Happy Early April

Well, it’s second month of autumn that dawned here in Melbourne, Australia, although the weather is still mostly pleasant – but it’s not quite springlike as this pretty picture suggests. There certainly aren’t any blossoming cherry trees!

The illustration is Fashion for Light Hearts, by Helen Dryden, and appeared in the Early April 1910 issue of British Vogue. The woman is wearing a Grecian-inspired gown, pleated all over. I am feeling light-hearted myself (despite the lack of cherry blossom), as the weekend is looming pleasantly ahead.

Happy first of the month! I do hope no-one made an April fool of you today. 

Scatter, Sprinkle, Squeeze

Goodness me, I nearly missed the fact that today is a very important holiday: Shrove Tuesday! Thank goodness one of my friends posted about it on Facebook this morning, and I was able to have crepes for breakfast after all.

I hope you enjoyed some too, and not ones poured out of a carton! Home-made pancakes are just too easy to make. Here’s how:

Skinny Pancakes (Crepes)
1 cup plain flour
1.5 cups milk (250mL)
1 egg
pinch salt 

Put flour into bowl. Add salt. Smash egg into it. Pour half of the milk into the bowl. Use whisk and briskly combine ingredients into a smooth batter. Pour in rest of milk. Whisk.

This entire process takes about three (3) minutes – or faster if you’re messy. That’s all. It is easy.

…you can of course start frying right away if you are desperate.

Leave batter to rest one half hour – this will make the batter lighter, but you can of course start frying right away if you are desperate.

I have a cast-iron French long-handled crepe pan that I only use to make pancakes. I use a bit of vegetable oil, and wipe it out with paper towel before I pour in about half a soup ladle of batter.

I eat them with a scattering of sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon. Delicious! You can eat them with whatever you want.

Happy Pancake Day!

Red (And Green) October

This delightful illustration graces the cover of the October 1917 edition of Vanity Fair. Unfortunately I don’t recognise the signature and was unable to track down the illustrator’s name online.

It’s all about the ellipse here: the skirt, the cuffs and collar; the loops of the rope; as well as the oval print on the dress. The circular composition leads one’s eye round and round, and it is amusing to note that the green rope has only one end! The illustrator must have decided this looked much neater than trying to fit in two tassels.

It’s interesting to reflect that such a light-hearted image was published in the same month of world-shaking events: the Russian Revolution came to a head and lead to the fall of the autocracy.

Time Marches On

Happy March, and Happy Autumn to boot! Autumn is my favourite season. So many people are complaining that summer is over already, and it was not much of a summer as it was. “How can it be?” they say on Facebook. I have to resist the temptation to facetiously utter punning clichés, ‘time marches on’ etc.

I have turned over another page of the calendar already, and here is a ‘Forecast of Autumn Fashions’, from the September 1923 edition of British Vogue. The illustration is by Georges Lepape. The woman is decked from head to foot in pumpkin orange.

Is any other colour more autumnal? Burnt orange is one of my favourite colours to wear, although it was not always so. I remember a hideous Fanta orange dress I owned when I was in my late teens. It was the end of the 80s, and I bought it cheaply from a market stall. It had white lace inserts in the pockets. Ironically, the shape of the dress was 20s inspired, with a drop waist—but nothing could save it, least of all the wrong shade of orange. 

The Snow Girl

Today I had to supply a sample portfolio to a prospective client. They are looking for illustrations with an exotic, fairy-tale like ambience. I sent them four illustrations, but after I did that I pulled out an old illustration of a girl bundled up in her heavily embroidered coat, dress and muff.

I decided she needed to be put into context: a fanciful winter landscape of blue and white with snow crystals drifting down. I’m still not sure what she’s looking at so intently though…