A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
This 9-minute film by Polish actor and director Mieczyslaw Waskowski was made in 1958. At that time Waskowski’s swirling blobs of paint in oil or water would have seemed merely abstract; a decade on and they would have unavoidable psychedelic or even cosmic connotations. Stanley Kubrick used similar effects for some of the shots in the Star Gate sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey only at much higher resolution and camera speed.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The abstract cinema archive
I don’t buy many of my own things from CafePress but I had some credit in the account from recent sales so I had to get one of these. (I’m also not in the habit of carrying whisky around but it’s good to have the option.) When I have a spare moment I may add this design to more of the burgeoning range of products. For the moment, these are the available options. Happy Equinox and slàinte mhath!
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Summerisle souvenirs
• Wicker mania
• Milbury souvenirs
• Children of the Stones
In yesterday’s post I mentioned having recently finished a cover design featuring silhouettes, not expecting the design in question to be revealed on the Barnes & Noble SF & Fantasy blog a few hours later. So here it is. The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath is the first of two novels by Ishbelle Bee from publisher Angry Robot. Rather than attempt a précis it’s easier to swipe one from the B&N post:
1888. A little girl called Mirror and her extraordinary shape-shifting guardian Goliath Honeyflower are washed up on the shores of Victorian England. Something has been wrong with Mirror since the day her grandfather locked her inside a mysterious clock that was painted all over with ladybirds. Mirror does not know what she is, but she knows she is no longer human.
John Loveheart, meanwhile, was not born wicked. But after the sinister death of his parents, he was taken by Mr Fingers, the demon lord of the underworld. Some say he is mad. John would be inclined to agree.
Now Mr Fingers is determined to find the little girl called Mirror, whose flesh he intends to eat, and whose soul is the key to his eternal reign. And John Loveheart has been called by his otherworldly father to help him track Mirror down…
An extraordinary dark fairytale for adults, for fans of Catherynne M. Valente and Neil Gaiman.
Having spent the past few years scrutinising Victorian graphic design this was a very enjoyable assignment that didn’t feel like work at all. The title design took some time to put together, the challenge with these things being to pour on the decoration while maintaining legibility. You also need to choose the typefaces carefully. The capitals in “Mirror” and “Goliath” were drawings based on period cover designs, while the author typeface isn’t a font but is letterforms scanned from a Symbolist art book from the 1970s. Revival fonts continue to proliferate but I’ve yet to see one in that exact style. The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath is out in June with a sequel, The Contrary Tale of the Butterfly Girl, following in August.
Ombres Chinoises—”Chinese shadows”—were the specialty of Alber, prestidigitateur, according to this French volume from 1896. The diagrams show examples of Alber’s tableaux, and also the technical aspects of his articulated figures, some of which seem caught midway between Javanese shadow puppets and Lotte Reiniger’s animated silhouettes. One of the commissions I’ve been working recently features silhouette figures; more about that later.
Though Shadowgraphy has been known from time immemorial, and as ’twere a thing of bye-gone days, Trewey’s practice of the art comes as a novelty, and is highly entertaining alike to the schoolboy and the lean and slippered pantaloon.
Thus the overwrought prefatory note in this small book of hand-shadow exercises by Felicien Trewey. In addition to diagrams showing the creation of the familiar animal shapes there’s a brief life of Monsieur Trewey, “the original Fantaisist Humoristique”, and some details of Trewey’s shadow pantomimes. Since these involve various props I find them a bit of a cheat, rather like origami shapes that require two sheets of paper or even a pair of scissors.
The book opens and closes with ads for Hamley’s toy shop, still the most celebrated shop of its kind in London. If it’s a surprise to see Hamley’s promoting their wares with devils and skulls, the latter seem fitting for the page of sinister “ventriloquial figures”, two of which are shown smoking cigarettes. The walking figure with “pneumatic mouth” is no doubt the one that tries to strangle you while you sleep.
