#letterbox Aubrey

[dannybobany]

OMORITOBER DAY 7 | LOVESICK

This was another prompt where I knew immediately what I was gonna do with it- I’ve been wanting draw this Aubrey for awhile now actually! The silliest serial-toaster!!!

We are IMMEDIATELY leaving the realm of no tw tags… that is NOT jam

Also! With shattered omori I talked a bit about how certain blackspace characters have unique features from their regular counterparts, for this Aubrey I drew her with heart eyes, pink swirls on her joints, and a bigger hair bow!- oh and she only has four fingers

List I’m using below cut ⬇️

[burade]

how og EARTH do you draw fluffy curly hair so well

s. so there’s this guy

[katievbr]

Anais Nin Essay 2018

This November it is our pleasure to be sending out a collection of erotica to your letterboxes called ‘Little Birds’ by the inimitable Anais Nin. At first we debated the risqué nature of this sensual little book in regard to some of our younger readers. But then, on realising that everyone here at Sendb00ks had read it before the age of seventeen, we started to think back to those times and remembered the infatuation we all shared on discovering this treasure trove of female sexuality. Once we started talking about it seemed we all had friends who had memories of themselves pulling down the works of Anais Nin from their parents dusty bookshelves and hiding away with them, tentatively and then obsessively relishing in her world.  With this in mind we take the step to cut out the dusty bookshelf and the hiding and deliver a beautiful brand new version straight into your hands.

As far as erotic literature goes I have always enjoyed the way illustration can further transform and illuminate the writing of an artist, such as the incredible drawings of Aubrey Beardsley for Oscar Wilde’s play Salome. His feminine figures intensify the text and guide the sexual tones of the whole piece, allowing our imaginations to run wild. When I found the beautiful illustrations of our next featured artist, Lou Benesh, in a little collection of French erotica at the back of a bookstore recently, I immediately felt wildly excited (and maybe even a little turned on) by her work and the exciting prospect of pairing up her work with a book in much the same way. Her work to me evokes the same celestial sensuality I feel when I read Anais Nin. Luckily I came to know Lou personally and found out that she too was a reader! We met under the red heat lamps and she opened her sketchbook full of beautiful women in repose, languidly sleeping amongst the stars and I knew immediately that they would be a perfect match for Little Birds.

Anais Nin understood perfectly the inadequacies that existed within literature during the early twentieth century when women’s sexuality was largely unexplored in the public space by female writers. She tackles “the mysteries of woman's sensuality, so different from man’s and for which man's language was inadequate.”  While her novels are undoubtedly inspiring they are just the start. From her essays to her diary excerpts, her short stories, letters and poetry, her work spans a whole lifetime dedicated to breaking taboos and exploring female sexuality. While Lou and I were talking she told me about her desire to create art with no intention other than to please herself and explore her own talent. She spoke about how she would like more people to have affordable access to her work and so we thrilled to announce that we will also be selling three original paintings from Lou with all the proceeds going directly to her. We are so excited to be celebrating the work of female artists this month who are unafraid to explore themselves regardless of how scandalous their tastes.

Please send 14 pounds/ 16 euros to purchase@sendb00ks.com to receive one copy of Anais Nin ‘Little Birds’ with Lou’s work and a few other spooky surprises just in time for Halloween!

[mellowyknox]

Smashing Pumpkins “Stand Inside Your Love”

Director: WIZ Cinematographer: Chris Soos

Info:

Beautiful People: The Music Videos of cinematographer Chris Soos, CSC By Tommy Nguyen, 8th November 2000

Smashing Pumpkins' "Stand Inside Your Love"

When you get a glimpse of his last music video - the Smashing Pumpkins' "Stand Inside Your Love" -you, too, begin to get a sense of the exodus of talent that has hurt today's mainstream music videos. Directed by the rising British auteur W.I.Z., the video envelops the alternative rock band within the "Salome"-like story of a young woman who eventually is executed on the brutal decree of an obese, profligate king. (The video opens with a passage from "Salome" playwright Oscar Wilde: "The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.") The grim fantasia of the set design and the draping Gothic decadence of the band's costumes are sharply augmented by Soos' high-contrast black-and-white photography, as if the black lines and figures were inked on top of the early pages of literature. Indeed, the video's visual narrative was inspired by the work of artist Aubrey Beardsley, a contemporary of Wilde's, whose drawings illustrated a well-known edition of "Salome."

“The director referenced this sort of myth in a very esoteric manner," Soos said, "and had a painterly approach in using (cinematography), art direction, makeup and so on to deliver a lithographic, extremely high-contrast kind of look." The video wasn't shot in black and white, nor did Soos use high-contrast soundtrack film stock. To make the lines sharper, Soos needed to find some high-resolution detail, so he shot on color reversal: Eastman Ektachrome 5239. "If your exposure is right on, it's a great sort of fulcrum between inky blacks and hot text whites. And it's easy to light, especially with hard lighting, if you're going for that classical, Fresnel key stuff that we were doing. Even to the extent where we were using big 10K lights to key (lead singer) Billy Corgan."

The video draws some additional storybook charm from the framing mechanism that Soos uses throughout. From an oval circle squeezed by the parameters of television's aspect ratio to a vertical viewing space that creates letterboxes on each side, each shot of the video also seems to work in a visual context outside of filmmaking -as an opening portrait to a fable, as a lasting tableau of a lesson learned. "I've always been intrigued by Hasselblad and 6x7 framing," Soos said. "Not that I (make a living) as a still photographer, but it does have an influence on me." Through the Arriflex 435's frame line generator, Soos was able to preview and compose the quadrilateral shots within the picture frames. For him, the decision to use the framing technique was a completely artistic undertaking; he and the director weren't just employing a gimmick that has been used many times before. "When I turn the pages of a book and look at a picture vertically for whatever reason, it's a choice I make," Soos said. "So this video is a great example of a project that suggested the whole decision-making process, and how the issues were solved in a collaborative environment."

Of course, not every shot was in-camera, which is especially noticeable when the camera tilts downward to reveal the band performing on a towering monolith, or when a long shot finds Corgan on the edge of a cliff with a moving, living sky in the backdrop. The band members were placed on risers, but any portions of the shot that were below the riser or above its white plateau were CG. The set was large so that Soos' hard-edge lighting could cast colossal, creeping shadows over the white floor -classic horror lighting. "I approached it as if it were 1934," Soos said. "If you put yourself in that world, you make decisions that a cameraman of that era would make."

Year: 2000