Wild Things

 

We went to a really fun opening for Stacy Rozich's show at Flatcolor Gallery yesterday.

All her colorful and intricate water-colored prints are filled with humorous and rich narratives of the strangest-looking folklore creatures doing random things and acting like ironic hipsters....standing around nonchalant....smoking, drinking Rainer, playing music, cards, or causing some sort of mischief.

 

 

They look wild and crazy and all the while incredibly endearing at the same time....each carrying their own personality.

I couldn't help but to create mini conversations (with different voices and all) in my head as I looked at every print.......

Rabbit guy: "Heeeey...so I'm a little worried....I think fluffy is not feeling very well...."

Pipe guy: (playing music) "hum-dee-doo...la-did-da....HUH? what?... you said something?"

Rabbit guy: "oh...nothing, I mean....I was just trying to say that fluffy looks a little malnourished...it looks like she's loosing a lot of weight...."

Pipe guy: (inhale pipe and puff out smoke) "uh...hmmm...its probably the dogs stealing her food or whatever"  

Rabbit guy: "ohmygawd...really??  you think they'd do that?!"

Pipe guy: "uh, yeah. they're dogs....they'd eat anything."  (resume to playing his music)

Dogs: "grrrr...."

 

Tree guy: "gawd....why da hell did you make me steal this tree from your neighbor's yard?"

Gun guy: "cuz she always up in my biznezz and wouldn't shut up about everything I do"

Tree guy: "uh..so you steal her tree?...what's the point exactly?"

Gun guy: "I don't know...just so she'll learn to not F with...wait a minute....I didn't kidnap you so you can ask me all these damn questions!" (spit)

Tree guy: "all right...fine."

Bug: (in little voice) "heeey!! get back here! You guys have no rights to move the tree, I was living under there! It says here on my lease that I have every right to sue you guys! I'm a bug lawyer and I can get you guys thrown in jail!!...uh....guys..did you hear what i say!!"

Birds: "KAAAAH!"

 

Big guy: "WOOOO!!!!   NO HANDS MOTHERF*#%ER!!" 

Little green guys: (with tiny high voices from left to right) 

"heeeeeell yeeeeah...rager paarrrtaaaay!!"

"ah maaaan...think i'm out of beer..."

"zzzzz...snore"

"damn it! give me back my cigarette!! stop hogging it!!"

"what, you mean this? what? you want it or something?? I thought you said you're quitting?...you really shouldn't smoke, you know...especially if you want kids and all"

"damn it, shut up, and just give me the damn cigarette!"

___________(The End)______________

Yeeeah....got a little carried a way....maybe I'm crazier than all those creatures combined...

anyways...moving on....

MUST SEE this amazing stop-motion illustrated by her for Fleet Fox that totally made my heart stop... I even teared up a bit at the end.

It's insanely beautiful and magical.... it's almost like the song and the animation were made for each other.

L&G Storytime No.10: To All The Wonderful Moms!

I have the perfect Mother's day book for L&G storytime! This is the most adorable and sweet little book titled "For a Wonderful MOM." Here's a shout out to all the wonderful mom's out there!
The book itself is covered in colorful flower printed fabric, and the illustration inside is even more ridiculously cute!
Moms are there to give us hugs....awww. Shut up!
Moms always know to keep us out of trouble! Moms are always there to teach us things
Moms are always there to tell us we're okay....or oaky-doke! Eh? Get it? Oak..Oaky-Doke!Sniff sniff...This book is seriously unbearable!!
I'm getting all teary eyed and warm and fuzzy inside! Moms are awesome...

Have a wonderful day on Mother's day!

Ladies and Gentlemen Home: For the love of all things vintage, clever, designed, and/or delicious

Interview with La Casita De Wendy

I am super excited to share a little story behind the magic of La Casita De Wendy. Thanks to the invention of blogs, I had the pleasure to "meet" Inés & Iván on my blog through L&G blog!

I decided on a whim to contact Inés & Iván to share my love for their clothes. I wanted to find out how I can get my hands on their adorable dresses! (especially the top right, and the dress with the mug prints...actually all of it!!) I also asked them if I could do a blog post about them, and to my delight, Inés & Iván replied kindly and agreed!! I was thrilled that they took the time out of their busy and exciting life to do this. Thanks guys for all your awesomeness!
So, I'm excited to share everything about them and what they do! They make work seem so effortless and life more fun than the Wii! There's too much to talk about and I wouldn't do justice if I didn't share all this goodness with everyone! So be prepared to read a long post!
Inés & Iván are two super talented fashion & textile designers based in Madrid,Spain. (cool!) They often use colors and patterns that are nature inspired and motifs that reference Iberian fairytales. The result is carefree, passionate, romantic,and expressive. In essence, their designs capture the spirit of a fairytale girl living in a modern world...
Their designs are in tons stores around the world including Barneys in New York, Matsuya, Lamp, Koh Samui and Fenwick in London, Surface to Air in Paris, Suite in Barcelona, Deli Room in Madrid, and more. (even cooler!)
The two of them started La Casita De Wendy in 02' and they both actually first got their degrees in architecture. Clothing design started off simply as a hobby, but it's a total meant to be, because it seems that everything just fell into place for them....one word.....Bjork.
Yes, no joke.....Bjork wore their designs for one of her photoshoots for a magazine spread at one point!! (WHAT?!? that's just freaking ridiculously insane cool!) I can't even imagine how I would react if Bjork ever came to me and wore clothes I designed....if that ever happened to me in a million years...I think I would be happy to just dig a grave and bury myself alive...Yeah...since I'm pretty sure that I would probably just freeze and fall into a OH-MY-GOD-BJORK-WORE-MY-CLOTHES-coma for the rest of my life anyways....
Change subject. So here's my first little interview with La Casita De Wendy!
What's the main vision behind La Casita De Wendy?
We want to design beautiful stuff for creative people and we want to be inspired by the greatest beauty of nature.

Both of you hold an architecture degree, so what inspired you both to get into fashion design?

we started to make clothes just like a hobby and because it was difficult to find beautiful designs in Madrid, so we started to sell our collections to friends... and after a few years we realized that we liked designing soooo much that we decided to continue. It was a great help that we had a big success the first time we went to an international trade show and many shops like Barneys in New York wanted our stuff... and Bjork wanted to wear some of our designs...

How did you two meet and how did the teaming up happen?

We met dancing Pulp!! and we start to go out together and that's all... we connected!

What are your main roles in the Company?

Now we have a lot of work so we have to organize ourselves, Inés takes care of the collection, the samples, the sales... and Iván takes care of the production and special events, collaborations, consulting etc...
Where do you get your most inspirations from?

We are inspired by Fairy tales, imagination, painting and of course nature.

Besides your love for fashion, what are some other loves you have?

we love cooking, staying at home, reading, painting and living.
What would your dream studio look like and where would it be?

we love our studio as it is, but we would love to be more in the country, we are doing a vegetables garden in our backyard and we dream about having a big garden in the mountains and being able to work from there...

So, I found out after the interview that besides all the amazing things they do designing clothes and textile...it ALSO turns out that Inés & Iván have started teaching fashion workshop called El Estudio!! They teach fashion workshops right from their atelier with students from all over Spain, Britain and beyond! They teach them everything from creating their own sketch/inspiration book, to creating their own line, to branding, to ways to start their business! So by the end of the 16 week course, the students themselves can achieve their dream of designing their own line! You can see lots of great process photos from their El Estudio blog, too. I love seeing all the rich watercolor drawings and inspirations.
God! I so want to take off and live in Madrid for 4 months and take that workshop! (I'm talking to you God....can you make this happen?? it can count as my birthday present!)

Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing about them!
Okay, gotta go and figure out a plan to live/work/study in Madrid now since God isn't responding to me....I can never count on that guy!

You can also read their blog to read more about their inspiring lifestyle! If you can't read Spanish like me, use the handy google translate to read their site!....I don't know what I'd do if google didn't exist. Cheers!

Ladies and Gentlemen Home: For the love of all things vintage, clever, designed, and/or delicious

L&G Storytime No.8: Visual Feast for Two

L&G would like to share another book!! It's Betty Crocker's "Dinner For Two" Cookbook FILLED with amazing illustrations by Charley Harper. This cookbook is a total feast for the eyes especially for all of the Charley Harper fans out there.
We like how these illustrations are looser and more playfully sketched than a lot of his other work.The cookbook is also filled with recipes for American favorites such as these delights below:Roast beef, broiled hamburgers, speedy baked beans, green salad, quick brown bread, biscuits, apple pie, and strawberry shortcake. Mmmmm...
Try as they may to make the food photography look appealing, you can literally feel your arteries clogging as you look at the spreads. Thank goodness they had Charley Harper illustrations to keep the photos of shellacked roasts to a minimum.
You can see tons more images, here.

Ladies and Gentlemen Home: For the love of all things vintage, clever, designed, and/or delicious

L&G Storytime No.4: Parlez Vous Francais? Oui!

Bonjour à nos amis! Today’s Poppytalk Storytime centers around the graphic treasures of the 1960 French language book Parlons Francais.

You don’t want to end up like Brett and Germane, so follow us and Parlons Francais and brush up on your French!

What better motivation to learn a foreign language than the promise of an incredible, neat illustration waiting for you on the next page? Learn some words and you can impress pretty much anyone! We learned some French terms and now use them on a daily bases! We like to walk the corner market “Sept-Onze” (or more commonly known to Americans as 7-Eleven) and pick up a croissant and a slurpeé using our superior French speaking skills. We come off so cultured.

Parlon Francais is a set of 8 mini-books that are full of charming illustrations that make the leafing through them a delight. The best part is that each book has pages that can be removed and played on a record player for pronunciation.

Here are a few lessons along with some darling visual aids for you (read and repeat aloud…you want to learn French don’t you?): “Comment allez-vous?” - How are you?
“l'oiseau est dans l'arbre” - The bird is in the tree.
“L’Oiseau et Le Chat” - The bird and the cat.
"La Famille" - Family
"Nous allons en vacances" - We go on vacation.
"Mes chaussures sont de très petites" - My shoes are very small.
“Je voudrais un grand ballon rouge, s’il vous plait” - I would like a large red balloon please.
“Regardez-vous les animaux” - Look at the animals

Now you know all these phrases, your homework is use them and we'll gurantee that you'll impress someone...unless that person happens to be French. Au revoir! You can see more images, here.

Jean & Dylan
Ladies & Gentelemen

Ladies and Gentlemen Home: For the love of all things vintage, clever, designed, and/or delicious

Little Faces

Just spotted these series of darling little photos of fall leaves with faces on it!! It was on Fine Little Day, by multi-talented illustrator/graphic artist, Elisabeth Dunker, based in Sweden. I love things with faces on it....as you may have remembered from my last week's post about my coffee cup. I think everything should have faces on it! I wanna design a whole line objects with just faces... a pencil...a spoon...remote control...door knob...underwares...etc. The possiblities are endless...
Elisabeth had recently started a callaborative shop and blog with another artist, Camilla Engman, called Studio Violet with more adorableness! I'm VERY envious of their amazing looking loft studio...all the natural lighting, the cool mid-century chairs, and the simple stark white interior...sigh. Why does god tourture me like this? You can see lots of her other lovely work via Lula.

Ladies and Gentlemen Home: For the love of all things vintage, clever, designed, and/or delicious