Category: Retro

#68 Knife Fork & Spoon

Chaz DeSimone 18 Comments

68 Knife Fork & Spoon

Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

This edi­tion should be titled “Lar­ry & Susie” because what these peo­ple stand for is far more sig­nif­i­cant and inspir­ing than a lit­tle piece of art­work with an amper­sand in it. But since Lar­ry’s trea­sure to me inspired this work, I did make it as spe­cial as I could (and learned a cou­ple new Pho­to­shop effects in the process).

 Before I pro­ceed with their sto­ries, here’s an invi­ta­tion to attend Susie’s “Use Me & Abuse Me” par­ty between Wednes­day, Octo­ber 24, 2014 and until all the guests have left or are passed out, which is sev­er­al days lat­er, where she invites you to shame­less­ly plug your own web­site or blog. Go there right now and join in the fun, but don’t for­get to come back here. If you miss this par­ty, sub­scribe to her blog and you’ll get an invi­ta­tion to the next one.

Mention your own blog or website at Susie’s
“Use Me & Abuse Me” party:
susielin​dau​.com

Like I said, this edi­tion is about  two very spe­cial peo­ple, both of whom I admire great­ly for their courage, faith, and inspi­ra­tion; both of whom I met online some­how; and both of whom I’ve nev­er met in person…but I feel like they’re my next door neighbors.

LARRY

I’ll start with Lar­ry, because he’s the inspi­ra­tion for this Amper­Art piece. A few years ago my broth­er Andy gave me very designer-​style Mick­ey Mouse cof­fee mug, which I love and use every sin­gle day (unless I need just a tiny jolt, then I grab my small­er cof­fee mug from The Orig­i­nal Pantry, old­est restau­rant in Los Ange­les – just so you know, I pur­chased the mug; had to, as I exam­ined a case of 60 to find the per­fect print­ing). I thought it would be cool to have a Mick­ey Mouse cof­fee spoon, not think­ing I’d actu­al­ly find one. Well, I did, on ebay, from this guy named Lar­ry who I knew was going to send me a spec­tac­tu­lar piece after a cou­ple con­ver­sa­tions with him. He real­ly want­ed me to be hap­py! And when it arrived – hap­py I was! For a moment my kitchen was the hap­pi­est place on earth! Not only is it the clas­sic “old” Mick­ey, the spoon is a real tea­spoon size, per­fect for a cup o’ joe, it’s in excel­lent con­di­ton, and states the copy­right is owned by that revered name of old, “Walt Dis­ney Productions.”

So Lar­ry real­ly made me very, very hap­py with that spec­tac­u­lar, col­lectible mas­ter­piece that I stir my cof­fee with every sin­gle day, no mat­ter which mug I use.

mickeyspoon

Lar­ry also sub­scribed to Amper­Art, and always leaves a nice comment.

We began com­mu­ni­cat­ing, and what an inspi­ra­tion this man is.

What a bat­tle Lar­ry has gone through, hav­ing con­tract­ed an entire body worth’s of can­cer from serv­ing our coun­try for over 20 years – in the prox­im­i­ty of Agent Orange. He’s told me hor­ror sto­ries that are out of a sci-​fi movie, but unfor­tu­nate­ly he real­ly lived them. He’s been in and out of the hos­pi­tal dozens of  times for can­cer treat­ment, each time pulling some­thing else out or treat­ing this or radi­at­ing that. I was shocked to find out that this poor guy was only the same age as me, when the descrip­tion of his health has him sound­ing 80 years old. 

But don’t let him hear you or me call him “poor guy,” because just like Susie, Lar­ry lives life to the fullest. He’s a fight­er, a believ­er, and says he would­n’t trade his life in for any­thing. He says he’s been in some awe­some places, thanks to the ser­vice, that peo­ple only dream about. And if you enjoy my Amper­Art, you can thank Lar­ry: he says each one brings him so much joy, there’s no way I can stop doing them. That sure makes me feel good, too.

Lar­ry is in and out of the hos­pi­tal almost con­stant­ly. And although today he said things are look­ing pos­i­tive and he’s feel­ing bet­ter (he says he hopes it’s not a dream), I urge you to please pray for this gen­tle­man. He has been an inspi­ra­tion to me, and I’m sure to every­one who knows him. I’m sure he’d love to hear from you: Ljvsfc@​aol.​com

 

SUSIE

Susie Lin­dau is a self-​professed wild child, and she has her read­ers in stitch­es with each and every sto­ry on her high­ly enter­tain­ing blog.

Then last year she endured a dou­ble mas­tec­to­my, and with­out miss­ing a beat she laughed and joked through­out the entire ordeal, edu­cat­ing, enlight­en­ing and  inspir­ing oth­ers with unbe­liev­able spir­it. That over­with, Susie con­tin­ues to write about all her incred­i­ble adven­tures that are dar­ing, amaz­ing, and even sil­ly. But always fun. And wild. There’s even a pho­to of her dou­ble implants on her web­site. Check that out.

If you haven’t already, join the par­ty at susielin​dau​.com. Oh, and about the mid­night curfew…not so, Susie’s guests par­ty into the wee hours and even for days afterwards.

These are two very spe­cial peo­ple, and I could write a lot more about each of them. But I have a par­ty to crash…

 

Production notes:
Original size: 10x15 inches
Program: Photoshop
Font: Goudy Oldstyle bold
Images:
Lace pattern: obsid​ian​dawn​.com (many exquisite Photoshop patterns and excellent instructions on how to install them)
Antique silver cutlery: 123rf​.com /​ photo by martinak
Special thanks to Mike McHugh at cre​ativesweettv​.com for tutorial on bending spoons with the Photoshop Puppet Warp tool.
No dinnerware was harmed in the making of this art.

#71 Ring & Ring

Chaz DeSimone 3 Comments

71-Ring-&-Ring

Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing & framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

Amper Fans meet Apple Fans

Today’s the day every­one’s been wait­ing for (unless you’re an Android or Win­dows fan — ha ha Win­dows fan sounds kin­da fun­ny, does­n’t it)…

THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF iPHONE 6

brokeberry

No, that’s not an iPhone. It’s my cracked, scuffed, worn, tor­tured, bro­ken Black­ber­ry Curve 6310 that I’ve had for 8 or 9 years.  Think I’m ready for a new phone?

Believe it or not, it still works. (It has to, it’s the only phone I’ve got.) I’ll tell you more about this Badass­ber­ry — the phone that won’t quit — in my “chaz sez” col­umn below. It’s been a work­horse, but I am so ready for a brand new iPhone — & final­ly the iPhone 6 has the one fea­ture I’ve been hold­ing out for, a larg­er screen. (I’ve also been cross­ing my fin­gers it will come in grey or black, & sure enough it does.)

Remem­ber before answer­ing machines (remem­ber answer­ing machines, which were before voice­mail?) the phone used to ring & ring & ring & ring & ring, some­times 10 or 20 times? Real­ly annoy­ing if you had an annoy­ing friend (or worse yet, a bill collector…or worse yet, a tele­mar­keter) who kept call­ing & you did­n’t want to speak to them. At least with answer­ing machines you could fast-​forward to the next message.

Let’s fast-​forward to today:

Well, the iPhone 6 has been announced, but we’ll have to wait & wait & wait & wait & wait until it’s actu­al­ly avail­able. I’ve wait­ed 9 years for a new phone so I guess I can wait a few months longer.

UPDATE: I did get that iPhone 6 Plus, & enjoyed it very much…until the iPhone X was intro­duced. I jumped at that imme­di­ate­ly, main­ly because I like the let­ter (or numer­al) X & the num­ber 10. It’s a mile­stone. & I love the phone, with its edge-​to-​edge larg­er screen (retain­ing near­ly the same size body), face recog­ni­tion, & super-​duper cam­era. (I had way to much fun with the ani­mo­ji fea­ture at first, turn­ing myself into a robot, chick­en, & such…until that nov­el­ty wore off. It was fun send­ing my great-​niece a col­or­ful ani­mat­ed uni­corn, though, on her birthday.)

So, am I anx­ious to get my hands on the lat­est & great­est iPhone 10 XR, XS, XS Max, or any­thing else? NO! I love my X, the sim­plic­i­ty of the mod­el name, & don’t plan to upgrade (not that I con­sid­er the newest mod­els much of an upgrade) any­time soon…although I doubt I’ll wait anoth­er 8 or 9 years.

phone colors adIf you’re won­der­ing what all the col­ors are in this Amper­Art piece, “Ring & Ring,” those are the col­ors tele­phones came in while I was a kid in the 1950s & 60s. Up until then they came in any col­or, as Mr. Ford would say of the Mod­el T, as long as it was black. The new, mod­ern col­ors were excit­ing, instant­ly mod­ern­iz­ing & adding a touch of glam­our to any liv­ing room, bed­room or kitchen. This ad announces all the new phone colors.

 

princess-phone-pink-rotarySMShort­ly after the new col­ors, along came the Princess phone (that was in my mom’s or sis­ter’s bed­room, of course, although I don’t recall if it was pink or turquoise).

 

 

 

black pushbutton phone

But the most rev­o­lu­tion­ary con­cept, that which changed the world of tele­pho­ny, was the push-​button phone. That allowed all sorts of won­der­ful new appli­ca­tions, includ­ing auto­mat­ed cus­tomer ser­vice depart­ment selec­tions that usu­al­ly dis­con­nect­ed the call. (I always just press 0 for a live oper­a­tor, although that usu­al­ly dis­con­nects the call as well or recy­cles back to the main menu). Then cord­less phones were the next big thing.

single-brickAfter that, of course, cel­lu­lar phones were all the rage, & any­one who owned one was an instant celebri­ty. For decades they were first nov­el­ties, then acces­sories, & today they have replaced the home phone alto­geth­er for sev­er­al house­holds. For many solo entre­pre­neurs such as myself, the cell phone is our main busi­ness phone, along with Skype.

Ah, the sim­pler days when all the instruc­tions for using your new phone were print­ed on a sin­gle sheet of paper…

dial telephone instructions

If you hap­pen to have a Bell & How­ell 16-​mm sound pro­jec­tor sit­ting around, you could sim­ply learn from this high­ly edu­ca­tion­al film which shows you step-​by-​step how to place a call with the rev­o­lu­tion­ary new sys­tem. Is that an ear­ly portable cell phone she’s stand­ing next to?

I know, I know…this Amper­Art release coin­cides with the iPhone 6 release & it was planned that way, so why have I hard­ly even men­tioned the Shiny New Toy? Because you’ll be hear­ing enough about it on the on the news, on the Inter­net, at Star­bucks, & from your geek col­leagues. You might even be at an Apple store plac­ing your order right now.

listen up!Why do I still have a Black­ber­ry Curve where I can’t read half the screen; the ear­piece does­n’t work so I have to use it only on speak­er; the track­ball fell out once & until I found it weeks lat­er (right under my chair) I had to do every­thing with the key­pad, which meant no scrolling (now it’s taped in place); & I have to pull the bat­tery out to charge it because the usb jack is all screwed up? Oh yeah, & it’s held togeth­er with duct tape?

Because it still works—and I’ve been wait­ing for an iPhone that has all the fea­tures I want, includ­ing a nice big screen. Oh yeah, & the price. Oth­er bills came first. The new iPhone 6 Plus is exact­ly what I want, & the old Beast­ber­ry prob­a­bly won’t hold out much longer.

Which means I’m going to get the iPhone 6 Plus for sure (and all its 128g), so I bet­ter get back to work right now to afford it.

 PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original size: 20×30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Font: What font? This is hand-​lettered, just like ads were created back in the 1960’s (unless you could find a decent script in Fototype).
Colors: Sampled from period telephone ads & adjusted according to memory
CREDITS:
Ad: clas​si​cro​tary​phones​.com
Princess phone: playinginthe​worldgame​.files​.word​press​.com
Black pushbutton phone: unmesh​patil​.blogspot​.com/
Brick: bodyshapestyle​.com
Instructions: teach​inglit​er​a​cy​.tum​blr​.com
1954 film: YouTube /​ Bell System

#65 Black & Blue

Chaz DeSimone 8 Comments

65-black-blue

Click to view full-​size or download hi-​rez image for gallery-​quality printing and framing.
This is a high-​resolution pdf & may take a few minutes to download.
Find printing tips & framing ideas here.

My favorite col­ors are black & “char­lie blue.”

Black is actu­al­ly my very favorite col­or & yes, it is a col­or. (See “chaz sez” below.) “Char­lie blue,” as my friends know it, is any­thing between Cray­ola Blue Green to cerulean to turquoise to cyan (one of the four print­ing ink col­ors). Amper­Art #65, Black & Blue, fea­tures CBG as I call it, cyan, and one oth­er blue which I’ll get to lat­er. All my favorite blues are some­where in-​between CBG and cyan.

I am not fond of sky blue, navy, baby blue nor roy­al blue. They are cold. (Yes, I know, my very favorite col­or—black—is def­i­nite­ly freez­ing. But we’re talk­ing blue here.)

There is a very deep blue that does tin­gle my col­or bone. That’s cobalt blue. My first mem­o­ry of that col­or is my father’s blue cuff links. Also the knob on his steer­ing wheel to help turn the tires before pow­er steer­ing (that acces­so­ry became ille­gal because when the steer­ing wheel snapped back the knob could remove a fin­ger or two). & the cool red tail lights with the blue dot in the mid­dle, which cre­at­ed a mag­i­cal col­or effect.  They’re pop­u­lar again today but I remem­ber the orig­i­nals on my dad’s 1950-​something auto­mo­bile. Prob­a­bly no oth­er rec­ol­lec­tion of cobalt blue is stronger for me than the bot­tle of Vicks VapoRub. That stuff felt ice-​cold as the col­or of the bot­tle it was pack­aged in. I’m also par­tial to cobalt blue because it is the favorite col­or of my moth­er and my broth­er Rob. So that is the oth­er blue in this Amper­Art piece.

Vicks-jar-with-lid-circle

Just look­ing at this Vicks jar opens my sinus­es! Oth­er prod­ucts in cobalt blue bot­tles were Noxze­ma, Phillips Milk of Mag­ne­sia (sounds appe­tiz­ing, does­n’t it?), Bro­mo Seltzer, Nivea and Blue Coral.

In fair­ness to navy, roy­al blue, sky blue & all those that are not my favorites, com­bine them with var­i­ous oth­er col­ors & they cre­ate out­stand­ing col­or schemes. Of course, the same could be said for poop brown.

I am releas­ing #65 Black & Blue dur­ing the play­ful days of sum­mer, because that’s when I recall we’d get the most bruised up falling off our bikes, skate­boards, or just play­ing in the back­yard. I did, any­way. I was a real klutz. Still can’t ride a skateboard.

listen up! Black is a col­or! Not the absence of col­or, nor the com­bi­na­tion of all col­ors. It is col­or. So is white. So why do peo­ple say it’s all the col­ors or no col­or? Because they don’t know the def­i­n­i­tion of col­or. “Col­or” means the descrip­tion of the hue, val­ue & tone. Pure yel­low is a col­or that has a hue some­where between orange & green on the col­or wheel, a very light val­ue (high-​key, or very bright com­pared to very dark such as navy blue), & min­i­mal tone (gray­ish­ness; mauve & sage green have medi­um tone).

The col­or black is defined by no hue (red, yel­low, blue, etc.), the dark­est val­ue, & zero tone. White is defined by no hue, the light­est val­ue, & zero tone. So you see, black & white have no hue & no tone, but they are both colors.

If you want to have some fun with all the oth­er col­ors, check out the Cray­ola web­site, espe­cial­ly the his­to­ry & the Cray­ola Expe­ri­ence where kids (includ­ing big kids) get to play & cre­ate among all things Cray­ola, & see how they are made. If you can’t make it to the fac­to­ry in Eas­t­on, Penn­syl­va­nia, watch this video: How Cray­olas Are Made.

I love Cray­olas. (I won’t use any oth­er brand; the col­ors aren’t as pure, they’re waxy & they just aren’t Cray­ola.) I remem­ber when the box of 64 pre­miered, with the awe­some Built-​In Sharp­en­er. I prob­a­bly have the few stubs that are left of my orig­i­nal set some­where, but today I have The Ulti­mate Cray­ola Col­lec­tion — 152 dif­fer­ent col­ors! — on my desk. I use them fre­quent­ly, & always to sign impor­tant legal doc­u­ments. For that task, of course, it’s Cray­ola Blue Green.

PRODUCTION NOTES:
Original size: 20×30 inches
Program: Illustrator
Lettering: Hand-​lettered by Chaz DeSimone
Colors: Cyan, cobalt blue, Crayola Blue Green & black
CREDITS:
Vicks ad: flickr​.com/​p​h​o​t​o​s​/​2​8​1​5​3​7​8​3​@​N​08/ “SaltyCotton” has nearly 2000 photos of vintage ads in pristine condition. An ad designer’s or collector’s eye candy overload!
Vicks jar: Joe Corr on pin​ter​est​.com/​p​i​n​/​2​7​4​9​3​0​7​5​2​2​2​5​6​7​2​7​32/ and etsy​.com/​s​h​o​p​/​o​w​l​s​o​n​g​v​i​n​t​age Beautiful collectibles and antiques.