Inside the Pollock Museum, Part 2, the Dolls….

Posted on September 12, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

Visit The Pollock Toy Museum hereDolls. Thousands of ’em. When we stepped from the room at the top of the Victorian house (where Sooty and Sweep are) through the hole in the wall that leads into the Georgian house, we met some seriously scary dolls.

But we’ll start with the lovely/lovable/loved. And there are lots of those, many dolls with really sweet expressions. My absolute favourite was the Japanese doll with the beautiful face, several gorgeous outfits and her own furniture. One of her dressers is real lacquer.

Some of the dolls of old were slightly strange. I remember being fascinated by upside-down dolls when I was a kid, but not wanting to own one. My child’s mind couldn’t fathom playing with a doll with two heads and no legs, because I would always know that there was another half-doll hidden under the skirts. Googling the origins of this particular biracial ‘Topsy-Turvy’ doll made for interesting reading (link). It suggests the earliest versions where home-made ragdolls for black slave children, allowing the child to quickly switch to the white doll in front of the slave-master, who ‘didn’t want the slave children to have dolls that looked like themselves, which would give them a sense of empowerment.’

The Billiken doll was some sort of good luck charm. And then there is the cabbage baby (a sort of jack-in-the-box doll), the vaguely weird squeaky dolls (they look as if they’ve just been told off), and the Fräulein with the come hither pose…click on any photo to see the entire image.

And then.

Then there are the downright frightening. These two share a cabinet. We couldn’t help thinking the smug-faced doll had smashed cracked-faced doll’s head against the glass and now she is forever smiling at the damage done.

Perhaps the wax dolls once had sweet faces but I still can’t help thinking there must have been some traumatized little girls on Christmas days of yore! And what’s going on with the doll in the box? Is she an Ophelia doll??

And this one. Ahhhhh. The eyes. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Next up, miniature worlds.

Visit The Pollock Toy Museum here

Inside The Pollock Toy Museum, Part 1

Posted on September 9, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

So on our recent trip to London we finally got inside the Pollock Toy Museum. Eddie, being my cousin Sarah’s boyfriend, was kind enough to offer us a personal tour – an offer he lived to regret as we (Michael, our friend Ann, and myself) were so fascinated by everything it took us a full three and a half hours to travel through the museum. Eddie thinks that may be a record, broken only by a guy some years back who was loitering with criminal intent.

Eddie’s granny put the collection together and it’s housed inside two buildings, one Victorian, one Georgian. The two houses are crammed to the rafters with all sorts of toys from across the world, so many treasures that it will need four blogs to just give you a taste of it! First up a group of photos from across the collection. Click on an image if you’d like to scroll/get more details…have a guess at what those lovely shadow puppets might be made from before you do!

There are hundreds of model trains, cars, trucks from various decades

Robots!

Sarah with Haggis, the museum dog.

Michael, Ann and Eddie in front of the most beautiful rocking horse

Early Meccano, a toy I wanted to ask for as a kid but thought I couldn’t. Because it was a ‘boy’ toy.

The oldest teddy bear

These shadow puppets are very beautiful but definitely lose something when you learn what they are made from. Donkey skin!

Of course we came across toys from our own childhoods. I had a mini meltdown at the case containing Sooty and Sweep. And Soo. For a moment I could see our old black and white telly and my toddler legs in white ankle socks and Jumping Jack shoes sticking out in front of me as I sat on one of the armchairs, watching. In the sixties themed glass case there was a game called Coppit – I remembered the box immediately, and my disappointment on opening it to find that the playing pieces were just cones, not hats with little people attached. And there was Dougal and the Magic Roundabout. I had to explain all the above to Michael and Ann as these were not part of their American childhoods.

Sooty and Sweep and Soo!

No, really! SOOTY. SWEEP. And SOO!

Coppit, originally created in 1927, but this is the 1960s version

Floernce Kate Upton’s Gollys and Dutch dolls, and some of the books she wrote and illustrated.

The Magic Roundabout. Here comes Florence, here comes Zebedee…originally French, narrated by Emma Thompson’s dad, research tells me. Time for Bed.

The Gollywogs – I’m turning pink just typing that- took a bit more explaining. It seems so astonishing now that these toys were a ‘normal’ part of an Irish/UK sixties childhood, as was watching The Black and White Minstrel Show – white women singing and dancing with white men wearing blackface. Some of the many things we didn’t think twice about, just accepted as life as we knew it. Makes me wonder what we do now which will strike us as alien and unacceptable in twenty/thirty years time. Our childhood Gollys were knitted by our mam from patterns in the Woman’s Weekly. Here is Wikipedia’s info on Florence Kate Upton and the history of Golly Dolls.

On Friday, Dolls! The museum is packed with them, the too-beautiful-to-play-with, the much-loved, and the down-right weird.
http://www.pollockstoys.com/

London Street Art

Posted on September 2, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

‘That’s a Bansky,’ I said.

‘Nah’ said Ann and Michael. ‘Can’t be…’

‘I think it is,’ I said.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Dunno. Looks familiar. Maybe it isn’t.’

Then we noticed there was perspex protecting the piece. Which is kinda ironic, given the message – ‘IF GRAFFITI CHANGED ANYTHING -IT WOULD BE ILLEGAL’. The image – which apparently appeared in Fitzrovia in 2011– has attracted further graffiti, including the badly placed ‘VERY.’ and a sarcastic exchange about said perspex.

The selection of spectacular street art below is stuff we came across in Spitalfields, well worth clicking on to get bigger images.

Arrows shot from a huge bow on opposite roof

Monkey see, Monkey do

check out the bricks on the right

Image in window is scratched out of the white paint in reverse

Below are pieces, old and new, from various places around the city.

Hoarding

Art installations on Whitecross St

Warren Street, Smugglers’ Tavern

Installations on Whitecross St

Tree stump dragon in Vauxhall

Up yours?

Spitalfields bakery

The Quentin Blake Exhibition

Posted on August 27, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

We had a list of things we wanted to do while in London the other week and top of mine was a visit to the Quentin Blake exhibition at the brand new House of Illustration near King’s Cross. Our niece Beth happened to be in the city at the same time and when I mentioned the exhibition she said she’d like to see it too.

It is a small but perfectly formed show, concentrating strongly on a number of books – chief amongst which are Roald Dahl’s The Twits and Danny the Champion of the World, Blake’s Clown, David Walliam’s The Boy in the Dress, and the beautiful and haunting Sad, by Michael Rosen. Blake’s wonderful inky scratches cascade across the walls in the first room, making you feel as if you’ve fallen inside his head! The second room has lots of framed illustrations on the walls, plus cases displaying thumbnail layouts, rough sketches and early character studies, dotted with actual pens, pencils and paints from the artist’s studio. Thrilling! I especially liked the image made for comparing the heights of Sophie, the BFG, and the other giants.

There are insights from Blake about how he approaches each book, whether his own or someone else’s. It was particularly interesting to get an inkling of how he worked with the notoriously difficult Dahl (sounds like a great working relationship), and how he responded to Rosen’s text for Sad, a book written in response to the death of the author’s son. The third room is dedicated to Sad, alone.

Cavemen with crayons

Birds…

Cascade!

It was fun to walk around the exhibition with Beth as she knew all the Dahl books well and was responding to them both as an art history grad, and as favorite childhood reading – see how her eyes are shining at having her photo taken with Matilda! Michael and myself are big fans of Blake’s and it’s fantastic to see the work in the raw. We drank it all up, watched the accompanying short films of Blake speaking about his work, then headed to the ridiculously cool Caravan bar to recover with a late afternoon tipple!

Afterwards, on the way back to the train, we had fun with some the many familiar illustrations decorating the walkway.

Walking with Willy the Champ! (Anthony Browne)

Too noisy, ‘Zagazoo’!

The exhibition is on until November 2nd 2014

Link to 2007 article where Quentin Blake talks about illustrating Sad

(Photos mix of ours and Beth O’Rafferty’s)

Holding Pattern…

Posted on August 19, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

A blog about not blogging! We were in London last week and, of course, had all good intentions of preparing blogs to go up while we were away, but never got around to it. And this week will be blog-free as well, so here’s a quick glimpse of what’s coming up next week:

The Quentin Blake exhibition in the House of Illustration

London street art (which may even include a Banksy).

We finally get inside the Pollock Toy Museum.

(Photo by Beth O’ Rafferty)

Dogs and Kids….

Posted on July 22, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

Oops! Is it Tuesday again? Forgot to prep a blog so here are some sketches from the week gone by. Dogs and kids spotted about the village, made with whatever pen and paper was to hand. I really shouldn’t draw sketches of possible child characters on random manuscript pages because then I can’t find them again.

Note to self: start carrying a notebook again.

Stone Bouquet

Posted on July 18, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

It’s hard to visit a Wicklow beach without coming home with pockets full of stones! The colours and patterns are so lovely. Have close look at these groupings – click & scroll on for larger images – some of the pinks and oranges and blues are just stunning.

Oranges

The stone in the centre is its own rainbow

Greys. I use a lot of grey in my work – forever adding it to colours to tone them down.

Murky dark colours – good for sinister subjects!

Blues

Pinks, rose, amber, mauve,

And sometimes the shape is what catches your eye…

Streetcar Bouquet

Posted on July 15, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

This bouquet of colour is all from one source – a streetcar in Brooklyn which has definitely reached the end of the line. As the paint peels and rust blooms its surface has become a beautiful abstract of grey-blues, pinks, mauves, with splashes of wine-stain red. If ever I want to paint poignancy, these will be the colours I reach for.

In one picture you’ll find a message, a declaration of love part scratched, part written into the paint. Is it the work of two hands? If so, which bit was written first – the half-hearted or the effusive? The resulting equivocation seems at one with the colours of this vehicle which once traversed the city and now sits decaying into an accidental art piece .

Ah, love…it reads: I love you more, more, more than JUST A LITTLE BIT!

A click will give you a large version of each photo – including the one with the message.

On Friday, a stone bouquet

Autumn Bouquet

Posted on July 11, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

We often use hot colours in illustrations to make something stand out. You know how it works – cool colours recede, warm colours jump forward. Think of Spielberg using the child in the red coat in his black and white film, Schindler’s List, or of paintings of pastoral scenes which use a red roof or a yellow dress to draw your eye.

Sometimes it’s great to really go for it and use loads of hot colours in one image, or even throughout a whole book. These are the colours of powerful emotions; I used them throughout I am I, which is a story about anger and violence. The palette for it is based on photos I’d taken in Australia’s Red Centre, and Andalucia. Nature is definitely the best starting point for figuring out how to handle fizzing reds, clashing purples and fiery oranges, without ending up in a complete mess!

Hot, hot, hot

Hotter

even the greens are zinging…

How fabulous is this red?

warm, soft pink with cool green background

The ashes-of-roses and mauves in that hydrangea always make me think of death…

Yellow and purple, complementary colours on the colour wheel

Greens temper the heat

These photos were all taken in Mount Usher gardens where the gardeners are masters of colour mixing. Click on them for full images.

Tuesday’s bouquet of colour will be from a… street car.

Brooklyn Bouquet

Posted on July 8, 2014 by The Belugas are Watching

The first of four colour ‘bouquets’.

When we start illustrating a new book we need to chose a palette. We go looking through favourite picturebooks and art books but we also hunt through our photo files. We are always on the look out for colour combinations – harmonious, vibrant, brash, soft – and we often take photos purely for colour. Nature is a great source – obviously – but cities yield great colour combos too.

Here is a bouquet from Brooklyn.