Postcard Sale: The Cornish Litany

While I'm very busy now writing some new stories for a new book in 2012, I wanted to take a break and post some updates on previous posts ( The Cornish Litany Commission and Limited Edition Cornish Litany Postcards). As of this posting, Bindlegrim is happy to announce The Cornish Litany postcards One & Two are now for sale via Etsy.

While initially the plan was to have only 25 signed cards of each (which is still true), the printer sent a surprise bonus of an additional 16 each, and these have also been listed for sale at standard postcard prices. The image above will link you to the Etsy store where you can purchase the card or cards of your choice.

Shown here is the limited signed edition of 25, with postcard one:

And here is postcard two, again showing the limited signed edition:

If you've been following the bindlegrim photostream on flickr then you've already seen posted images of the sketches that preceded the finished product, but for those who perhaps haven't clicked in that direction, I thought it would be fun to post the initial sketches here again, in comparison with the final products show above:

Don't forget to see the previous posts ( The Cornish Litany Commission and Limited Edition Cornish Litany Postcards) for more information about these cards and a sneak peek of Debra Meister's book A Litany... Cornish and Otherwise.

Happy New Year's 2012 all you Ghoulies and Ghosties!

Limited Edition Cornish Litany Postcards

This is a continuation from an earlier post The Cornish Litany Commission about some special illustrative postcard art that has been created for Debra Meister (www.debrameister.com and lotsofcards.com:) who has authored a wonderful book A Litany... Cornish and Otherwise gathering a great number of these visions together from both past and present.

The images shown below (slight updates from the original works) will be limited edition postcard versions, which, by the way, should be available within the next couple of weeks as a signed edition of twenty-five.

Of the two commissioned, for the art of the first postcard, it seemed only natural to illustrate the litany in a similar style to that of The Pumpkin Dream Halloween poem, and it was great fun revisiting with some of these creatures. While many of the smaller monsters are found in The Pumpkin Dream, the central monster, the big scary tree house creature, was a welcome addition to their sinister ranks; he's got a big appetite, as you might notice on the back of the card! Yikes!

For the second card, I wanted to return to the tactile world of pen and paper. And instead of working in a surreal style, which I mentioned in the earlier blog entry, I was diverted. While viewing Debra's book again (see below), I really enjoyed ye olde versions of the postcard imagery. In many of these images a person in some type of old building is being spooked by a team of green and purple monsters crawling out of the woodwork so to speak. (The image on the postcard below was done in pen with hues created by colored pencil).

Hope you enjoyed the further peek into this commission project. Hope to post news soon about the limited edition versions. And in the meantime, here again is a full preview of the second 3rd edition (updated 1-16-2012) available on blurb! May your holiday be free from Ghoulies and Ghosties!

12-19-2011: Please Note (updated):
The author mentions that 3rd edition pricing is more affordable. Any previous pricing was for final limited copies only on the 2nd edition.

Red, Black, & White Christmas

I've been rediscovering my love for a certain vintage palette while perusing the vintage Christmas cards on flickr, loving any graphics and/or illustrations that are in the high contrast combination of red, black, and white. (Below is a vintage card that I had found recently at an antique store that re-sparked this interest).

I started checking out many more vintage images in this palette that others have found and posted on flickr. Here are just a handful that I have spotted over the last days that I really love and, beneath them are now four links to galleries created to house eighteen images in each.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

There were also a couple more that I couldn't get into a gallery that I thought were really wonderful - and I had to include at least one of those too:

Similarly inspired, while listing The Grim Happy Christmas, on etsy today (where you can now purchase a signed copy), I took a look around the etsy shops too, and decided to create a treasury of red, black, and white Christmas items both vintage and handmade. I hope you'll take a look there too, and have fun!

Shiny Brite Aluminum Christmas Tree

Well, it must already be quite obvious from The Grim Happy Christmas (with a cast of kitsch gnomes dating around the fifties), that there is great deal of interest in vintage Christmas too around the Bindlegrim household. And over the past year the gnomes have been helping collect just a few boxes of wonderful old Shiny Brite ornaments for the second year's go at an aluminum Christmas tree.

For tips on identification (vintage vs Radko), company history, and a variety of vintage ornament photos check out these links:

Mid-Century Modern Glass Tree Ornaments: Shiny Brites
Vintage Shiny Brite Christmas Ornaments
and you might try shopping around on etsy for them:
shiny brite ornaments on Etsy
and here's a site on: Aluminum Christmas Trees

Of special attraction here were the assorted mod/retro/abstract shapes that were produced. And here's a handful of photos featuring a few of those designs:






Of course the Christmas gnomes just had to get into the act too, in true appreciation of the aluminum tree, and here's a few portraits of some of the band members:

For more vintage Christmas images of fun designs from the past check out these fun groups on flickr:

• Antique Christmas: 1830-1945
• Vintage Christmas: 1945-1970
• Aluminum Christmas Trees

 Wishing you all a joyous season from Bumble (bah humbug) Bindlegrim!

Christmas Activity / Coloring Book

Christmas time is coming around again, reminding me of some free things you can enjoy created when I worked at office.microsoft.com -- creating free holiday content from their extensive clip-art library to create free downloadable content as part of the permanent collection of the template library. (I guess the keyword there is FREE).

One day I was given a task to fill in some content gaps per public requests for coloring sheets. The goal was to come up with at least five coloring pages of animals. Well, I couldn't help but run with this project, (and betweent managing the website),  created 5 coloring books (each with around 8 pages), taking advantage of one particularly great style of art: #1450. The result was three with animals: (forest, farm, aquatic) and then, of course, Christmas and Halloween.

The Christmas book was also a bit more than just a coloring book, but was inspired by the activity books I used to receive as a kid during the Christmas vacation school break... and so in addition to pages just for coloring, there are also connect-the-dots, word jumbles, word finds, and pages for writing in your on text. 

Below are thumbnail versions for your perusal - and be sure to visit the office.microsoft website for the full size Christmas Activity / Coloring Book download:


And if you like these (especially Santa there in the last image) don't forget there is full stationery set with letterhead, gift certificates, envelopes, gift tags, and more blogged about here: Summer Santa Stationery Set.

---

As a side note - part of the beauty of templates and of Word 2007 is the ability to customize to suit your own tastes. If you didn't catch my original blog entry (on the Microsoft Office blog) that explained the above procedure (creating Word art from the Clip Art library) -- I have recreated the content in this blog entry here.

---

The Cornish Litany Commission

Here is a litany (prayer, invocation) you have probably heard, though perhaps not by name, that asks for protection against what gramps from The Pumpkin Dream might term as a woeful host of haints and witches. And the litany goes:

From Ghoulies and Ghosties
and Long-leggety Beasties
and All Things that go Bump in the Night,
Good Lord deliver us!

Words like that are perfect fodder for imaginative sorts to conjure up all sorts of hideous beasts lurking in the darkness... And Debra Meister (www.debrameister.com) has collected a good number of these postcard visions in her book  A Litany... Cornish and Otherwise. Here are two such examples of vintage cards Debra shared on the website lotsofcards.com:

The book is also a showcase for newer works by such artists (to name a few) as Chuck E. Bloom, Rick Geary, Matthew Kirscht, Chad Savage, as well the author herself. And the author says the third edition (coming next year) will offer even more artists including Ian Miller.

That's amazing company, and I'm thrilled to have been commissioned to create a postcard (or two) for that next edition! As someone who was scolded in my early years for drawing monsters, it is so much fun, as an adult, to return to a project where monsters are actually the subject of concern.  I have completed one work thus far, in a somewhat similar style to the art of The Pumpkin Dream... and have already set my sights now on completing a second work more in line with my surrealist drawings (seen here in monochrome and color).

In the meantime, Debra Meister is offering a full preview of the second edition available on blurb -- until the 3rd edition (preview here updated 1-16-2012) appears, brimming with even more ghoulies and ghosties...! Good Lord Deliver Us all! 

Free Summer Santa Stationery Set

While it's cold here in Colorado as December rolls around... (and I imagine Santa is busy making toys up at the North Pole) - we forget here that sometimes Santa just needs a holiday - or as noted to our team back when I was contracting at office.microsoft.com - yes, Christmas does happens during the summer in some parts of the world...!  And so, in an effort to show Santa in warmer climes, I went to work on a summer-inspired set of Christmas stationery. 

The Summer Santa Stationery Set offers images of Santa chilling at the beach with a cool drink, relaxing under the shade of the local palm tree, also visited by, you guessed it, a crab called Sandy Claws. The set for Word 2007 (or later versions) contains everything you need for festive entertaining, and offers the following - 1) Gift Certificate, 2) Stationery, 3) Party Menu, 4) Party Invitation, 5) Thank-you Cards, 6) Large Gift Tags (Placeholders), 7) Small Gift Tags (Address Labels) and 8) Letter Envelopes.


Download the entire set for free and customize in both color and content.  (Note - these were items created while working with the Microsoft Office extensive library of free clip-art... to create content for the free download template library). For this project the goal was to highlight Word 2007's ability to create themes that allows you change color palettes at the touch of a button. And was constructed from items available in their free MS Clip Art Library particularly: MS Clip Art - Style 1450.

If you are interest in using using clip art in this manner, you might study this earlier post that offers an instructional blog entry. And for more holiday-themed downloads (for both Halloween and Christmas) that are free from Microsoft, by designer Robert Aaron Wiley, please check out the Bindlegrim website for Free Stuff!