Mad Men Art

Illustrator for Mad Men's sixth season Key Art is Brian Sanders, a designer who started in the 1960s in print

a ten-part serial for Woman's Mirror, 1964

Brian’s first published illustration painted in acrylics

...was engaged by Stanley Kubrick to record on set, the making of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1966...

with paintings and drawings only, 

Did a Fante cover

a portrait of Noel Coward for Nova magazine

and was known for his Bubble & Streak style as used for this,
season 2013, Mad Men -

“Matthew Weiner, inspired by a childhood memory of lush, painterly illustrations on T.W.A. flight menus, decided to turn back the promotional clock. He pored over commercial illustration books from the 1960s and ’70s and sent images to the show’s marketing team, which couldn’t quite recreate the look he was after. ‘Finally,’ he said, ‘they just looked up the person who had done all these drawings that I really loved, and they said: ‘Hey, we’ve got the guy who did them. And he’s still working. His name is Brian Sanders.' NY Times

In the era that “Mad Men” depicts, Mr. Sanders said, his illustration “gods” were mostly Americans — Bernie Fuchs, whose work defined much of the 1960s’ look of magazines like McCall’s and TV Guide and who was perhaps Mr. Sanders’ strongest influence; Lynn Buckham, known for a clean, Norman Rockwell-like style; Jack Potter, who dropped out of advertising in the ’50s and became a renowned teacher; and Joe De Mers, whose impossibly curvy pin-up-type womenhelped set the template for a character like Joan Harris on “Mad Men.” NY Times

more here amctv and here Brian Saunders via whorange

Woodkid

I've posted Woodkid tunes here before but didn't realise then that Yoann Lemoine was also the music video director responsible for 

Lana Del Rey's Born to Die -

And the gorgeously French New Wavey 

Dreaming of Another World for Mystery Jets -

That he used to roll with Luc Besson's crew and also directed a series of roughs for Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette.

Nor even that he collaborated with Agyness Deyn 

on his own stunning music video for Iron.  

The very same song that Dior Homme's 2013 Fall collection "A Soldier on My Own" was inspired by.

Wow woodkid. Wow.

La Nouvelle Vague

My deep love affair with the French New Wave may well simply be indicative of my general adoration for film, documentaries or films of that ilk, the era and attractive French people and their impeccable style - bien sûr.  

  
Or maybe I've just grown too comfortable with ambiguous narratives thanks to the cruel real world. 

In any case, my last two weeks have been spent immersed in the world of my beloved François Roland Truffaut.

It's not just because he wagged so much school he was expelled from a bunch of them, then chose to make his academic goals to watch three films a day and read three books a week.  Nor that he made his own film club (dork - at least the one I made was an official University one...) and spent two years trying to escape the French Army he willingly joined (I'm 5 years in here) and so is just exactly like me.  C'est Vrai.  C'est claire.

No, I suspect it's because he created such spectacular, funny masterpieces ensconced in the most beautiful and absurd aspects of this ludicrous and crazy life.

He said what he thought - "Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français", attacking what he saw as inferior work (JK2 I'm looking at you) and selling the auteur theory in the 60s.  His life goal was to make thirty films and then retire to write books.

touché mon fréré, touché

The Architect and the Painter

 

Julius Shulman (1910–2009), photographer, Pierre Koenig, architect,
Stahl House (Case Study House #22), LA, 1960 © J. Paul Getty Trust

After seeing the incredibly cool and very well designed California Design, 1930–1965: "Living in a Modern Way" exhibition at LACMA and then purchasing the equally inspiring catalogue, catching this doco was a no brainer.  There are now only a few days left to catch the insightful, sweet and inspiring doco on Charels and Ray Eames - Eames: The Architect and The Painter at ACMI and I highly recommend it.
 

From architecture and art to film making and industrial design, these guys made magic.  

 Winner of the San Francisco International Film Festival Award, 1958, this portrayal of the Mexican Day of the Dead consists of still shots reflecting the annual Mexican celebration of “All Souls Day”.

I ask you - who else would design a kite of this caliber?

 A little perspective from their most famous 1968 film about orders of magnitude.

 Dream Living - Case Study House #8 

(the building I chose at uni to learn CAD many moons ago)

I want to be a Coppola too #2

Adam Stockhausen - production designer on Wes Anderson's new film Moonrise Kingdom and supervising art director for another great Anderson masterpiece - The Darjeeling Limited and Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche.  Wow.

Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of two twelve-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and escape into the wilderness. I can't wait.

 The hand-painted poster of floral font and children's storybook illustration below is gorgeous.

 According to the New York Times quoting Wes himself (that's right, we are on a first name basis), the film was inspired after his watching of François Truffaut's ''L'Argent de Poche'' (Small Change) released in the United States in 1976. A short improvisational comedy about schoolchildren in a petite French town.  'People talk about how the early French New Wave movies were so free, and the camera was so liberated and everything, especially in comparison to the films that came before them,'' Mr. Anderson said. ''But not like this. In 'Small Change,' the camera is even more free. I think Truffaut makes a kind of point of not obsessing about anything involving light, or anything like that. The whole movie had a real documentary feel to it. It makes you realize how meticulous some of those earlier New Wave movies really were.''  

And just like me, Wes says he tends to go on jags, immersing himself in the work of directors.  After seeing and enjoying one film by a particular director, he will then try to see as many of that director's other works as quickly as possible.

 And OMG if the fact it's called Camp Ivanhoe isn't some kind of divine sign that our destinies are bound to intertwine in the very near future...

 "Here I am with Khaki Scout Troup 55 and Kara Hayward, who plays Suzy. This was shot on a farm in Rhode Island. The boy, Sam, has just been struck by lightning."—Wes Anderson.

 "Tilda Swinton. She plays a character—an institution, really—named Social Services. Half Deborah Kerr/ half Maggie Smith." —Wes Anderson.

 The great styling of leading lady Suzy (Kara Hayward) is a lil
Lana Del Ray mixed with the 1960s French chic of Anderson's favourite music era.

 

Less than zero

Beautiful Winter photos from Kristina Petrosiute

Baby it's cold outside.

Planting lilacs & buttercups

How many acres, how much light
Tucked in the woods and out of sight

Old dirt road
Knee deep snow
Watching the fire as we grow old
Old dirt road
Rambling rose
Watching the fire as we grow - well I'm sold

Inspiration from Whorange, Finn Juhl's pad is so very sweet.

Need these now.