Shoshiplatypus

Today we had another National Trust outing, this time to Coleton Fishacre, which is a little closer to us than Castle Drogo, where we went last week.

Another gorgeous art book!

As with that visit, it is going to take me a few days to sort through all the photos and edit them, but in the meantime I can share with you another book that I bought. I wasn’t intending to buy anything today but when you see a book like this, you just have to snap it up because who knows when, if ever, you will see it again?

Coleton Fishacre is an Arts and Crafts house, furnished in the Art Deco style, and many items in the gift shop reflect this. The book I bought is “Erte: Art Deco Master of Graphic Art and Illustration” by Rosalind Ormiston, a large format book absolutely stuffed with the most yummy Art Deco illustrations. The designs, patterns and colours are just dreamy…

Romain de Tirtoff was born in St. Petersburg in 1892, a Russian emigre to Paris, where he adopted the name Erte, the French pronunciation of his initials. (Sorry – no acute accents available in the text on this blog!). He was heavily involved in theatre and costume design and in the fasion world, and eventually worked with Harper’s Bazaar in the USA.

Here is a selection of illustrations from the book, beginning with the front cover. As always, the camera is woefully inadequate in capturing any reflective or metallic surfaces, so you will have to take my word for it that the dust cover of the book is embossed with gold. Just gorgeous.

“The Balcony”

I particularly like the bold black and cream of this illustration, and the nice touch of a decorative border down the sides.

“The Nile”

Dancers

“Aphrodite” jewellery

“The Wave”

I must do some more research (including actually reading the text of the book!) to discover whether Erte was at all influenced by Japanese woodblock print art – several of the illustrations make me think of this.

“Phoenix Triumphant”

“Top Hats”

This is a particular favourite of mine, with the bold black and white and those gorgeous rectangular grids (skyscrapers?) and the pop of orange of the lady’s dress in the foreground.

“Aladdin and his Bride”

“Neige de Printemps”

“Fedora Fan”

“Statue of Liberty Night”

“Manhattan Mary V”

“Athena”

“Fish Bowl”

I am going to get loads of artistic inspiration from these glorious illustrations! Elegance extreme, from a bygone era of glamour and jazz. I’ve always loved the style of the period. This book is a real treasure, and a worthy companion to “Botanicum” which I bought last week.

Art Deco features at home

Our present house was built in 1925 and while the architectural style is more conventional Edwardian than Art Deco or Modernist, there are several little original Art Deco features. The door furniture downstairs was replaced, but the original remains upstairs, with a distinctive Art Deco vibe. I removed one and made a mould from it, thinking I might make more for downstairs but in the end it wasn’t feasible for various reasons.

The fireplace surround in the sitting room is original Art Deco, and my genuine Art Deco clock (sadly no longer working) has pride of place on the central plinth which is clearly designed to take just such a clock. We bought a modern Art Deco mirror to put behind it, and when we had the room decorated, I designed an Art Deco stencil for a ceiling frieze.

I bought the reproduction lamp for our old house, where I decorated the dining room in Art Deco style.

(Unfortunately not showing its best – the room was full of boxes because we were about to move house, and I realised I had taken no photos of my decorating efforts before!)

My hubby and I both adore the style and very much enjoy watching “Poirot” on TV, with its many Art Deco locations. He has several books on ocean liners of the era, which were also a celebration of the style.

On a completely different subject…

New stash from China

I recently ordered a couple of things from AliExpress which I wasn’t expecting to arrive until October, but they arrived yesterday!

Ogura Lace substitute

You may recall my efforts to recreate the beautiful Japanes Ogura Lace paper which I can’t get hold of here. I managed to produce a piece using the fibres pulled apart from a piece of grout cleaning cloth but this was a very labour-intensive process. More recently I did some more searching online, for speciality papers, and came across this open lace-like stuff designed for gift-wrapping flowers. I bought a 5 metre roll of it from AliExpress. I chose white because then I could colour it as I wanted. I don’t know what it is made of but I suspect it is some sort of plastic so it may not take inks. It will definitely take acrylics.

My plan is to stick several layers together to get a closer lacy effect, along these lines:

Once stuck down, I think it will more closely resemble the genuine Ogura Lace:

than my previous effort.

I think this new stuff might also produce some interesting textures when used in association with the gel plate.

Watch this space!

Mail art stamps

The other item I bought from AliExpress was a set of clear stamps for mail art – postmarks, cancellation marks, Air Mail labels etc. I had seen Robyn McClendon using these and thought they would make a good addition to my stash.