Winter Has Its Moments

A Magnificent Gift

The start of a new year can be like opening a magnificent gift.

Moebius (Jean Giraud)

Some Words of Wisdom for the New Year

The World Hotel

Checking out . . .

Checking in . . .

Oh, Hey!

Oh, hey! It looks like I've got my new machine on line.

I hear firecracker explosions all around, in honor of the new year. Handle them things with care, will ya?

Arline Judge — Girl Crazy — 1932

Love, Comfort & Good Will

Okay, here's one of those bad news/good news kind of things.

Bad news is that my computer is finally kaput once and for all, even after months of replacement parts and repairs.

Good news is that I have a brand new magic machine to get up to speed, so I can finish my immediate deadline and maybe get back to some sort of normalcy.

Bad news is that right now, I'm coming to you from my iPad until I get up to speed, so I can't post my new year's images that I was gonna do.

Good news is at least I can type one letter at a time to wish you all a GOOD new year---with love, comfort and good will!

Art Remains A Mystery

A Treasure

Mucha is a treasure for the world, it being a better place because of him. I take comfort in looking at his work.

Alphonse Mucha — Hearst's International — December 1922

St-St-Stunning

It doesn't matter how often you have seen a particular stunning graphic by Mucha, it's stunning every time you see it!

Alphonse Mucha — Zodiac Panneau — 1896

This is a print I bought at a private museum in London.

A Child's Dream

I dunno, perhaps, perhaps, just perhaps this poster might have been an inspiration for Winsor McCay to dream up Little Nemo in Slumberland—coming out several years before Nemo's debut. Y'know, Nemo's dream friend Flip was a sort of a clown . . .

Well, anyway, this is a fun approach for a circus promotion, although the graphic layout could have been done a wee bit better by not spreading all the characters out so evenly.

Barnum & Bailey — circus poster — 1896

Happy End of Year, Still Time to Be Festive Week

Bob Pepper — holiday greeting card — 1980s

Have Yourself a Merry Little Winter

Helen Dryden — Vogue — 1920

Fancy Dress Fashions

I wanted to post this cover on the 15th, just to be timely, but on that day my plans were foiled.

Frank X. Leyendecker — Vogue — December 15, 1913

Ever-Glowing

Because of computer problems, I wasn't able to post up, in a timely fashion, some Christmas stuff I had ready to go. So while it's still a holiday week, and the computer is temporarily behaving, this is a glowful book cover by the ever-glowing Scott Gustafson. 

Let's pretend that this shows Santa coming home after his journeys to a private celebration at the Claus abode.

©1993 Scott Gustafson

Miss Me?

I'm BAAAaaackkk . . . 

Brian Bolland — Wonder Woman #63

Enchanted Source

This is a thermal sort of iPad photo taken on Christmas Day at Kensington Gardens, the enchanted source of Peter Pan's origin, and one of Arthur Rackham's inspirations for his illustrations. When I get home and get back up to speed, I plan to do a special journal edition on this subject.

I'll be in transit for a couple of days, so see you in a few.

Cool Yule Jewel

Dignified, yet tasty.

Tree Ornament

Searching for a good souvenir tree ornament . . . This is the the favored choice so far . . .

Such Fun

Store displays are such fun. Tinker Bell seems to be overshadowing Peter Pan in the scheme of marketing.

Frenetic Festival

London is also a frenetic festival at the Winter Wonderland carnival, bombarded by cacophonous music, flashing lights and elevated voices of merriment. My favorite part was the hot mulled wine and roasted chestnuts.

Peaceful Wishes

Thank you to my commenting cyber friends---peaceful wishes for you . . . and, hey, all the rest of you too.

Christmas Eve in London is a luvely time and place.

Phido Christmas

Harrod's has a Christmas gift department especially for pets, and this is my favorite item in there. I wish I could've afforded it for my dog. He'll just have to be happy with a stocking full of treats.

No Visible Means of Support

Now here's an interesting fellow with no visible means of support that sits around down by the London Eye.

'Tis the Season of Ebeneezer

I am delightedly haunted by the Spirit of Christmas Present in the heart of London.

Retro-esque Holiday

Taking the ferry back to the white cliffs of Dover, I couldn't resist snapping this retro-esque holiday graphic on board.

Calais Window Display

Quite a few winter wonderland displays here in Calais. I'm spending a lot of time sketching sites, scenes and architecture here and in London. Hope to show some of that sometime in January, assuming my magic machine will finally be re-enchanted.

Memorial Sculpture

Calais, France is a lovely ancient town that suffered WWII devastation. Shown below is a beautiful Art Deco memorial sculpture, one of a number of powerful sculptures scattered here-abouts.

Where I Am

Here's a fun Christmas/Winter window display, where I am right this minute, in Calais, France.

Heroic Portrait

This is a heroic portrait of the late Christian Blackwood, filmmaker (couldn't you tell?). He purchased this pastel drawing from me, so it's now floating around somewhere out there in the big wide world.

Aztec-ian Birds

This is a study of some birds we placed in painted murals of ancient Aztec times for a museum exhibition.

Passions

This is a pastel portrait of sorts of a Pro-Rodeo champeen bull wrestler guy or whatsomever they're called. I love doing portraits of people who are engrossed in their passions.

Picabo & the Fastest Man Alive

A cover portrait I rendered some years ago of Picabo Street and Michael Johnson, using pastel chalks:

Yo Yo Ma

Watercolor wash rendering

Coco

No real time for commentary right now, just enough time to start my alternative images from my portfolio. Let's start with portrait drawings, though some of you may have seen some of these on one of my other blogs.

A crayon drawing based on an old photograph of Coco Channel:

Breathe Deep

Well, girls and boys, imagine my surprise that my computer is going back to the shop for the same reason as the last three times since October 23. This coincides with a bit of traveling I'll be doing, so my posts will be coming to you, as this one is now, from my cute little iPad--for the foreseeable future.

Here's the thing. I had some nifty Christmas-sy images lined up, but didn't have opportunity to transfer them to this device. I could just opt out of posting for awhile, but I enjoy this bloggy stuff too much.

I have some of my portfolio stuff on the iPad, so at the risk of boring you, I'm going to be posting some of that--with some pieces that you may have seen on my other blogs and some not.

The geniuses promise me that they will do everything in their power to make this right for me, but it will take until after Christmas, due to waiting for a scarce part. There's even a slight possibility of a replacement machine, but there are complications with that as well.

So be that as it may (I've always wanted to use that phrase, though it doesn't really make sense to me), I will be bellying up to the (space) bar and post when and what I can.

If for some perverse choice of the Universe I am unable to follow thru with my Quixotic plans, I wish you all Happy Holidays (this is not just a Christian time of year, so back off all you holier-than-thouers, and show some tolerance for the rest of us sinners that have different ideas about this time of year!).

As one of my favorite artists (hi James!) has coined:

Breathe deep and seek peace.

"Dad, What Did You Do in the War?" "I Slept, Son, I Slept."

Speaking of my dad, and WWII, that's him below, full page in Life magazine, February 22, 1943, bless his tired soul. 

And the newspaper clipping verifying it:

All the Young Turks

Because of different camera angles, you probably don't see that much resemblance between the cocky young turk from the last post to the cocky young turk, below, that was me—at the basic same age and rank as my dad was. But we really looked alike, though he was much more fearless than me, though I don't think he ever rappelled out of a helicopter hovering at a hundred feet. Though he faced enemy fire many a time and I never did . . . phew.