Month: November 2017

Cool Places in America~ The Wave Organ

adminLeave a comment

Over this summer, my parents have moved us to San Francisco. They thought they were getting a good salary, till they calculated the cost of living in the city… but while I was there I got to listen to this amazing organ played by Njord.

~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises…

Cool Places in America~ Hamilton Pool

adminLeave a comment

Heading out of Austin this summer on the way back to the Pines to have my parents work for the Mad Scientist  again. We stopped to cool off and take this swim in a cave right out of James Bond. I kept looking for tattoo…

 

Just 23 miles west of Austin, Texas, is a breathtaking emerald pool and cave. It was Awesome. I kept looking for the secret laser hidden under the water.  Our host in Austin reserved our day there. We had an amazing time.

To get there it is 23 miles west of Austin, on Highway 71. Surrounded by the Hamilton Nature Preserve. They require reservations from May 15 to September 30. So book early.

~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises…

Henry J. Ford: Illustrator of the Week

adminLeave a comment

All Those Tales…

Henry Justice Ford (1860–1941) was a prolific and successful English artist and illustrator, active from 1886 through to the late 1920s. Sometimes known as H. J. Ford or Henry J. Ford, he came to public attention when he provided the numerous beautiful illustrations for Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books, which captured the imagination of a generation of British children and were sold worldwide in the 1880s and 1890s.

I always loved his work in the colored fairy tale books of Andrew Lang. I hope you will too!

 

 

 

Free Download of his illustrated books:
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/26630
Cheers,
Chris

Cool Places in America~ The Dream House and the Sound of Motion

adminLeave a comment

We were just stopping in NYC (Tribeca) on our way back from the Mad Scientist of the Pines when we stopped to check this out. I got to dance to my own band…

 

Created in 1993 by modern composer La Monte Young and visual artist Marian Zazeela; they welcome you come in and become your own composer to the soundtrack of your life. You can be just as bad as Samuel Jackson walking down the street with his own theme playing. Or stand still like Clint Eastwood in the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and have your own cool song play.

Then just give up and dance from corner to corner and the light changes to the same frequency of your movements.  Whirl like a Dervish and make some paisley…

Young and Zazeela, the creators,  invite you to dive into their dream world, Wednesday through Saturday from 2PM-Midnight. Check them out and prepare to dance…

~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises…

Biggest Collection of Illustrated Fairy Tales

adminLeave a comment

Surlane Fairy Tales

Here is a treat for you. This website is filled with fairy tales from around the world with several illustrators works exhibited. You can read the European version of Cinderella and then the Japanese next. Many of the tales are annotated and come with a comprehensive list of illustrators who illuminated them. It is a gorgeous site.

 

 

So Now Go Check Them Out:
http://www.surlanefairytales.com

Cheers,
Chris

Cool Places of America~ Heidelberg Street Detroit

adminLeave a comment

Its your favorite child travel adviser, Tyler, once again bringing you the best in last minute vacations. Your road trip planner for the weekend getaway to the coolest and strangest places in America. How do I know about them all? My parents are contract workers in the software industry and keep moving the family every 6 months….

My parents had a gig in Detroit that lasted two weeks. While I was there I found this street with polka dot houses and houses covered in Teddy Bears. The Heidelberg Project was created in 1986 by artist Tyree Guyton and his grandfather Sam Mackey (“Grandpa Sam”) as an outdoor art environment in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on the city’s east side, just north of the city’s historically African-American Black Bottom area. The Heidelberg Project is in part a political protest, as Tyree Guyton’s childhood neighborhood began to deteriorate after the 1967 riots. Guyton described coming back to Heidelberg Street after serving in the Army; he was astonished to see that the surrounding neighborhood looked as if “a bomb went off”. Now the road looks like a paint bomb went off, which is way cool.

Tyree runs community art projects in one of the houses and supports local kid education. I got to paint a few polka dots on the houses too. It was great. Come check out this street.

~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. It is now available in paperback at most bookstores. Ask for it by name. Keep checking this blog for cheap vacation ideas that might become your best vacation ever.

Cool Places in America~ Thor’s Well

adminLeave a comment

At the beginning of the summer my parents had a contract in Oregon where the Goonies were from. It was such a cool town. On the way to points unknown which their software engineer lives bring them; we found Thor’s Well.

I kept looking inside looking for the Kraken…but I did not see him. Kraken, he is not Greek you silly fools. Good Norwegians like myself know this. I also expected Jack Sparrow to swim out of it. I started to walk out on the stones till my Dad called me back. Oh well.

Its just South of the Cape Perpetua Visitor Center in Cook’s Chasm, Oregon. Park on the West side of Highway 101.

~Tyler

To find out more about Tyler visit Salem House Press and buy Tyler’s latest book “Tyler Moves to Gibsonton Florida” on Amazon.com. Keep checking back often for great cheap vacation ideas that might end up surprising you and becoming the best vacation you ever had! Red proved to be always full of surprises…

Aubrey Beardsley: Illustrator of the Week

adminLeave a comment

Such a Gaunt Guy…

Aubrey Beardsley (21 August 1872- 16 March 1898)

Aubrey was an English illustrator and author. His drawings in black ink, influenced by the style of Japanese woodcuts, emphasized the grotesque, the decadent, and the erotic.e was a leading figure in the Aesthetic  movement which also included Oscar Wilde and James A. McNeill Whistler. Beardsley’s contribution to the development of the Art Nouveau and poster styles was significant, despite the brevity of his career before his early death from tuberculosis.

 

 

For more info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_Beardsley

 

Cheers,
Chris

How an Illustration is Made

adminLeave a comment

So That Is One Way…

Well my mom had always said I was warped. Here might be my backwards odd way of making illustrations. I tend to scan in the different steps of my illustrations just in case I screw up, as an offshoot you get to see the process to make the various books I have written. Some people like the process of art better than the finished piece. Each to their own…

So enjoy the sketches below from A Walk Above Salem.

 

 

 
Cheers,
Chris
Sketches and illustrations from A Walk Above Salem, the final book in the Salem Trilogy. For more info on Chris and the Salem Trilogy visit www.salemhousepress.com.