Weird and Wacky design – Undies for squirrels and other silly ideas

one size fits most squirrels apparently - and they last for years...

There are some strange products being made today.  It still amazes me how the creators manage to come up with their crazy ideas – let alone get people to actually buy the products!  When I saw these underpants for squirrels I just thought WHY?  Why would someone design underclothes for squirrels?  Would you actually go out of your way to catch a squrrel?  Even if you were mad enough to catch one and escape a nasty bite – would the undies fit?  How would you fit them over the tail?  Lol why am I even thinking about the practicalities of this!  It’s obviously a joke (that I don’t get)

But this was before I saw the video….all is now as clear as mud!  Made me laugh anyway. HERE

Bacon briefcase

It seems the whole world has gone bacon mad lately.  I’ve seen lots of bacon flavoured items, like toothpaste, toothpicks and even air fresheners.  But a Bacon briefcase – now that is unusual!  I wonder what it’s made of?  Don’t tell me…..bacon?  If it had been made of beef it would have been called a beefcase wouldn’t it?

memory mints...now where did I put them?

Here’s another strange product – mints for Senior Moments.  Having a Senior moment? reach for one of these special mints.  The product doesn’t boast of any miraculous properties.  Surely if you were having a Senior moment you wouldn’t even remember that you had bought these mints?  Kind of defeats the object really.

Neatarama for some more wacky products HERE

Get the Squirrels undies HERE (You know you want to)

The Bronte’s Personal effects

George III mahogany desk formerly belonging to Charlotte Bronte

I was interested  to hear about a desk, purported to have belonged to Charlotte Bronte and a Geometry set and art box belonging to Emily.  They were auctioned off at Sotherby’s (see the results on the Bronte Blog HERE.  The owner William Law was a keen collector of Bronte memorabilia and bought directly from Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls.

Emily Bronte's art box

I did see a writing set  at  the Bronte Parsonage Museum in September last year, but frustratingly I can’t remember whose they were,  (Our trip HERE).  I do think personally owned articles like this set the owner in context and bring their lives alive for Bronte followers.  Sadly, personal Bronteana is very rare now and it is not very often that these kind of items come up for auction.  It does make me think though: how many people  still own Bronteana – that people will never get the opportunity to see?  Perhaps these items shall be guarded and treasured or perhaps future generations will sell them or even just loan  to the Bronte Museum for us all to enjoy, – I hope so..

Bronte writing desk detail

 More of my posts about our trip to  Haworth;=

Staying at Wuthering Heights (as one does)

Did the REAL Charlotte Bronte just Stand up?

Black Sheep Branwell – It wasn’t All Rock and Roll

Haworth STIL Wuthering and Very Much So!

An article by the Yorkshire post about these exciting finds HERE

Or for more Bronteana, why not pop over to the Bronteana Blogspot HERE

The Bronte Parsonage Museum Blogspot has more to say on this and other acquired Bronteana

PS

Happy Birthday Franz Marc!

Franz Marc

Today is the birthday of German Expressionist Franz Marc (1880 – 1916)   He was one of the founder members of the Der Blaue Reiter circle.  This group formed in Germany in 1911, lasted only until 1914 and included Wassily Kandinsky, August Macke and Lionel Feininger among others.  The concept was to spread spiritual truth through art – blue being a colour associated with spirituality.  The artist’s believed that through colour an  emotional  language could be understood – just like the keys in music.

I seek to heighten my sensitivity to the organic rhythm in all things, and to achieve a pantheistic empathy with the trembling and streaming of the blood in nature, in trees, in animals, in the air.

Der Wasserfall by Franz Marc

The artists experimented with Primitivism and Cubism and Fauvism, moving more towards Abstraction.  The Blaue Reiter ceased when Kandinsky and Marc were killed in the War and other members were sent back to Russia.  Futurist Robert Delauney was a major influence of Marc’s work, as his work became increasingly more abstract.

Tower of blue horses

Marc  is well-known for painting animals.  But something sad seemed to have happened which completely changed the way he saw them  in his later paintings. (read here). He no longer idealised them as he had once done, imbuing them with a  pure beauty.  It seems that he became disillusioned with humanity, including animals. Perhaps he had a premonition of the fate which awaited him during the war. 

The fate of the animals by Franz Marc

 More about the Blaue Reiter HERE

Franz Marc’s biography HERE

I have other artist’s birthdays in my categories

The art of Alice through the looking glass

Sir John Tenniel

 

I love the illustrations of Alice in Wonderland and Alice’s adventures through the looking Glass.  The original Tenniel ones have a charm all of their own and are the ones I remember the most from childhood.  There is  such a lot of information contained in these small drawings and Sir John Tenniel’s style once seen, is unmistakable.

Alice entering the looking glass world by Sir John Tenniel

Tenniel also illustrated for Punch magazine for a  while and did some political sketches like the example below. Amazingly this fine illustrator was blind in one eye. 

Punch magazine william gladstone and the irish land question

But another illustrator that I quite like is Ralph Steadman.  Of course these two  are from different era’s, but I quite like the clear lines of Steadman’s work, it’s so very stylish.   He has tried to add something new to these well-loved characters – yet make them still recognisable.

Ralph Steadman 1972

But there is another Alice illustrator that I like – one of my favorite authors and who I am re reading at the moment, and that’s Mervyn Peake.  It’s interesting to see the different styles of these artists, each done in a different era but with totally original approaches towards the same subject

Mervyn Peake 1954

Ralph Steadman’s website HERE

Other Alice illustrator’s HERE

Weird and wacky design – Get the Message

breast t shirt

Since it is impractical to wear your actual heart to your sleeve – or even nail your colours to the mast (you’d need a boat for a start), the next best thing  for getting your message across is to emblazoned a T-shirt.  Logo and message T-shirts are very common, some of the slogans have become clichés.  But I thought that the above one was unusual to get noticed.  These are made by a woman known as the Lactivist who advocates breast-feeding in public.  There are a few designs.  All proceeds go towards Milk banks, which apparently there is a great shortage of.

a way with words?

There are some really good Slogans in this T-shirt place.   Unfortunately I couldn’t get pics of them apart from the two above.  I especially like the choking one (only choking……) HERE

er great chat up line eh..

If you like to use that old hackneyed phrase ‘Been there, done that, got the T shirt’ you will be pleased to know that now you can buy the actual t-shirt!  Everyone will believe you now!  HERE

at last - THE T shirt!

Bog bodies – speak beyond the grave

Lindow Man or Pete Moss

I put a bog body image in my last post (like you do…).  I am fascinated with the preservation of bodies.  I was lucky enough to see Lindow Man (or Pete Moss as he is affectionately called) in Manchester Museum not long after he was found and couldn’t get over how small he was!.  I have been interested in bog bodies ever since reading Professor P V Glob’s books in the 1970s.  I never knew such mummies even existed.

At first I was just curious and a little repulsed by them.  But as I read more about them, I began become feel a kind of kinship with  these men and women who inhabited a world alien to me now (who really knows if we have lived before, or if there is such a thing as collective consciousness?).   I’d like to think so. The harsh existence these people faced: the Gods they worshipped – the very frailties of their lives.  The clues are all there.  Even the food they ate and what season they died in has been discovered  through their autopsies.

The Tollund man does not sleep easy

Amongst my favorite bog bodies is the Tollund man.  he is preserved and displayed in the Silkeborg Museum.  How I would love to see him!  The tranquil look on his ’sleeping’ face belies the hideous leather garrote  twisted into his  neck.  even his leather cap is a work of art, the tiny stitches still being visible from 400BC!  the stubble on his chin, his beautiful fingerprints (which have been taken) are things of wonder.  Even the pores of his skin are visible, though the rest of his body has disintegrated.  The man was found in the foetal position, naked except for his hat and hide belt.It is the acid in the peat that preserves these bodies.  Unfortunately some them have been lost or have been damaged by the peat cutter.  It is indeed amazing how these silent sentinels offer up their secrets.  It’s even more miraculous that we have the technology to understand our past!

More info HERE

Archaeology of bogs HERE

Irish Bog Bodies HERE

PS

Bogged down

I've actually met Lindow man - and I know exactly how he feels. Well, perhaps not...

I feel really fed up and bogged down today.  To make it worse it is snowing yet again!  I hope it’s gone by tomorrow.  I have been toying recently about putting my art on yet another blog – but I’m not sure…..  Although this is an art based blog, I think it might be more appropriate to put my own stuff in a separate space.

peat-cutting time

Everyone seems to have their own particular category that they like – and I’ll be sticking with these and still posting every day.  But as I am doing more art work now, it makes sense to have a seperate space especially for them.  If I had included my own art from the beginning, it would be different, but I’ve only recently started putting work up.  Abstract art isn’t everyone’s cup of tea I know, but it was a natural progression in my work. However, it’s not the only form of art I do by any means.

always be creative with your leftovers

And so (just like that and so typical of me) it has been decided!  The move is underway.   Don’t worry though all the artists birthday shall stay here, the weird and wacky -  all the categories which make this blog ‘Echostains’ everything apart from my own stuff.  I feel happy with that.  It won’t be an everyday blog either, just when I can get time to put work up.  Bookstains will stay the same – occasional ramblings about Gormenghast and the occasional poem, plus authors I have read ,  (which are proving quite popular).

Croft house Skye Museum HERE

Crossing the Oxo cube

oxo cube an old friend

It’s been niggling  me for ages – in fact, every time I open up an oxo cube (which is often) – I wonder why they have changed the shape of them?  They are still cube shaped of course but the cube now forms a cross as in O X O.

sealed with an ...oxo

 

Apparently the notches help the crumble…….  This new design came out in September last year, and they seem to be sticking to it.  Quite a while ago I noticed that they’d changed the consistancy of the Oxo cube – to a more drier powdery substance.  Believe me, there’s nothing more sad than a soggy Oxo cube (except probably me wittering on about them).  But seriously, despite the foil wrappers on the old ones, moisture still managed to get into the wrappers and made them soggy.  That’s what comes of putting them in a cardboard box.  Yes, I know the old tin was impractical in this throwaway society – but I happen to love the old tins and have several of my own.

oxo tin example, I have several of these

 

Then there was the Oxo family,  people all sitting down to the same table and eating a meal together like a proper family - aw those were the days.  Er, here’s a new family (made me laugh anyway)

 

Well, that’s a bit different isn’t it….. 

 

 I still remember this one, like it was yesterday (1989 actually) and I’d better not mention the original ‘Katie’ and her husband Philip – they were quite a long time ago.

You can watch the original advert with Mary Holland as Katie  HERE along with other very old adverts.

Read all about the new cross HERE

PS

Critique Corner -’Germany before the war’

'Germany before the War' by Lynda M Roberts BA Hons

Here’s an abstract piece I did a while ago.  I thought it would be a good one to critique.  When I was young I loved anything which was ‘free’ like most children.  I would go into wallpaper shops and beg old wallpaper books to cover my school books.  I loved the patterns colours and textures of these books – they have probably contributed to my fascination with surfaces.

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

I used to go into travel agencies  and get lots of free brochures.  I loved the colour pictures in these free brochures.  They  showed places  that seemed romantic and very far away.  I liked the silver mountains and blue skies, the very green grass and the  ’outdoors’ wholesome  feel of those ‘healthy’ places.  Living in a smokey city, I longed to go to these places.  In this painting, ‘Germany before the war’ some of the ideas are there, but by using  colour relationships, I wished to convey something extra.  At the time of the painting, I was writing about the use of German myth in art and design and how it was used, and this very much influenced this painting.  I think my favorite fairytale authors the  brothers Grimm  may got into the fabric of the painting somewhere and Johanna Spyri’s  book ‘Heidi’, when she comes down from the mountains and goes to Frankfurt (a kind of reverse wishful thinking on my behalf).

Anselm Kiefer 'Pallette' 1981

“Germany before the War’ attempts to idealise the calm, folklore, passed down through images in books  that informed me of Germany as a child.  It contains a hint of German Expressionism, in as far as the painting is gestural.  I have muted down the German Expressionist colours, (they used a much brighter palette).  I have cited Anselm Kiefer as an influence on this painting, not because of the style  (worlds apart) but because of the way he retells German History.”

Please feel free to critique this work – all constructive criticism and any questions are always  welcome.

Acrylic paint on canvas

Measurements Approx 34in x 20in

My 427th post summary

read all about it?

I thought that it was time for a little summing up of what’s been happening on here.  This is my 427th post now.  So far (fingers crossed) I have managed to blog very nearly every day last year.  My goal for this year is not to miss one day out.  What am I finding to blog about?  ooh all sorts of interesting and some not so interesting things…….

Styx

I thought it was about time I put a little of my art on here, plus an explaination of what ‘echostains’ actually is.  Weird and wacky design is carrying on and so are the teapot posts. Just when you think you have seen it all – someone comes up with yet another innovative design.

Richard Flores 'Stormin Norman teapot

January also saw the launching of my other blog ‘Bookstains’ just press the magic button on the right and get there instantly!  That blog is dedicated to reading challenges, authors I have read and a mapping of my Gormenghast journey as I re read Titus Groan and Gormenghast and write my findings and any new insights I find.  I shall be having a spring clean on here – if Spring ever comes and a bit of a sprucing up.  I may even have to change my theme as the formatting is erratic at times – sometimes the text comes out massive when I save a post.

PS