Looey's Art World Adventure

Hi Moonbasers,

I live a comfortable retired life. The Missus and I were extremely lucky in the late 80's to amass enough film work cash, to build our own house.

Around the end of the 90's a new system came into play, wages were cut and the good times were over.

I say this, because one of my colleagues in the Make-up side of things made enough cash to buy original SF & F art. Things like Drew Struzan's original The Thing poster art -along with Mike Ploog's hand drawn storyboards from the same production...

All of this is a rather long winded way of saying Terry's recent post about Japanese Captain Scarlet manga art sent me on a hunt of my own.

I found the following lot of original art on eBay.

A full colour painted cover and eight hand inked pages with overlaid text.

I found the slight crudity of the art appealing -the Captain has never looked so Japanese!

The asking price was around £2,500 which was silly, but almost achievable...

Then I discovered that price was in US$ and with the exchange rate, in A$ it was almost £4000!

So ended my dream of becoming an Art connoisseur!

So enjoy the pics, because it's as close as I'll ever get to owning them!

Looey,

Oz Base

The Last Tree

I was attempting to Find Stephen Lack's painting Boys in the Last Tree, which I couldn't, but I find this amazing sculpture elsewhere by Will Ferreira.

See what you think.

A Pound for the Baskervilles

 Earlier in the year I bought this large framed and glassed print in an Ossett scrap store for one whole pound.

I was somehow drawn to the sitter's severely pale complexion and white garb set against her jet black hair, all with the pastelly chair and background.

She immediately reminded me of someone.

I had seen another painting of a classical lady just last year at the Cromwell Museum, where Elizabeth Cromwell, the Lady Protectress hangs, together with the actual pendant she wears in the picture.

But it's not her I'm thinking of.

For some reason Seventies singer Carole Bayer Sager, of Moving Out Today fame, sprang to mind. More whites and black locks.

But alas, it's not Carole. 

There is an actress I've seen recently, but I cannot for the life of me think where, so I'll stick with my first choice.

Hammer's The Hound of the Baskervilles starring Cushing and Lee, 1959.

My initial thought revolved around Judi Moyens from the opening scenes in her only film appearance, apart from the cover a 1950's Picturegoer magazine about horror films which I have.

The Peter Cushing Appreciation Society celebrated these two roles on their superb site with this explanatory panel of theirs from 2006.

It's not Miss. Moyens though.

Closer to the mark could be the second actress in the Hammer film, namely the excellent Marla Landi (now aged 93) brilliantly playing the unhappy Cecile Stapleton, for whom the new Sir Henry Baskerville falls madly in love.

But, despite all this, I have to say it's a more modern release I've been heading towards and just realized fully. 

It's the fantastic The Hound of the Baskervilles TV Movie with Richard Roxburgh and Ian Hart from 2002 that I believe that I'm thinking of and the actress within who I feel echoes the pale lady in my new painting:

Neve Mcintosh playing the the beleaguered Beryl Stapleton.

By jove, I think I have it! It is indeed Neve I'm thinking of.

The real sitter in the painting was Gertrude Vernon, Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1864-1932).

It was painted by the American John Singer Sargent and appears to have been sold for a tidy sum by Bonhams in 2006.

Needless to say mine's just a print! 

Do you have an intriguing picture readers?

Deora Sunrise

 Messin' with my Deora.

Rockets and Space Coloring Book

 What a cover! 

It's a fabulous Booster Rocket lookalike! 

I wonder what else is in there?

Bloggiversary Discovery: Numbers Station

What's a birthday without some fab space art that hints at Project SWORD and SpaceX toys I've just found online on the brilliant flicker Numbers Station.

Here's a Photonic Space Station.

And the toy courtesy of my friend Paul V's wonderful Triang SpaceX toys website

A Space Glider.

And the Project SWORD toy

A type of ATS

I love how the capsules dock!

And the SpaceX toy*

And a sort of boxy Moon Prospector.

What a brilliant little sketch.

And the more familiar Project SWORD toy 

And finally this drawing reminded me of the ladder in the SWORD Nuclear Ferry, even down to the astronaut climbing it! 

For more glorious space art check out https://www.flickr.com/photos/numbersstation/ 

*For more superb Triang SpaceX and Golden Astronauts visit Paul Vs Home | Triang Spacex & Golden Astronaut toys https://share.google/t16iRinzTtAKDqcYo

Wotan wades in - just had a look myself and there's a great schematic for the illustration that inspired the Spacex Moon Base!

Breathing in Dystopia

 I love dystopian art.

The Missus and me have just spent some time in Suffolk with close pals. 

In their huge and wondrous LP collection was this fabulous vintage cover of people wearing gas masks on a beach. It's called Picnic, A Breath of Fresh Air no less! 

The mad happenstance reminded me of Alex Andreev's artwork I borrowed for the blog during the airing of Sarge, the blog stories and Celtica radio plays, I first began writing in 2013.

Here's another of Andreev's I adore, a huge beached fish with an American fifties car nearby.

Whilst in Suffolk we visited Bawdsey looking for fossil shark teeth.

 I snapped the Bawdsey headland above because it recalled that shot in The Howling of the Colony coastline ( actually in Mendocino)  first sketched by hairy Eddie Quist. It's a werewolf film I adore. 

On Bawdsey dunes is this beautiful blue and maroon house with its windswept trees. Truly gorgeous in its marine setting. Maybe utopian!

Moving away, this Getty/ BBC marine shot I saw online made me think of large metal creatures emerging from the sea. I think in reality it's a lifeguard post. It's Galveston.

And every dystopian homestead needs a decaying robot nearby. This painting is sublime with its snowy vagueness and leaning droid. By artist Jakub Różalski.

But perhaps the most enduring image of the week is this superb utopian portrait of health and optimism, the vintage cover art of It's a Beautiful Day's eponymous LP kindly given to us by our pals (the large Adam West Batmobile was a neat Norwhich charity shop find).

Do you have favourite sci-fi art readers? Dystopian? Utopian?

The Great Mercury Plot 1966

This was up at Bonham's earlier this month. 

Doctor Who: The original artwork of The Great Mercury Plot from The Dalek Outer Space Book, 1966

I really like this lively artwork.

Do you?

Anyone got the book?

Remembering Frank: Frank Frazetta Paintings

Hi,

As artist Frank Frazetta (1928-2010) has come up a number of times on Moonbase Central, I thought these two Oil Paint By Number Sets would be of interest. Both are on Black Velvet.

The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta sets included ‘A beautiful 12 x 16 Velvet painting panel – twenty oil colors – artist’s brush – and complete instructions’. There were two different sets – 1821 Death Dealer (the original was painted in 1973), a mounted figure with an axe; and 1822 Silver Warrior (painted 1972), which included a sled team of Polar Bears.

The sets were made by Craft House Corporation, of Toledo, Ohio, in the USA, copyright date 1978. They were recommended ‘For ages 8 to adult’.

In very tiny lettering it does say ‘Frame Not Included’. There are very few sales listings for these sets.

Six photographs, from Worthpoint and Ebay, in three batches.

Paul Adams from New Zealand

 

*

Frank Frazetta

February 9, 1928 – May 10, 2010

SOMETHING YELLOW - Contemporary Glass Society

When I saw this I thought it was the kind of cute plastic toy I collect.

It's made of glass!

Check out the Contemporary Glass Society.

https://cgs.org.uk/onlineexhibition/something-yellow/

Do you like glass?