Book Viewing: A Litany... Cornish & Otherwise

I just received my copy of the new 3rd edition for 2012 of A Litany... Cornish and Otherwise by Debra Meister!

My first thought is to recommend this book to those of you aware of publishers like Fantagraphics Books -- with their wonderful library of art and artists past and present - with at least a couple of them appearing in Debra's book. (This book reminds me of Monte Beauchamp's survey Devilish Greetings: Vintage Devil Postcards or the 2 volumes of mythological creatures found in Beasts and Beasts 2). 

It's great fun examining all the variously wild oddities of monstrous imagination in this book, and the works are great inspiration for today's artists. You must see the wild collection of creatures, some in detailed imagery dating as far back as the 1920's. Here are just a few sample images from the almost 90 pages:


The book is divided into six parts via a loose timeline of works from the past to modern working artists:

1. Stanley T. Chaplin  (12 cards by this artist - image 2)
2. F. Frith & Co LTD, Reigate 
3. Photo postcards including Cornwall
4. Miscellaneous by Various (Vintage selection - image 3 and 4)
5. Other postcards resembling the Cornish version
6. Contemporary Artists (Biography and works by Bloom, Bonfiglio, Buntin, Ellis, Ewert, Fodrocy, Fulton, Geary, Gleason, Greenwood, Harris, Hine, Kirscht, Lewis-MacDougall, Malinow, Meister, Miller, Newcomb, Nolan, Nielsen, Savage, Scruff, Vanover, and Wiley - last 4 images offer a small sample).

I would like to once more offer these links to the author Debra Meister (www.debrameister.com & lotsofcards.com) and  her book  A Litany... Cornish and Otherwise. And below is a short preview of the beginning pages of the book available on blurb:

The Cornish Litany Lantern (Limited Edition)

Another sneak peek at what's going on in the Bindlegrim Studios... as there was some earlier mention of vintage-style 1930's era lanterns. Those may start showing up in the next two weeks!

The initial plan is to have 5 styles, and in each style there will be 10 limited lanterns each numbered and signed by the artist.

Lantern style one pane designs are ready to go, and these are familiar friends from The Pumpkin Dream illustrated poem, with some new, small variations on images in the book. (You can catch sight of the initial pane designs on the Bindlegrim facebook page).

And for lantern style two - since there was a recent enjoyable foray into creating imagery for the Debra Meister's book A Litany...Cornish and Otherwise, it seemed only natural to dream up some new spooky ghouls and ghosts for one with a  Cornish Litany theme. And here are 6 panes of what will be that 12 pane lantern:  


I really enjoyed these new spookier scenes - and a thought has occurred to do some new Cornish Litany postcards using the very same as those from the pane designs shown above. I will keep you posted, and in the meantime, don't forget Postcard One and Postcard Two limited edition Cornish Litany cards created in 2011 are for sell on etsy (signed and non-signed).

Free Animal Coloring Books

Okay, so if you haven't figured it out by now, Bindlegrim is obsessed with the holidays, but, perhaps begrudgingly, even he has to admit there are a million interesting (non-holiday) worlds to discover here on earth's little corner of the universe.

So if you enjoyed the Christmas and Halloween coloring books you might also enjoy these eight page coloring books featuring animals from the forest, the farm, and even aquatic animals).

This is free content from office.microsoft.com that I had the joy, while on contract, to create from their clip-art library as downloadable content in the permanent template library. (The result of this blissful project was 5 coloring books taking advantage of one particularly great style of art: #1450).

And, speaking of great style, if you want some fun color-minded music to enjoy while you break out the crayons --- have you ever heard this wonderful mix of poetry and jazz from 1967 called Colors by Ken Nordine???

Did that get you in the mood to color? Below are thumbnail galleries of the three coloring books for your perusal - and be sure to visit the office.microsoft website for the full size downloads.

Aquatic Animals 
(Free Aquatic Animals Coloring Book from Microsoft Office) 

Forest Animals
(Free Forest Animals Coloring Book from Microsoft Office)

Farm Animals
(Free Farm Animals Coloring Book from Microsoft Office)
 

Of course Bindlegrim can't let a blog entry end without mentioning the holidays a couple of times, and if you are reading this entry around Halloween or Christmas, check out additional 8 page coloring books for those festive occasions:

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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.

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Sketchbook of Straw (Cover Art)

Even as the snow once again covers Ichabod's Cottage (seems like there has been snow on the bogle since late October), the Bindlegrim goblins have remained busy at work with lots of new spooky goodies for 2012.

The holiday was a great time to get some writing done, and work is progressing on that new collection of Bindlegrim short stories (and perhaps poetry) called Sketchbook of Straw. There are two dark tales written and edited: The Jitter Dance and The Herbivorous Witch for definite inclusion. A third tale is undergoing editing and there is some back-and-forth decisions on if this lighter tale (along with the 4th lighter story now being written) will be included in the same volume - perhaps this will be a book with sections for darker and lighter moods?

As shown above, in preparation for the cover, I've been going through some of my old pen/pencil drawings from sketchbooks (which seemed appropriate) of the late 1980's to the early 1990's - when I was thoroughly enjoying the world of surreal and abstract art, with influences such as Dali, Miro, Tanguy, and Klee to name a few. Above are a few working ideas of how the cover might appear.

As if this wasn't enough to keep the goblins busy with all those art and literary pursuits (I'm not sure exactly when there will be enough stories to complete a full volume), there are also some design pursuits occurring with vintage-style Halloween lanterns for 2012, and keep an eye out for that news too!