Yucky Adventures
Our hero Yucky, (on the left), is joined by his ‘beasties’After more than a year in the making (which is pretty quick, I’m told, in the digital book publishing world), the Yucky Adventure series has been launched into the world!
The Yuckies, horrid, dirty creatures that live in rubbish piles and fart and burp a lot, and get up to all sorts of mischief, nevertheless have an environmental tale to tell.
It gave me great pleasure to bring Bridget Cull’s words into technicolour – or rather, Windsor & Newton – life. One of the most fun aspects of illustrating these little beasties was creating their scaly, warty skin, using salt dropped into puddles of watercolour. Salt crystals have a magical effect on the paint, soaking up the liquid and concentrating the pigment to form misshapen lumps and bumps. It was a perfect technique to capture the crusty Yuckies. As for creating the animation out of traditional watercolour illustrations – well, that’s a tale for another time.
There are five stories in the series, and the first two are out now as apps (for iPad) with iPhone versions coming soon. Visit the iTunes App Store and search ‘The Yuckies’. And check out our video on YouTube now – I absolutely adore the cheeky music!
And PS, they might be gross and live in rubbish dumps, but they’re totally tech-savvy – find them on Facebook too.
This cheeky Yucky resides amongst the garbage pile, and loves his morning mud pie
One of my favourite scenes from Book 1: the Yuckies’ late night revels in the local park raises all sorts of dust and rumpus!
There is a way to stop them – can YOU figure out how?
A Regency Touch
Ball Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s RepositoryI am really obsessed with vintage fashion plates at the moment. No surprise about the vintage fashion bit, but it’s really the look of the antique colour-tinted illustrations from Regency fashion periodicals that I fancy.
The pages are yellow and foxed, which lends an appealing nostalgia, but it is the overall delicacy of each drawing that is so charming. Perhaps the pages are merely faded, but the linework seems to be rendered in a subtle grey rather than harsh black – or maybe that was just the quality of the ink?
Ball Dress, 1809, from Ackermann’s RepositoryColour is applied with a light touch, in the pastel shades so in favour during the Regency years: rose, pistachio, butter yellow, celestial blue, but white predominates, for this was the most appropriate hue for débutantes.
There is such exquisite detail in each of these drawings too, in the lace trimmings, the feather plumes nodding atop bonnets and the becoming pink flushing in these young ladies’ cheeks.
I’m being inspired to try my hand at a modern version, perhaps a series on those few vintage clothes I gave away long ago and subsequently infinitely regretted. An aptly nostalgic style for long-lost garments.
If you’d like to see more – lots more – the website of EK Duncan features several wonderful galleries.
Evening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Evening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Evening Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Walking Dress (just look at those darling lace-up slippers!), 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Walking Dress, 1815, from Ackermann’s Repository
Parisien dress, late 18th century 
Adorable jackets, a Roxburgh (left) and spencer (right), 1807, worn on top of walking dresses. Click through to read about the amazing Quinn, a modern-day Regency-loving chick who goes to great lengths to reproduce vintage garments.
A Tribute to Malory Towers
I love how awkward Darrell looks here, walking smash into Mam’zelleIn winter 2002, the Australian label Gorman printed a series of promotional cards that were inspired by Enid Blyton’s book series set in the English boarding school Malory Towers.
I came across them in the store Fat, and grabbed them up in gleeful joy, laughing so much over Darrell’s awkwardness as she smashes into Mam’zelle, and Mary-Lou’s deliciously hideous black eyes.
Mary-Lou looks fabulously sulky and surly with her hood drawn upIf you are familiar with Blyton’s series, you will know that most of these girls were good little girls who suffered through the usual trials and tribulations of teenage angst. They either learned their lessons well, and went on to become sensible, dependable young women that England could rely on, or they came to a bad end. This disagreeable and uncertain future was usually reserved for those whiny fat girls who didn’t like sports, or the ones obsessed with becoming an actress and wore far too much makeup.
What I love about the Gorman cards is that they totally subvert Blyton’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed storytelling (don’t get me wrong, I adored the books when I was 13), and these girls look altogether cooler and smarter than the original models.
Innocent mischief – if memory serves me, these pellets made one of their teaches sneeze endlessly
What is that nogoodnik Mary-Lou up to here?
Gorman’s Winter 2002 campaign
April Showers
‘Paris’, 1946, Columbia MasterworksIt’s April! And whether you’re in the Southern Hemisphere like me farewelling summertime, or in the Northern, looking forward to spring, you might be subjected to sudden bursts of April showers. That’s what this album in chilly blue makes me think of. But April is not all bad: this year we have Easter too – isn’t that rabbit illustration just perfect?
The art of both these albums is great; so quintessential of its times. The war had ended, and these illustrations are lighthearted and full of joie de vivre. Unfortunately, the credits don’t make it clear whether Alex Steinweiss drew the illustrations in addition to designing the covers.
‘Music of Cole Porter’, 1948, Columbia MasterworksAnd when those inconvenient rains come, just remember this Al Johnson song, April Showers: it’ll make you smile and maybe even give you a little hope.
Life is not a highway strewn with flowers,
Still it holds a goodly share of bliss,
When the sun gives way to April showers,
Here is the point you should never miss.
Though April showers may come your way,
They bring the flowers that bloom in May.
So if it's raining, have no regrets,
Because it isn't raining rain, you know, (It's raining violets,)
And where you see clouds upon the hills,
You soon will see crowds of daffodils,
So keep on looking for a blue bird, And list'ning for his song,
Whenever April showers come along.
And where you see clouds upon the hills,
You soon will see crowds of daffodils,
So keep on looking for a blue bird, And list'ning for his song,
Whenever April showers come along.
Erté, Eternally Elegant
Did you know Erté – the incredibly talented Russian-born fashion and stage designer of the early twentieth century – made up his own name? His full name was Romain de Tirtoff (or Roman Petrovich Tyrtov in Russian), and he took ‘Erté’ from the French pronunciation of his initials. Clever, huh? Very post-post-post modern of him, when you think of today’s celebrity acronyms like JLo and the heinous TomKat. (Any serious journalist who employs that term should be immediately sent to Coventry. But then, look at me, writing alliterative headlines!)
He was his own best publicist too, often wearing his own designs with theatrical flair. Most famously he donned a toreador outfit of gold lamé for an opera ball in Paris in 1926. He told Time magazine in 1982: “That night, the huge cape I designed was completely lined with fresh red roses which I tossed, one by one, at my audience as I descended the grand staircase.” [fashionising.com]
Erté (1892–1990) was born in St Petersburg, and designed his first costume at the age of five. He moved to Paris in 1912, and went on to fulfil his dream of becoming a fashion illustrator, contracting with Harper’s Bazaar, contributing to it for 22 years. Probably best-known for the elegant, sinuous flappers of his Art Deco drawings, Erté also designed gloriously extravagant costumes and sets for the Foliès-Bergere in Paris and White’s Scandals in New York.
In fact, it was exactly the predominantly black drawing (top) that came to my mind last Tuesday in Sydney, when I happened upon just such a fan hat as this lady is wearing. I’ll leave the entertaining story of how I got it through airport security for another time, but suffice it to say mine is at least two-and-a-half times bigger – literally a metre wide and dancing with ostrich plumes. I can now have all the private Erté moments at home I want, whenever I feel like it.
Read more or peruse the galleries of Erté’s beautiful work at the official website.
Images from fashionising.com