Restaurant Magazine - August 2011

Restaurant Magazine - August 2011

A piece for regular client Restaurant magazine's Strets & the City section (written by financial analyst Mark Stretton).

This was about huge food and drink conglomerate M & B (Mitchell & Butler) and their rapid management turnaround, hence the IN and OUT swing doors!

Punch & Judy (Work in Progress)

Punch & Judy (Work in Progress)

Many, many months ago I was asked by Daniel Bugg of the Penfold Press to contribute to one of his screen-printing projects, this one about Marriages and Partnerships. I chose Punch & Judy as these violent and grotesque anti-hero puppets have always fascinated me.

Unfortunately just after I was asked I somehow or other damaged my back (we now think its a pinched disc in my upper back/ shoulders) which for months on end made working almost impossible and slowed me right down. Shedloads of treatment and medication later it is generally much better, although not a day goes by when it doesn't still hurt.

This last week or so I have turned my attention yet again to the poster design, and have made some good progress. Here are Punch and Judy's weapons of choice - his Slapstick or Club, and her Rolling Pin. These guys don't do sweet-nothings!

Fear not Dan, the design is on its way! Slowly. But surely!

Twitter Ye Not - President Nixon Resigns

Twitter Ye Not - President Nixon Resigns

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

On the 8th August 1974, Richard Milhous Nixon resigned as President of the United States of America in the wake of the Watergate scandal. He remains the only American president to resign from office. Here, we imagine the Twitter feed from that dramatic time.

I have shown the 37th President, shame-faced and crest-fallen, delivering his resignation speech, while his wife, First Lady Pat Nixon, and their beloved springer spaniel, Checkers, look on sadly. Behind Pat hang the new plaid curtains she's just had fitted at the White House (very 70s!).

Tricky Dicky was relatively easy to capture (IMHO), but his wife much less so. As First Lady at the cusp where 60s slipped into 70s there are some great photos out there of Pat Nixon in various garish and ghastly yellow dresses, polo necks, etc and more lacquer in her onion-shaped hair do than you'd find in all Kowloon's furniture factories put together! By the time I'd got a likeness I was happy with I had really grown to love Thelma Catherine "Pat" Ryan Nixon!

Gunpowder Plot (Print for Sale)

Gunpowder Plot (Print for Sale)

A 2-colour Screen Print about the fiendish Gunpowder Plot of November 5th 1605.

Remember, Remember
The Fifth of November
Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.
I see no Reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot...

My image has three scenes;

At the bottom is the undercroft cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament (Westminster Palace), rented from one John Whynniard and filled with barrels of gunpowder (accurately portrayed!).

At the top I have shown Guido (or Guy) Fawkes in the upper room of some tavern, discussing the planned terrorist attack with the man who's idea it all was, Robert Catesby. (Note leaded window, Popish crucifix, piss-pot, clay pipe, blown-glass bottle of Canary wine, horn beaker and pewter tankard).

Between these two I have the heads of some of the other conspirators impaled on spikes outside Westminster Palace after their execution (Hung, Drawn & Quarter'd) - Thomas & Robert Winter, John & Christopher Wright, Thomas Bates, Ambrose Rookwood, Everard Digby and Thomas Percy et al..

The print measures 39 cm wide by approx. 60 cm deep, is an Edition of 25 and is available to buy from me directly at £50 + P&P (paul@paulbommer.com)

Wildman (Print for Sale)

This is my Wildman screen print.

Wild Thing,
You make my Heart sing,
You make everything...
Groovy!

I have a thing for savage Wild-men o'the Woods, also known as Wode- or Wood-woses. They are a popular feature in Medieval,Tudor and Stuart heraldry, folklore and design.

The wodewose has no conscience, ate 'til he was full, and possessed a wild, unbridled sexual appetite. He is hairy from head to toe, is often decorated with oak leaves and carries a huge gnarly club! My kinda guy.

3 colour screen-print,
limited edition of 40,
50 cm by 70 cm,
on South Bank white 250 gsm

Available for £75 + P&P.

The Gentleman Relishes (Print for Sale)

The Gentleman Relishes

A 4-colour limited edition screen-print, exploring ideas of taste, hunger, desire and appetite.
Dimensions: 50 cm wide by 70 cm high (standard frame size).

'Being a Diagrammatick shewing the divers Effects of Desire, Relish & Sauce upon Man's Physionomy'

Available to buy at £120 + P&P

La Maison des Sangliers

La Maison des Sangliers, Noyers-sur-Serein

Alas, it seems that Nick and I will not now be able to visit are great friends Andy & Claire Squire and their lovely garçons Joseph and Jean.

Andy and Claire are both potters and live in an amazing medieval town in Burgundy, Noyers-sur-Serein, in a 14th Century townhouse on the market square called La Maison des Sangliers - the House of Boars (on account of some carving, now sadly almost indistinguishable, of wild boars on the house's external beams).

Lack of funds, work commitments, tax bills, exhibitions, offers of house-stays in Wales, Kent and Cromer and an exhibition of a very talented friend's work in Ripon have all conspired against the probability of Burgundish trip (at least for now). Maybe later in the Autumn or Winter?

In their honour I have created this image of a tusked and grunting sanglier. The image is based on a medieval pewter badge and, if anything, I have rather diminished this boar's vigour (lets say) from its original and happy state (before anyone says anything)!

Like Obelix, I'm getting kind of hungry just looking at him!

I met the wonderful Chris Brown for a Bastille Day martini at Duke's Hotel on thursday evening. I was inspired by his delightful work to attempt something resembling a lino-cut (at which Chris excells), so here it it - plain and simple.

La Vie est Breve (Print for Sale)

Only a couple of these left!

The words are from a poem by George Louis Palmella Busson du Maurier (6 March 1834 – 8 October 1896) was a French-born British cartoonist (Punch) and author.

PEU DE CHOSE
La vie est vaine,
Un peu d’amour,
Un peu de haine,
Et puis—Bonjour!

La vie est brève:
Un peu d’espoir,
Un peu de rève
Et puis—Bon soir!

For the non-francophone out there, its roughly this;

Life is short
A little hope, a little dream
And then - Good-night!

The image was originally called (in my head) Le Flâneur. Flâneur is a word I love, and Flânerie is one of my favourite pass-times.

Where & Who is This? A Rebus.

Where and Who Is This?

Another little conundrum and jeu-de-mot.

Who can tell me whereabouts this rebus represents? And who is the Lady buried here, whose Life was cut so cruelly short?

Answers on a postcard. Or a comment.

All shall be revealed to-morrow or the day after!

Oranges & Lemons: For Sale

I have always been fascinated with London folklore and with nursery rhymes, and with this poem in particular, but as a kid only knew the standard, and more modern, shorter version. This more ancient form of the famous rhyme dates from around 1830 (although the poem itself is doubtlessly much older) - so I have chosen scenes and costumes from around that period.

I love this fuller form as it refers to more of the City and its amazing layered history.The lines and images connected to each bell refer to trades and events local to each parish - Old Bailey (St Sepulchre) because it stood by the debtors' prison at Newgate, Stepney because it was always associated with sailors and seafaring, St John's chapel in the Tower of London because of its torture chambers and dungeons, &c., &c..

The print is a limited edition of 50 (with almost half of those already sold!), 2 colours (the colours were chosen to reflect traditional orange (and other fruit) tissue wrapping designs), 50 cm wide by 70 cm high (a nice convenient standard frame size!), high quality paper (approx 300 gsm). Available from me directly, and soon a number of as yet unconfirmed other sources, at the bargain price of £95 + P&P.

Rabenschnabel Kalender 2012

Rabenschnabel Kalender 2012

I was asked by the delightful Achim Von Boxberg to contribute a few of my old images to his annual publication, the Rabenschnabel Kalender, in exchange for a small stack of copies to sell on or give away as Xtmas gifts.

Here is a selection of a few of the images he/we chose!

http://www.rabenschnabel.de/

Click on the images to Enlarge

Twitter Ye Not - Baden Powell

Twitter Ye Not - Baden Powell

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

On the 1st of August 1907, Lieutenant General Robert Baden Powell arrived at Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour for the first ever boy scouting camp (to test his ideas for the book 'Scouting for Boys') - now recognised as the origin of the wolrdwide Scout movement. We imagine the Twitter feed from that momentous week.

I have shown Baden Powell, a national hero of the Anglo-Boer war, sitting on a camp stool and toasting marshmallows with a Boy Scout over an open fire. BP has burnt his, hence the cross look upon his face. Ne'ertheless, the boy looks on with great admiration - this is after all a new century, and a bold new institution free from class distinctions (well, almost!).

The marshmallow probably first came into being as a medicinal substance, since the mucilaginous extracts comes from the root of the marshmallow plant, Althaea officinalis, which were used as a remedy for sore throats.

The camp lasted a week and boys there engaged in activities around camping, observation, woodcraft, chivalry, lifesaving and patriotism. Regarding the latter, although I am a proud (mongrel) Englishman and love English history and folklore, I tend to agree with George Bernard Shaw on the subject - 'Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy' and 'Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it'. Genius!

The Scouts motto 'Be Prepared' was, of course, a play on Baden Powell's initials.

When I was a nipper, back in the '70s, I was in the Cub Scouts. My division was named 7th Wembley. I didn't much like it - too much saluting and woggle-wearing for my tastes, so never graduated to the Scouts proper. My Mum met Lady Baden Powell when she was a Brownie, back in the '30s!

Twitter Ye Not - Bonnie Prince Charlie

Twitter Ye Not - Bonnie Prince Charlie

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

On the 23rd July 1745, Charles Edward Stewart, known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, landed on the remote Scottish island of Eriskay and began to muster an army in order to challenge the Hanoverian King George II and regain the crown for the Jacobites. As the Twitter feed for that day demonstrates, it seemed like a good idea at the time!

I have shown BPC (aka the Young Pretender) on the one side in all his Scotch finery (he was actually Rome-born to an Italian mother, and educated in France!). He looks on at Flora MacDonald, a loyal Scottish supporter who helped him escape pursuers on the Isle of Skye by taking him in a small boat disguised as her Irish maid, "Betty Burke," evaded capture and left the country aboard the French frigate L'Heureux, arriving back in France in September.

The cause of the Stuarts now lost, the remainder of his life was — with a brief exception — spent in exile. Charles's flight from Scotland after the uprising has rendered him a romantic figure of heroic failure in later representations. The famous "Skye Boat Song" commerates the flight, and I have shown Flora's 'wee bonnie boat' in the background. I sung this song quite a lot as a child (without knowing much of the story I'm ashamed to say).

Both figures are tartan-clad as later romantic portraits would represent them. All about them grow thistles, symbol of Scotland, and, for a time, a thorn in the Hanoverian side. Looking at images of Charlie, I'm not sure our modern sensibilities would consider him 'bonnie' - but then again, "Girly Prince Charlie" doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it?

Twitter Ye Not - Gold Rush!

Twitter Ye Not - Gold Rush!

A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.

In mid July 1887 the first successful prospectors arrived in Seattle, bearing gold mined from the Klondike and Yukon rivers. News of their find marked the start of the (short-lived) Gold Rush. Here, we imagine the Twitter feed for that historic time.

I have shown on the one side a prospector, panning for gold at the river's edge. He's based a little on Klondike Pete, the branding character from 1970s breakfast cereal Golden Nuggets (I remember them being delicious, but when they revived them in the late 90s I realised, to my disappointment and chagrin, that they were, in fact, filfthy. Sometimes, its best just to remember these things, and not relive them!).

On the opposite side stands Calamity Jane, just blown in from the Windy City. She was a real-life person, but I've chosen to show her as played by mental butter-wouldn't-melt actress Doris Day in the eponymous musical.

In front of them flows the mighty Klondike, behind them stands a mighty Canadian pine-wood forest (Yukon, Canada was, of course, at that time a British Territory).

Computing Which? - PayPal Pitfalls Exposed, #2

Computing Which? - PayPal Pitfalls Exposed, #2

A piece I just finished before the week-end for regular client Computing Which? magazine.

It's about difficulties, queries and accountability of internet giants PayPal and ebay - the pitfalls that exist, and how best to avoid them and resolve any complaints.

The composition was suggested to me by art director Mark Massey (who is himself a great photographer) - a poor, small consumer/ customer from the original tug-of-war image (see previous post) has finally got the upper-hand against the giants PayPal and eBay (but my idea to have them bound with the rope from the original composition!).

Computing Which? - PayPal Pitfalls Exposed, #1

Computing Which? - PayPal Pitfalls Exposed, #1

A piece I just finished before the week-end for regular client Computing Which? magazine.

It's about difficulties, queries and accountability of internet giants PayPal and ebay - the pitfalls that exist, and how best to avoid them and resolve any complaints.

The composition was suggested to me by art director Mark Massey (who is himself a great photographer) - a poor, small consumer/ customer at an unfair disadvantage in a tug-of-war against these two hefty internet service providers.

This is a cropped version - the actual print artwork had both parties on either side of the staples of a broad double-page spread.