contains a tribute from Raymond (The Snowman) Briggs and (I am proud and  honoured to say) myself. I can't express my admiration for John better than I expressed in the pages of this book...
A book of drawing by John Vernon Lord is more than just the work of a master draughtsman, it is house filled with windows onto worlds where the commonplace becomes suddenly extraordinary and the bizarre and the inexplicable seem surprisingly familiar
An artist of impeccable skill, he can create pen and ink designs filling the page with a staggering complexity of detail that recall the engraver’s craft or, by turn, execute elaborate dances of form and space that reveal him as a supreme choreographer of the drawing board that is his stage.
 You can order a copy of Drawn to Drawing here

Copies can also be purchased from The Illustration Cupboard, where original art and signed books by John Vernon Lord – and many other illustrators – can be viewed and bought. For details click here 

One of John's illustrations exhibited at The Illustration Cupboard is for James Joyce's Ulysses...


...which conveniently leads to mention John's latest illustrative project  a new edition of James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake, published by The Folio Society and launched this evening at a meeting of Imaginative Book Illustration Society to be held at the Art Workers' Guild in London.

Finnegan's Wake, which took the author seventeen years to complete, is full of puzzles and paradoxes, tricks and deceits, illusions and allusions. Which is why John set himself to understand the depths of this demanding text and to then embody in his illustrations cues and clues to Joyce's narrative.

Here are some examples of John's stunning visual interpretation...


 



You can read more about John Vernon Lord's illustrations to James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake here, and you'll find lots of examples of John's illustrative work regularly posted on his blogspot


And I'll end this long – but, I hope you'll agree, amazingly illustrated – post with a photo of John and I, last year, signing copies of our books to one another...


Sunday 4 May 2014

THE "M"PIRE STRIKES BLACK

It was news to me, despite being a reasonably-informed chocoholic: I somehow missed the fact that M&Ms have started making dark-chocy versions of their famous sweets: hence my puzzlement at receiving this 'date-sensitive' e-mail...


Fortunately, thanks to YouTube, I was able to track down this vintage (2007) cinema commercial that explains (sort of) M&M's defection to the 'Dark Side'!

It's quite a fad it seems...



When I left you, I was but the learner,
now I am the master... So pass the M&Ms!