A second volume of Robert Forbes' poems is to be published in the autumn again illustrated by Ronald Searle. Let's have a Bite! will be available soon from Overlook Press. They previously collaborated on Beastly Feasts!
Searle has contributed a deck-chair design to a project run by the Royal Parks Foundation in London. The designs will also be on display at a pavilion in Shanghai Botanical Gardens in China. Click to enlarge the image left to see Searle's witty take on this year's theme- 'seeds'.
In the comments section Searle aficionado 'Docnad' pointed out the deckchair design's similarity to a New Yorker cover from June 1991.
One more exhibition for Ronald Searle's 90th birthday year!
Searle fans living in Devon will get a chance to see a reduced version of the retrospective held at the Cartoon Museum in London this summer. It's on at the Burton Art Gallery in Bideford in Devon from the 25th September to November 1st.
Friday, July 23, 2010
I've updated the Punch theatre section, published St. Trinians part 4 and added a YouTube link to the the Scrooge page. I've added a search function at the bottom of the blog for easier browsing.
"Today in the Creative Spirit section, enjoy a drawing signed by a customer who left a deep footprint at the Hotel Aiglon. This is the British drawer and cartoonist Ronald Searle who designed this flying cat “Chataiglon”. . .
Mr and Mrs Searle are loyal customers of the hotel Aiglon for 35 years. So loyal that a suite has been renamed “the Searle Suite”. The artist has offered three lithographs for this room which confer a strong and unique personality to the place. This article is also a way to thank Mr and Mrs Searle for their loyalty."
In 1968 Searle was hired to create the title sequence for Ken Annakin's 'MONTE CARLO OR BUST!' - a follow up of sorts to 'THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES'- for which Searle had also created a memorable title sequence.
I'm grateful to Mr Searle for allowing me to photograph & present here pages from the original sketchbook he kept on the set of the film. I'd presented a slideshow of these images at the various presentations I made on Searle's work in animation & film titles. Here for the first time on the blog you can browse through his sketches and notes made while following the production on location around Europe. . .
With his customary meticulous attention to detail Searle records the duration of his trip between the 25th July to the 10th August 1968. The film was released the following year.
In the photo below Ronald is sketching at the Rome location accompanied by Monica and director Ken Annakin. I presume the notebook he's holding is the same one I photographed 40 years later. He's probably making the sketch shown above.
Here we can see Searle starting to explore the action of the title sequence.
Searle produced the final titles with production outfit TRICKFILM, with whom he also created the title sequences for Ronald Neame's 1970 film SCROOGE.
The rest of the drawings in the sketchbook were published as a tie-in, illustrated book of the film. They include Searle's sketches of the principal actors including Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Eric Sykes, Tony Curtis and Gert Frobe.
The roving artist made sure he was on set for the scene where the girls stop to bathe in a river!
Searle even caught the screenwriter of the film, Jack Davies, on set.
You can read a well illustrated review of the film here.
Art of the Title on Searle here and the title sequence here.
I am a story artist working in the animation industry (Aardman, Pixar, Netflix, Sony) I retain all copyrights to original artwork & material posted on my blog.
A second volume of Robert Forbes' poems is to be published in the autumn again illustrated by Ronald Searle. Let's have a Bite! will be available soon from Overlook Press. They previously collaborated on Beastly Feasts!
