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I didn’t get home until late on Friday night–so I guess this week’s final post is once more going to be drawings from the little book I carry around. The first is a surreal tropical underwater landscape. I wish i had included more jellyfish–but I am happy about the jelly duck and the orange artichoke/balloon thing. I am also fond of the underwater ghoul and the lurking crocodile monster. For some reason, now that I work of Wall Street i have been drawing all sorts of predators and floating ghosts. Speaking of which…
Here are some monsters at a convivial party of some sort. It’s a bit unclear what is going on, but I feel like the hobgoblin in the purple and teal robes might well be the designated honoree. Look at how proud and happy he looks. Another ghoul is there looking super excited too–although the green vegetable guy with gills looks as though he might have a bit of social anxiety. I need to draw more furnaces and fireplaces. They are really dramatic.
Finally here is a summer picture of Prospect Park. All of the parkgoers were bland and ill-dressed so I just drew verdant trees and creamy clouds. Just as I finished a teenager in a hijab walked by and a blackbird flew across the sky. It was too late to put them in the picture, but they are walking through the empty page towards it!
Have a lovely weekend! I am looking forward to next week’s posts.
Winter is a season when it is best to be reading a book beside a hot stove. Not only are stoves appealing because they are hot–most wood stoves and fire places are also designed to look good. Wood-burning stoves made of cast-iron are among the last devices regularly manufactured in classic gothic-revival shapes (perhaps because the industry is small and specialized enough to charge premium prices for elegance). Many of these stoves appear as though they loaded fuel into themselves and then walked out of the nineteenth century on little cast-iron legs.
To get through the winter (while simultaneously adding to Ferrebeekeeper’s “Gothic” category), here is a gallery of attractive gothic stoves. Some of these are classic stoves from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but a surprising number are on sale now.
There is something surprisingly comforting about these stoves. Just looking at them makes one think of warmth, shelter, and relaxation. But, with their stern arches, angular faces, and red flames, they also seem hungry, sinister, and hot. This odd juxtaposition must go back a long way for humans who have bedded down beside wood fires for thousands of generations as we crept further into lands too cold for our tropical blood.
These pictures are good for showing the sculptural/architectural beauty of these various stoves, but they are not quite as good at evoking the proper feeling of warmth and security. To get that sense you should imagine a dark shadowy study with the warm orange glow of embers cast across the room. Outside the wind howls over frozen forests and fields of ice but you don’t have to go out there.
Of course you might be reading this from some southern clime, in which case you don’t need to worry about winter’s chill at all. Have a big tropical drink and go to the beach. You can sit in the sun and reflect on how much I envy you.