You just gotta love these kind of children's games! I bought this one a while ago in my favorite second hand store. But I've got another game just like it which I've posted before, you can see it here. Those illustrations are a bit softer.
Some of you might know this book, but I had never seen it before. Beautiful, narrative illustrations full of fantasy. While googling I discovered this artiocle on Wikipedia:
The Butterfly's Ball, and the Grasshopper's Feast is the title of a poem by William Roscoe, written in 1802, and telling the story of a party for insects and other small animals. Two anonymous sequels were The Peacock 'At Home' and The Lion's Masquerade and the Elephant's Champetre, both credited to "A Lady", and describing similar parties for birds and large mammals. The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast is also the title of a 1973 picture book, loosely based on the poem, by Alan Aldridge and William Plomer. This greatly expanded and altered the original work, focusing more on the animals' preparations for the Ball. Aldridge went on to create two more books based on the sequels; The Peacock Party and The Lion's Cavalcade. An animated short based on Aldridge's illustrations, but once more focusing on the Ball itself, was made in 1974, with Roger Glover writing the accompanying song Love is All, based on the song Love's All You Need mentioned in the book (which may, in turn, have been a reference to The Beatles' All You Need Is Love). This was supposed to lead to a full length animated film, which did not get made. However, Glover had written a full soundtrack, which was released as an album (See Butterfly Ball.)
I didn't know that the video for 'Love is all' was based on this book, it's one of my most favorite videos ever! What a coincidence. So, without further ado! Roger Glover' Love is all:
The first year in Art-college is a year of playing around with materials, colours, textures, ideas and concepts. Lots of drawing, painting, but also 3-dimensional work. Most of the time it was a lot of hard work! This small book is a colourstudy. I think I might scan is sometime to use the textures as a background for illustrations or something else. I'll definately find a destination for them!
I love dogs and that's why a colleague gave me this agenda. It's a design made for 'Papier Hier!' (Paper here!), a day where a Dutch Paper Supplier shows its new collection. The designer approached this title as a way to 'talk' to a dog. So Dutch Illustrator Bart van Leeuwen was asked to develop a dog character called Paper.
I photographed these games over at my parents' house. My mother used to play these games with us. Some of them still look quite new, but they are definately from the sixties or early seventies. Vintage, I'd say! I remember playing Electro. I was never any good at it, so the pictures are imprinted in my visual memory...
I always fear the white pages of a new notebook, especially if it's a Moleskine... I don't want to blemish it. The result is that I have a lot of empty notebooks on the bookshelf. But this time I went ahead and started scribbling and doodling. Great, 'cause these textures are the result of that effort.
This cardgame is called 'Zwarte Pieten' in Dutch. I couldn't find the English word for this game. The idea is to form pairs, in this case a boy and a girl. When you get 'stuck' with the little black boy (Zwarte Piet) at the end of the game you loose. Not very politically correct, right?! But the illustrations are lovely!