Carnival Kaleidoscope

Moomba Kaleidoscope :: Salvador 84 // Alfred Infrared // No flashI have been busy as a little bee the past few days, but I found time to squeeze in two trips to the Moomba Carnival over the long weekend break. I could not resist the lure of bright lights, and fairground games; Spanish churros and scary clowns or fireworks and ferris wheels. The evenings were so warm you’d think it was still summer. I managed to snap nearly 300 Hipstas and over 400 photos on my DSLR; here are some favourites.

Bettie XL Lens // Blanko Film // RedEye Gel FlashChunky Lens // Alfred Infrared Film // Standard FlashChunky Lens // Ina's 1969 Film // RedEye Gel FlashTejas Lens // Blanko Noir Film // No FlashJohn S Lens // BlacKeys SuperGrain Film // No FlashMelodie Lens // BlacKeys SuperGrain Film // Cadet Blue Gel Flash

Blue Orange Tree

Recently I purchased a beautiful book on George Barbier, the Art Deco artist and illustrator.

I was inspired by some of his illustrations to create some yardage pattern designs of foliage to use in my own illustrations. Here’s my never-ending blue orange tree. These ink drawings of leaves and oranges were tiny, under a centimetre in size, and have been enlarged about 400% to create a chunky effect.

And here's a detail of Barbier's gorgeous original that inspired it.

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!

Big-Eyed Monsters

One night walking home down Chapel St a couple of years ago, I took photos of the cutest, most monstrous ‘window art’ I ever did see.

The Chapel St Precinct runs for about 2km, and the shops run the gamut from high end designer boutiques to inexpensive chainstores. About a quarter of the way down from the top end there was a strange little empty shop that seemed to have once upon a time sold support hosiery for the disabled. I remember dusty legs encased in elasticised fabric displayed in the front window.

This was quite amusing, but it was the windows themselves that caught my attention: they were plastered over with these quaint drawings of toothy monsters, with pink paint dribbling down like gore. Their faces were dominated by ferocious eyes, wicked little grins and a multitude of patterns.

I say ‘were’, because sadly the legs are gone and the monsters have been scraped off. The store is now, I believe, a luxury leathergoods boutique. 

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.