Tag Archives: artwork

I Know That Feel Bro!

Got problems? I know that feel bro!

But no one illustrates shared problems quite as awesomely as artist Chris Gerringer.

Gerringer’s I Know That Feel Bro quirky series of illustrations takes fictional pop culture characters and draws them side-by-side, consoling each other in their shared misery.  A problem shared is a problem halved, right? And judging by his drawings, a lot more cute too!

That very basic description strips it down into sounding a lot less witty, clever, funny and adorable than it actually is, so I’m going to let his artwork do the talking with a few of my favourites show below. And any grown man that is unafraid to show their knowledge of Pokemon gets two thumbs up from me!

Half of the fun is guessing the characters and shared connections but I also know that it’s extremely infuriating when you have no idea who the hell certain people are (my video game knowledge is clearly not up to scratch!), so Gerringer’s fun titles and the characters depicted are written at the bottom of each pic. So make sure you get your guesses in before scrolling down too far!

(The top photo is my all-time favourite, Itty Bitty Living Space, featuring Pikachu and Disney’s Genie from Aladdin. Come on, I didn’t need to tell you that one, did I?!)

Second fave, Genetic Experiments. Stitch AND Wolverine… when else would you ever see these two together?! And that’s what makes the series so great.

Addicted To Dots – PacMan and Hungry Hippo

Always Kinda Emo – Eeyore and Cloud from Final Fantasy. Yeah… I know nothing about Final Fantasy but HOW CUTE IS EEYORE. SO SQUISHY.

Being Green – The Hulk and Kermit

Gotta Have Rings – Sonic the Hedgehog and Captain Planet (he’s the hero, bringing pollution down to zero!).

Imaginary Friend – Hobbes and Tyler from Fight Club. Clever.

Nose Problems – Pinocchio and Rudolph. Rudolph’s tiny little ears… squee!

Overbearing Fairies (just the title made me laugh) – Link from Zelda and Peter Pan

Premature Baldness – Professor X and Charlie Brown

Scientifically Demoted – Triceratops and Pluto. Another chuckle out loud moment.

Unintelligible Speech – Beaker and Chewbacca.

…and finally, because Arrested Development always wins…

Blue Yourself – Tobias and Dr Manhattan from Watchmen. To be honest, it could just be a never-nude Tobias and I’d still find it just as hilarious.

And errr… just because… go, Jigglypuff!

Check out the rest of the I Know That Feel Bro series and more of Gerringer’s brilliant illustration work on his website and DeviantArt page – Pokemon fans, you’re in for a treat, trust me!

Forgotten Fine Art: The Cityplaza Copper Suite

In Hong Kong, you can often find pretty things in the strangest places… which often means discovering fine art in the most mundane of anonymous corporate offices.

Such was the case with this stunning series of plaques entitled The Cityplaza Copper Suite by Australian sculptors Joan Walsh Smith and Charles Smith in Tai Koo’s Cityplaza complex of buildings.

I was taken aback by the level of detail in these – you could spend ages poring over these still find even more interesting and clever little vignettes revealing themselves in the copper artwork. The style reminds me a little of Jan Pieńkowski’s silhouette illustrations for the Joan Aiken books I used to read when I was little. Click on each photograph to enlarge and zoom in  and you can check out some of the detail for yourselves!

Each ‘Rondo-Progression’ has a different theme (unfortunately, I forgot to note them down, bad blogger, slaps wrist!) but I believe they were The Arts, Food, Leisure and Work. My favourite is probably The Arts with its striking centre-piece of the two Chinese theatre masks and loads of other dynamic pictures surrounding it – it’s almost like it’s alive with movement!

You can’t really tell from the pictures (which have distorted the light reflections weirdly) but these are made from copper, which is even more stunning and vivid in real life – and I loved the way the light reflected and bounced off these pieces, making them even more vibrant.

It seems a shame that these are tucked away in a place most people wouldn’t even notice so hopefully this post does its bit to show them off to the rest of the world!

I wish all atlases looked like this!

One of my favourite Pretty Things posts on here is still my blog on the gorgeous travel posters by Brazilian illustrator, Fernando Volken Togni – the colour, the detail, the style, everything! (And I updated it to feature his most recent additions to the series so do check it out!)

Inspired by these, and also the somewhat similar Scandinavian postcards I featured from Ikea, I wanted to share with you these lovely pictorial maps by Canadian artist, Marisa Seguin that I discovered via Design Work Life – and just as I wanted Togni’s work on my walls, I want Seguin’s right up there with it!

What sets these apart for me are the strict but stunning colour palettes she has used for each piece. Again, it’s hard to pick a favourite – the icy cool blues and purples of Vancouver, the strikingly vibrant pinks and turquoise of Venice, the dreamy romantic pastels of Paris, the vivid riot of brights that makes up San Francisco or the dusty sepia tones of Seguin’s current base, Milwaukee.

I also love the level of detail that’s gone into illustrating each of the landmarks; sadly, I haven’t visited any of the cities in question (apart from Paris, which I honestly think looks far more charming here than it does in real life!) but if I do, I’ll be toting one of these and navigating my way in style!

Hope you enjoy these as much as I did – and you can check out more of Seguin’s work on her website or buy these as prints from her Etsy shop.

And I loved the Jellyfish one so much, I couldn’t resist sticking it on here too!

The Beauty of Lillian Bassman

I hadn’t previously heard of a fashion photographer called Lillian Bassman, yet when I came across some of her images in a Saturday Times Magazine a few months back, I wondered – why the hell not?! (Shown above: Anne Saint-Marie, Chanel advert, 1958)

Her work is simply exquisite. When I think of the golden age of fashion photography, I think of names like Richard Avedon, Cecil Beaton and Lord Snowdon. Now I’ll also think of Lillian Bassman.

More Fashion Mileage Per Dress, Barbara Vaughn, 1956

Her photographs manage to feel both of their period, yet timelessly classic, yet also startlingly modern; it’s almost impossible to distinguish some of her earliest work from some of her latest. Working mostly in black and white, some have a noir-ish feel to them, others feel like they could be stills from an old movie or as if you’re intruding on an (immaculately-attired) personal moment.

It’s A Cinch,  Carmen, 1951

The underwear series is breathtakingly erotic, and you can barely even see the models’ faces; there’s something unbelievably wraith-like, ethereal and sensual about how the lines have been softened and blurred. And all this without distracting from the stunning beauty of the couture outfits photographed in her work, especially from the 50s (cue obligatory Mad Men reference), which are simply stunning.

Barbara Mullen, 1950

Bassman achieved many of the effects in her photographs by post-procesing manipulation in the dark room, blurring, burning and bleaching them, adding some details by hand later on (as in the photo above, hand-painting all the polka dots back in!). The use of shade and light is just phenomenal – after all, it has to be to get noticed and raved about by an art novice like me!

‘There are things that I think are marvellous and there are also pictures where I look at a particular crop and think “How awful. I couldn’t have done that. It’s mediocre”. But are you ever completely happy? No, thank goodness, or you’d stop. I think I’ll go on for ever’.

Incredibly, Bassman trashed many of her negatives in bin bags in the 1970s; they re-surfaced in the 90s, along with a greater appreciation of Bassman’s art. Even now, in her 90s, she continues to work, using digital technology and Photoshop to manipulate and make something new out of her old photographs.

Fantasy On The Dance Floor, Barbara Mullen, 1949

I love how she combines art with fashion – ‘For me, it was about the gesture, the neck, the throat, the arch of the back’. Here are just a few of my favourites (remember to click for enlargements) and hopefully now a few more of you will discover the beauty of Lillian Bassman!

Lingerie, 1951

Olga

The Line Lengthens, 1955

The Dressing Room

Wonders of Water, 1959

Paris: Dinner At Nine, Barbara Mullen, 1949

Barbara Mullen wearing Jean Patou, 1949

Across The Restaurant, Barbara Mullen wearing Jacques Fath, 1949

Barbara Mullen Blowing A Kiss, c.1950

The V-Back Evenings, Suzy Parker, 1955

Black And White, Mary Jane Russell, 1950

Golden Fox, Blue Fox, Marilyn Ambrose, 1954

Eve L Tripp Las Vegas, 1948

Dovima, 1954

Night Bloom, Annaliese Seubert, top gown Givenchy by Galliano, bottom by Christian Dior, 1996 (can’t believe these are so new, they’d fit right in with the rest, right?)

Silk Organdie, Embroidered And Printed, Barbara Mullen, gown by Irene, 1955

Untitled, Model in Gloves and Pearl Earrings, 1950

Betty Threat, 1957

Mary Jane Russell, 1950

Outtake, Harper’s Bazaar, November 1948

Polka Dots On The Run, 1960 (love the expression in the model’s eyes)

Back, Barbara Mullen, 1950

Touch Of Dew, Lisa Fonssagrives, 1961

Chanel advert, 1963 (despite the manipulation, there’s no mistaking that jacket!)

Untitled, 2008

And ending with one of my favourites… just captures a mood and movement so perfectly…Untitled, Model with Raincoat and Umbrella, 1950

For more of Bassman’s work, check out: http://f56.net/kuenstler/lillian-bassman/lillian-bassman/, http://blog.daum.net/sooy0098/7706383 (which makes my Antivirus have a fit but doesn’t seem to do any harm), this Lillian Bassman Flickr album and this Lillian Bassman Facebook fan page, from where many of these photos were taken from.

Quotes taken from Saturday Times Magazine, 17 May 2011.

Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies @ HK Heritage Museum – Like peas in a pod!

During our trip to the Pixar: 25 Years Of Animation exhibition at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, we had a quick scoot round the rest of the place. Emphasis on quick – you’ll have noticed my usual grumble about crappy café quality (see Museum of Coastal Defence, History Museum and Botanical Gardens posts for further moaning) was missing from the Pixar write-up… because this time there wasn’t an eating facility at all!

Sadly, nothing was as awesome as the colourful display of Fei-Fei’s plus-sized cheongsams we stumbled upon when we visited the Age Of Couture Exhibition (a greater aesthetic juxtaposition you could not imagine!). Yes, HK ‘affectionately’ nicknamed their much-beloved actress cum singer cum media personality Lydia Sum something that translates as ‘Fatty’!

This time, we happened upon the Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies exhibition – or what of it had been placed in the foyer of the second floor. Dozens of identical ‘Tin Tin’ figurines, all decorated, styled and re-imagined in different ways by various home-grown artists and designers.

It was fascinating to see how so many people could take one identical thing and end up with something so different yet still recognisable. Designs ranged from the beautiful to the comical to the bizarre to the slightly macabre (I didn’t take a photo of the one that had been mocked up to look like a see-through human body, with all the vital organs glowing inside, as it freaked me out too much), whilst many had a uniquely HK flavour – one had a map of our MTR system, another had silhouettes of our trademark bamboo scaffolding system with workers hanging out un-harnessed and causing heart attacks to Western Health & Safety bodies.

My favourites were the ones who thought ‘outside the box’ and mixed it up a little. I noticed that whilst many of the fashion and accessory designers decorated their models, the artistes chose to do more abstract things – like one completely encased in a steel box, with just that recognisable pointing finger sticking out, or the one that appears to be melting. I was engrossed by the one that seemed to have sprouted alarmingly naturalistic-looking roots and was even growing foliage up top!

The only HK artist whose work I recognised instantly was Prudence Mak. That distinctive bright patchwork style couldn’t belong to anyone but the founder of cute quirky local brand, Chocolate Rain, who you will hear more of later…! Apologies for the picture quality – I haven’t figured out how to minimise the reflections caused by the glass cases – so I’ve compared it with a nice HQ photo from the Heritage Museum’s website so you can see it in all its detailed technicolour glory!

Hopefully these will be kept together as a display once the exhibition has ended and housed somewhere else, as they’re far more powerful and dynamic as a collection rather than if they were split up. It’s certainly nothing to warrant a special visit to the Heritage Museum (though apparently there was a Creative Ecologies gallery that I was too hungry to visit), but it’s a cool little diversion nonetheless! Enjoy!

Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies, 5 Feburary-11 May 2011, Hong Kong Heritage Museum, 1 Man Lam Road, Sha Tin, 2180 8188. See Hong Kong: Creative Ecologies Website for further details.

$10 admission, free on Weds. Opening hours: 10am-6pm, 7pm on Sunday and public holidays. Closed Tuesdays.

Here comes the bride…

Traditional but modern, simple but extravagant, classic but youthful, a homage to Diana but absolutely nothing like Diana’s at all… it seems like everyone has an opinion on what THE dress should be like. THE dress being (obviously! what else!) Kate Middleton’s wedding gown.

As you might already know, I am impossibly excited about the Royal Wedding – seriously, I’ve been welling up just watching the archive stuff in the documentaries that every channel over here is showing – and I can’t wait to see what Princess Catherine will be wearing down the aisle. It seems I’m not the only one though; there have been dozens of designers queuing up to offer their take on a suitable outfit – well, I guess it’s not every day you get to dress a real princess!

Two of my favourites by Alberta Ferretti and Valentino (inspired by a Botticellian Venus)

Since you know I’m also a fan of pretty things, dress sketches (like those gorgeous Robert Best Barbie ones), weddings and the idea of being a princess in general, these wedding dress drawings are like a culmination of everything that gets me cooing with pleasure. Some were done for a feature on WWD, others by Project Runway alumni for My Lifetime.com (the folk behind William & Kate: The Movie), others for The Times fashion section (scanned in thanks to the paywall, sorry for the quality) and Mad Men designer Janie Bryant (banner picture) seems to have done it solely for her own pleasure!

There were some wacky ones – black, yellow, red, Gothic, futuristic, Boudicca-inspired, denim, feathers, knitwear – and some interpretations of Princess Kate’s face leave a little to be desired but these are a collection of my favourites. Enjoy!

Series of three amazing gowns designed by Pronovias from Confetti.co.uk

From the WWD feature (see all dresses here)

Two of my favourites, J. Mendel and Jason Wu

Two of the most romantic designs by Nina Ricci and Lela Rose

‘A patchwork lace dress reminds us all that a true princess can mend and make do!’ Nanette Lepore

Yigal Azrouel, Tommy Hilfilger


Tory Burch, Lyn Devon (one of the more successful minimalist designs), Rachel Roy

Reem Acra, Rebecca Taylor

Monique Lhuillier

Doo.Ri, Vera Wang (whose bride looks angry! I found Vera’s a bit disappointing as she’s renowned for her bridalwear)

Prabal Gurung

Chado Ralph Rucci (‘NO GLITTER!’), Maria Grachvogel (from The Times)

From the My Lifetime.com feature (see all dresses here)

Simone Le Blanc, Ivy Higa

Irina Shabayeva (more of a runway dress but still stunning) and Carol Hannah Whitfield, which features a removable overskirt for the ‘par-tay!’

Mila Hermanovski with my favourite minimal design of the lot, Leanne Marshall (I love how it looks like a blooming flower or like it’s rising from the ocean froth)

Heidi Nora, Shirin Askari

Two of the more conceptual dresses that actually worked, even if I can’t imagine Kate actually wearing them! Gordana Gelhausen’s Maid Marian-esque gown and Michael Drummond’s fusion between ‘ancient folklore’ and two of his favourite British fashion houses, Marchesa and McQueen

Wesley Nault, Vincent Libretti (love that abstract drawing style, even if the design itself doesn’t amount to much!)

Daniel Franco, Christopher Collins (that skirt looks like a butterfly wing!)

Scanned from The Times

Suzanne Neville, Mark Fast (famous for his use of knitwear)

Viktor & Rolf: quirky and obviously not suitable, but too cute not to include!

Barbie: still the Best

Obviously, if I had known about this calendar instead, Heiner Meyer would be sitting gathering dust in a bookshop in Hong Kong.

For those of you too lazy to click the link, the coveted calendar in question is a Barbie one. No, wait, come back! Not just any old Barbie calendar but one featuring gorgeous fashion sketches of everyone’s favourite blonde bimbo. Except she’s not always blonde and her outfits are way too classy for anyone to be calling her the b-word. [Banner picture: 50th Anniversary Glamour and Generation Of Dreams Barbies – the latter's skirt is a collage of images of Barbie throughout her fifty years.]

My absolute favourite – The Artist. Totally my colours, totally my style… If only I could look this good in a beret!

They’re by Robert Best, a former Project Runway contestant, who has been designing outfits for Barbara Millicent Roberts for the past 15 years. He is the main designer behind the highly coveted Silkstone Collection (also known as the Fashion Model Collection), which use the retro face, hair and make-up style of the original 1960s dolls, and the occasional special edition Barbie, like those in the banner picture, too. The beautiful couture outfits and attention-to-detail are amazing – these certainly aren’t dolls for practising your hair-cutting and decapitation skills on!

Violette & Tribute Barbie (celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Silkstone Collection)

I am absolutely head over heels for these sketches. I tend to love the style of  girlie fashion sketches anyway but these are even more stunning than most. Firstly, the clothes are amazing and the detail is exquisite. You can feel every ruffle, see every flower. The sense of movement, texture and weight created by just pencil and watercolour (I think!) is astounding. We’re not just talking about the dresses though – it goes as far as fabrics, shoes, hair accessories, jewellery and just about everything else you could think of. Everything just goes together so wonderfully. I want Barbie’s wardrobe!

Second favourite – Market Day Barbie. Love the colours, love the flowers, love the eyeshadow!

Secondly, lots of fashion illustrations skimp on the face, often omitting eyes, nose and mouth all together. Not Best. As you can see from some of the gorgeous close-ups, there’s more expression going on in some of these sketches than in Nicole Kidman’s last few acting roles. A tilt of the head here, a seductive pout of the lips there, a sultry sweep of the eyes – these drawings give a better modelling masterclass than Tyra herself! I love how he even does matching eyeshadow too – Best does a better smoky eye than me!

I do have some history with Barbie (my parents were beginning to despair of the sight of her when I was ordering collectible ones on a near weekly basis from Ebay) but she has literally never looked better than when drawn with Best’s pencil. It’s something about the perfect slant of the eyes and the way their hair falls just so. In fact, I think most of the drawings look prettier than the dolls themselves and I’ve thrown in a few like-for-like comparisons for you to make up your own minds!

The Siren – drawing vs doll comparison

Finally, there’s just some magic about them. The below sketches of Hollywood Honey and Red Hot Review (“On The Set”) best epitomise how evocative Best’s work is; you just know these are glamorous divas from the Golden Age of Hollywood, with just a few strokes of the pencil. All of these sketches feel like they’re from some other time but without looking old and dated, settling for supremely classy and elegant instead.

I think I’ve banged on enough. All of these pictures are taken from mawphoto.com’s excellent Flickr set ‘Robert Best Illustrations’, where there are hundreds more drawings for your viewing pleasure. You could be a cheapo and frame pictures from the calendar once 2011 is over but if you can’t wait that long, you can buy framed limited edition prints here and here. Now I’ll try and keep schtum whilst you enjoy the rest of these beauties and remember to click for enlargements – it’s worth it!

Third favourite. This is getting silly now…

Delphine (the first proper Silkstone Barbie) from a sketchier drawing to a more polished one. This dress reminds me of the one Grace Kelly won her Oscar in.

Parisienne Pretty drawing vs doll, round 2. I want these shoes!

Haut Monde; Southern Belle

Garden Party & Barbie as Betty Draper from Mad Men (I can totally see Betty working the other look too!)

Secretary; Tout de Suite; Nurse. I really love how stylised all these looks are (and does anyone else think sexy Nurse looks a little Chinese?!)

Black Enchantment – this dress with Parisienne Pretty’s shoes. Please?!

Fashion Editor, Showgirl, Fashion Designer

Stolen Magic, In The Pink (hello Liz Taylor!), Stealing The Spotlight

Capucine in 3 ways

Congrats! You made it to the end of my most picture-heavy, time-consuming post since the Qi Pao. You have my permission to eat a chocolate digestive as reward.

Calendar Girls

Every year, I (or someone I know) treats me to a Marilyn Monroe calendar. Alas, I couldn’t find one for just Marilyn this year (of course, I couldn’t move for ones of Audrey Hepburn) so this Heiner Meyer art calendar, Glamour, was the best I could do.

Meyer uses a mixed media approach, painting over and around photographs of classic stars from the 50s and 60s to create new images, often with pop-art influences. My calendar tells me: ‘Meyer’s art is always re-creation (never repetition), while his visual vocabulary is declined and conjugated differently in each work’. Got that?!

Fancy lingo aside, I do really like many of these pieces – he’s created dynamic, vibrant and visually-appealing palettes and textures, making something new and interesting out of things that were old and static. I’m glad he’s also used some less obvious stars like Rita Hayworth, Natalie Wood and Lana Turner… hell, in these Hepburn-obsessed times, even Elizabeth Taylor is a bit of a curveball! That being said, my favourite is the banner picture of Audrey Hepburn – I just love the romantic swirls of colour and the sense of whimsy that’s very Audrey.

Those of you that can count will notice that I’ve only featured eleven images, despite there being twelve months. That’s because one was of Kate Moss, who I just don’t think fits in with the rest of these true iconic beauties. Censorship at its best!

If you’re reading this Meyer, next stop please – Veronica Lake!

Tan-tastic Pixar posters this way…

Movie website Slash Film churns out so many posts that amongst all the half-stories, rumours and non-news, there’s inevitably some pretty cool stuff too. If you know me, you’ll know I love all things Disney so these concept posters for various Pixar fims, by artist Eric Tan, are totally up my street.

Once I was redirected to his blog, I realised I was familiar with Tan’s work already – the two posters above were designed for Disney’s beautiful coffee table book, The Art Of The Disney Princess, which features various artists’ re-imaginings of Disney princesses in all sorts of styles, although it lacks much description of the inspirations and processes behind the artwork (expect to see many more Pretty Things posts taken from this in the future!). These pieces instantly stood out as I love these strong stylised graphics with a hint of retro behind them – I particularly love the super-cute fairies on the Sleeping Beauty poster and how Aurora’s hair is turning into licks of flames.

Tan’s posters are all based on the retro posters for Disney rides found in all Disney theme parks. They generally have a 50s/60s travel poster vibe (even the newer posters are designed to ape the old style) and are bright, simple but striking and immensely charming. These probably deserve a post all of their own but for now, you can check some out here, here and here.

Don’t get me started on how wonderful, beautiful and lovely Up is (I now manage to start crying even before the title-card, just because I know what’s coming) and the film itself has a very colour-saturated, whimsical feel to its artwork, which is totally captured within Tan’s posters too. They look dated in the best way possible, like they’ve been much loved over the years and could have come straight out of Ellie’s Adventure book – Tan has cleverly even drawn in fold-marks too!

The Incredibles is right up there on my list of favourite films ever, never mind favourite Pixar films, and these posters fit in perfectly with the retro superhero aesthetic that those superb opening credits instantly encapsulated (I’m now humming that bombastic score in my head as we speak!). I really love the strong dynamic colour palette used in these posters – have Jack Jack and Edna (in the banner) ever looked cuter?!

Meanwhile, the posters for Wall-E are retro-futurism at its best and could be added to the posters for Tomorrowland errr… tomorrow and not feel out of place. M-O was a bit of a scene-stealer for me so I can’t help but raise a smile on seeing his poster… a few more character-led posters might have been nice but you can’t help but appreciate the nature of the artwork itself.

Finally, Tan’s posters for Ratatouille. These were based on the artwork of A. M Cassandre, an artist I wasn’t familiar with by name but whose style is instantly recognisable in these prints. These are more reminiscent of vintage adverts for French food and drink but again, fit perfectly with the design and concept of the film itself (alas, not one of my favourites so I have slightly less love for these posters than the rest, hence my not featuring all of them – sorry Remy fans!).

Completely charming, highly creative and utterly delightful. Let’s just hope Tan gets to work his magic on every Disney/Pixar film in the foreseeable future!