posted: May 13, 2009

How've you been? I've been busy with potty training (I thought it was about time), visiting the Jurassic Coast, learning tree names and identifying cloud combinations- it's my fatherly duty to start knowing these things. Plus getting my head round a bit of Kant (settle down at the back, I'm talking epistemology) and building a vegetable patch. But you're here for the drawings, right?

Right!

After last time's decorative excursions, I'm back to what Matt Curtius called the Big Metaphor.

The pile of books piece is a cover for the Guardian Review on the decline of serious non-fiction (a nice mood piece rather than heavy symbolism referencing an observation in the copy about the Manhattan-ite habit of leaving one's book collection when moving apartment).

The safari snow-globe one is for the Boston Globe on indigenous people- the people most in tune with, and best qualified to manage their environment being displaced by the creation of protected national park areas.

And here's another Guardian (Money section) cover on the subject of tarting up one's home to lure hordes of prospective buyers. This one tips its hat (ahem) to Alfred Leete's famous 'The Lure of the Underground' poster (below) which hung on my wall for a few years when I was a lad.

posted: April 14, 2009

all set to rattle off another post mere days after my last and freak everyone out with my rapid fire, almost Twitter-esque posting but stuff intervened and I thought I'd wait for the 2.0 makeover dust to settle.

Testing out my decorative chops I devoured an archaic technical book about pattern design and churned out the following. Gift wrap? textiles? cards?

Jack & the Beanstalk's for (who else) Soo Jin at PLANSPONSOR

A quick update: the book I alluded to was, 'Pattern Design' by Lewis F. Day, first published in 1903 (and hardly updated since).

I'd asked for a recommendation from a friend [the enormously talented Agnes Kolignan who'd studied fashion print and now works for the likes of Givenchy and Balmain] for a good pattern primer. She said there were two course staples but both were outdated, technical and fairly impenetrable. One was the Day book, the other was 'Principles of Pattern Design' by Richard M.Proctor.

I'm sure there's probably more accessible stuff on the internet about constructing repeats. It's just about getting your head around the tricks of tessellation

posted: March 12, 2009

...another two months slip by without a post. I feel like I've neglected to call my parents- the longer the time passes the greater the paralysing guilt.

So how've you been keeping, Mum [ok Linzie]? Here are a few editorial spots to show for my absence. I'll try and ration my total output for January and February rather than- as is my wont- splurge the whole lot on you in a single post.

Away from work, a highlight of the time since my last post was a week spent in London housesitting for friends . The family Allen were immersed in all the metropolis has to offer (culture, gridlock, knife fights). I also managed to cram in a few work assignments. All in all it was super and made me pine a bit for The Smoke, though it's fairly easy to hanker after the life of the idle aesthete holed up in a sumptuously appointed townhouse (albeit hemmed on all sides by crack house estates). Such a Flaneur's existence had very little in common with my actual London experience- 13 years served. House envy and nostalgia aside, London left me feeling very upbeat about life and work. It could simply be a case of spring arriving but I'm trying my best to maintain my unseemly (dare I say it, almost American) levels of positivity, mainlining caffeine when my newfound joi de vivre flags.

Another point of interest in February was my grandfather's funeral. Is it ghoulish or bad form to say how enjoyable a funeral was? I mean it was a sombre occasion and everything but braving arctic conditions to get to rural Oxfordshire was pretty exciting and being with my family was a peculiarly joyful experience. I'll not attempt to eulogize Richard Allen senior (1915-2009) here but he was almost certainly the source of my artistic leanings. Plus some of my wit and irrascibility.
 

Editorial

posted: January 21, 2009

A few pot boilers. Fairly interesting subjects.

For the 'Drowning in Wrinklies' (sounds like a Sioux carehome orderly, no?) piece the article's about how the number of those aged 65+ is expected to double in the next 25 years. Supposedly, a good thing for all, but with serious consequences for the way we organise our societies and economies.

The other's on the subject of Shrove Tuesday- or Pancake Day
The Brits are a little more restrained than the Americans when it comes to crepes- we tend to have a few with a sprinkling of sugar and a dash of lemon juice rather than what I understand is the traditional US portion (a stack of 30 with maple syrup, butter and bacon all served from a defibrillator cart).

Editorial

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