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Posts from the ‘NormNews’ Category

Jul 9

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The Daily Sketch ITALIA – Norms in Venice

The Daily Norm’s Italian season has officially kicked off, and as such is just another of the infamous PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain – the woe of the EU) which is getting the whole-hearted support of my blog. And of course, where The Daily Norm goes, so too must the Norms themselves, and this week you can join these little white blobs as they traverse the boot of Italia itself, bouncing from one destination to another, making their own “Grand Tour” through the country’s most famous sights.

It may make sense to go from South up to the North in the hope that as the summer months heat up, the Norms can catch the cooler breezes of Northern Italy as the days of July tick along. But Norms don’t really think logically, and as they don’t have feet, let alone legs, they can hardly be counted upon to understand the best way to navigate Europe’s most famous boot. The Norms therefore have started off in the North of Italy, and where best to commence their tourist trail, than in La Serenissima herself, undoubted Queen of the Adriatic, Venezia.

We join the Norms as they sample, as every well-moneyed tourist should do (I note at this point that I have never been able to afford the great privilege of a gondola ride, although I have used the vaporetto, the London bus equivalent of the stretch limousine), the glory of the Grand Canal by gondola, floating gently along this main watery artery of Venice, under the city’s most famous bridge, the Rialto. Need I say more? Welcome to Venice…

Norms in Venice (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Jun 5

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National pride in a Diamond Jubilee Spectacular

As the Diamond Jubilee weekend draws to an end, there is a unanimous consensus that London has never looked so good, nor love for the Royal Family reached such an all-time high. Today’s climax of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations brought with it all the spectacular pomp and ceremony for which Britain is famed around the globe, awe-inspiring parades of gold and red, plush uniforms, glittering livery, grandly dressed horses and the stunning uniformity of hundreds of cavalry riding with precision along union jack flapping and crowd-lined streets. At its centre, the Queen and the Royals were a delight to watch, humbled and stunned by the incredible show of public support, as they made their way back to Buckingham Palace which last night played host to an unbeatably brilliant star-stunned concert and fireworks spectacle, and which today brought the celebrations to a glorious climax with the Queen’s balcony appearance and Royal Air Force fly past.

Words alone cannot properly express the full glorious extent of the past weekend, when spirits have run so high, and all the British and millions from Commonwealth countries around the world have joined together in giving shared thanks to the Queen for 60 years in which she has sacrificed herself for the good, the stability and the strengthening of all her peoples. The party which has resulted shows that London knows how to celebrate, even when times are down, and as the Diamond Jubilee has awed across three days of brilliant spectacle, we can only now sit back and look forward in feverish anticipation towards the Olympic festivities which are still to come.

Norms fly the flag for the Diamond Jubilee procession (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Since words are insufficient to express the brilliance with which London erupted into Jubilee carnival this weekend, I have scanned the internet, collecting together a series of photos which show just how incredible London looked as millions celebrated this weekend. But before you take a look at those, cast your eye over this little sketch which I made as the celebrations progressed. For in Norm world, they too have celebrated the Diamond Jubilee, lining the streets, waving the flag, and celebrating 60 fantastic years of their Queen. Long may it continue!

Note: these photos (apart from my sketch above) are from the internet. Appropriate copyright for the images is shown where the source was indicated on the bottom of the photos. Where a source is not indicated, the copyright belongs to either the BBC or the Daily Mail websites. 

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Jun 3

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Diamond Jubilee Pageant: A Right Royal Wash-out

You have to feel for the Queen. Sixty years of rule and 86 years of age, and when the time finally came to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, she had to stand out in the cold and damp for some three hours, gritting her teeth and ensuring none of the thousands who came out to watch could view her displeasure. As usual, HRH Queen Elizabeth II has put everyone else before her now weather-beaten person.

After a week of almost Mediterranean heat, this weekend has once again seen London dip right back into the wintery monotony which has hung over it like a bad smell for the bulk of 2012, right at the very time when two and a half years of planning reach their peak, and the country goes into Diamond Jubilee celebration-mode with a four day diary packed almost exclusively with outdoor activities. You also have to feel for the thousands of people who were out waiting hours by the river today to see a glimpse of HRH upon the Royal Barge, and the thousand or so ships which made up London’s biggest River Pageant for some 400 years. Not only must they have freezed (I, sensibly, wasn’t one of them), but they’ve probably all caught the flu.

The broadcasters kept on telling us that the weather didn’t dampen Jubilee spirits, but come on, let’s get real here – half of the pageant could barely be seen through the mist which descended over London, covering up much of the newly-constructed Shard in its midsts (it is, after all, the tallest building in Western Europe, but more than usual of it’s lofty facade disappeared today) or because of the rain drops covering the lenses of TV cameras. Meanwhile the large finale of hellicopters and goodness knows what other treats had to be cancelled, while a group of poor sodden opera singers desperately carried on until the end, dripping from head to toe atop their boat like a group of stranded sailors, no doubt praying that they would avoid electrocution from all of the drenched microphones wired around their person.

That is not to say that the good old British spirit did not live on, making the most of a bad situation (every cloud has a silver lining and all that jazz) but just imagine how good it could have been if the clouds, which feel insuperably magnetised towards the UK soil, got lost, for once.

Norms at the Diamond Jubilee Pageant (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Here’s hoping for a bit of sun tomorrow, and that the Queen is suitably wrapped up with a hot water bottle tonight.

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May 22

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The Daily Sketch: Norms at the Damien Hirst Exhibition

It’s all very well a gallery playing host to these rotting cow heads and life cycles of flies with their maggots and detritus and moving little black bodies, but what if the little scientific show-in-action managed to escape from the careful confines of its Damien Hirst supervised glass tank? Even when we visited Hirst’s room full of butterflies at Tate Modern last weekend, we managed to walk out of the room with part of the exhibit attached to our backs (a butterfly landed on my partner… and was swiftly rescued by a Tate attendant before we walked off with potentially one of the most valuable butterflies in the word unknowingly upon our person). So what if those pesky flies managed to escape too? Sadly in Norm world, this question was not just posed in theory alone. All that rotting caused a flap of the tank to come open (or perhaps it was sabotage?!) and for one poor Norm who took the insects’ peculiar fancy, he found himself the number one lunch attraction for a very hungry group of flies.

Norms at Tate Modern (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

And just in case you don’t know which Damien Hirst “artwork” I am talking about, herewith, the offending article… I swear that blood must cause havoc for a gallery’s wooden floors…

Damien Hirst, A Thousand Years (1990)

So let this be a lesson to you all ye who dare to enter Tate Modern’s latest Damien Hirst retrospective. It’s all well enough to stop and stare, but those ghastly flies are but a pane of glass away from a role reversal whereby you become the attraction! Of course while you’re there, be sure to look out for  the Norm in Formaldehyde, which will surely be the highlight of your experience. Here’s a picture of it (one I made earlier).

The Physical Possibility of a Norm in Formaldehyde (after Damien Hirst) (2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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May 18

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The Daily Sketch: Norms on the Underground

We pay hundreds per month for the “convenience” of travelling by Tube into London. There are some of us who travel to the heart of the great city to speak lawyer talk about human rights. Yet surely the most fundamental of all human rights are in breach when, having paid your earnings away to Transport for London, you then find yourself packed so inexorably like a tin of 50% extra free sardines into the coffin-like surrounds of person squeezed upon person, that the right  to move, read, sit, stand untouched, even breathe is placed in serious jeopardy.

I’ve tried travelling on the tube at all different times, going in earlier, later and in the middle of the rush, just to avoid the humiliating cattle herding onto a train from which i emerge with fresh shirt crumpled, drenched in sweat (both mine and, undoubtedly that of the bloke squeezed in uncomfortably close next to me), gasping to take in air having tried, almost to the point of suffocation, to avoid breathing while enjoying a close encounter with the armpit of a freakishly tall passenger (which always appears to find itself cupping the space around my nose). I’ve even travelled backwards just to come forwards again. But no, it’s the same every day. We are crammed onto these compact capsules, within an inch of our life. Just when you think no one could possibly squeeze into the carriage, another ten push their way into the crowd, like crowd surfers, incongruous to the consequences for the people they slam their bodies into, so long as they get to work on time.

Tube Norms (2012, © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

It’s the same in Norm world of course. Except for them things get even worse. The more their round forms squish together, the more their bodies give way to yet more Norms entering the tube carriage until, unavoidably, the crowd of Norms merge into one, unmoving mass of gelatinous substance, so immovably merged together that when the train eventually reaches it’s destination, they can barely move themselves away from the interlocked mass in order to leave.

Hmm, now I come to think of it, not worse at all. Welcome to London 2012, home of the olympics. And oh, how I look forward to that.

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May 4

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Manet Norms at the Cappuccino Grand Café – Part II: Decoding the Manet’s

Yesterday I launched my new painting onto the public stage – Manet Norms at the Cappuccino Grand Café. Having stemmed from an idea to recreate Manet’s masterpiece, Bar at the Folies-Bergère, I felt that an insertion of the painting into my Cappuccino landscape would only work if the other Norms too were based on Manet paintings. One look at Manet’s oeuvre revealed a host of images which were ripe for reconstruction within my Normy café scene. Like many of his impressionist colleagues after him, Manet was a pioneer of painting real life, scenes capturing the French society all around him, from lonesome drinkers supping upon a plum brandy, to day trippers out on the coast and a child fascinated by the plumes and puffs of the steam railway. All this Manet captured to perfection, and feasting hungrily upon his works, I transformed a great many of them into Norm customers at my café when presenting the thriving, bustling atmosphere for which Cappuccino Grand Café is famous.

So without further ado, here are all of Manet’s original paintings followed by my own interpretation as featured in my new Cappuccino café scene. Despite being some 150 years apart, these characters slip effortlessly behind the elegant marble tables and botanical celebration of Cappuccino’s terrace in a café which exudes sophistication, and retains the feeling of glamour and recreational hedonism which was intrinsic to venues such as the Folies-Bergère back in Manet’s day. Parfait!

Bar at the Folies-Bergère

Edouard Manet – A Bar at the Folies Bergère (1882)

My reimagination of the Bar at the Folies Berger…

Those bottles…

Argenteuil

Edouard Manet – Argenteuil (1874)

My Norms, loosely based on the figures in “Argenteuil”

The Luncheon

Edouard Manet – The Luncheon (1868-9)

The Luncheon-based trio of Norms

Le Chemin de Fer (The Railroad)

Edouard Manet – Le Chemin de Fer (The Railroad) (1873)

Norms, complete with the little sleeping puppy

The Balcony

Edouard Manet – The Balcony (1868-9)

Not on a balcony, but the same trio as Norms

Man writing in a café / “Chez Tortoni”

Edouard Manet – Man Writing in a Café / ‘Chez Tortoni’ (1878)

Writing just the same “Chez Cappuccino”

Chez Le Pere Lathuille 

Edouard Manet – Chez Le Pere Lathuile (1879)

Love is in the air, at least for one of these Norms…

La Prune (The Plum Brandy)

Edouard Manet – La Prune (The Plum Brandy) (1876-8)

I hope the Norm writing will join this lone drinker for a date

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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May 3

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Manet Norms at Cappuccino Grand Café – Part I

It came to me one sunny afternoon, when I was painting my last Norm work, Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. My mind should have been on the painting, but as is often the case when painting the minutiae of a large detailed canvas, my mind was elsewhere, in Spain’s jet-set Marbella in fact, on a hazy summer’s day, sitting in the green and bounteous garden of the Cappuccino Grand Café, with the sea calmly lapping the sandy shore, and all the worries of the world wafting away in the sweet-smelling mediterranean air. Such is the effect of the Grupo Cappuccino’s free radio station, whose chilled jazz and nostalgic bossa-nova  transports one back to the Cappuccino experience so thoroughly enjoyed in the summer past, even when all around you southern England, land of the current “drought” is on high flood alert.

The real Marbella Cappuccino

So there I was thinking about Cappuccino, and I knew that following a recent trip there, I just had to recreate the café on canvas, so that, as well as listening to its soundtrack, I could also hang a large image of my favourite Spanish café in my home here in London. Trouble was, I already had a canvas reserved for another Norm parody based on a second masterpiece of impressionist favourite Eduoard Manet, A Bar at the Folies–Bergère. 

Cappuccino’s gardens by the sea

That’s when it occurred to me – I want to paint Manet, and I want to paint Cappuccino – why not combine the two? And so the idea was born. I set about creating this partner to my Norm version of Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe with Manet’s renowned Bar at the Folies–Bergère installed right where Cappuccino’s own bar stands. And that was just the start. Having decided to paint one Manet masterpiece within the scene, it seemed consistent to bring several other Manet characters to life when I painted the customers of my café. So, in these gardens, you have an ultra chic, wonderfully contemporary Cappuccino Grand Café together with resident DJ Pepe Link, and a dashing Norm waiter while, conversely, the customers comprise a load of Norms in 1860s period dress. It’s a combination which I love and I am so proud of the result.

Without further ado, I give to you my latest Norm creation, Manet Norms at Cappuccino Grand Café.

Manet Norms at Cappuccino Grand Café (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, Oil on canvas)

On tomorrow’s post I’ll guide you through all the Norms featured in Cappuccino’s lush tropical garden, and all the paintings by father of the Impressionists, Edouard Manet, which inspired them. In the meantime I leave you with a gallery of some details from this new Normic landscape. À tout à l’heure.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Apr 13

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The Daily Sketch – Birth of Venus

After the success of my wonderful Rachel Khoo inspired madeleines (and thank you so much Rachel for your kind compliment on twitter – the great chef herself has complimented the “perfect gold crisp crust” on my efforts, woo!!) I’ve been feeling all shell inspired. Not so inspired that I have redecked my city pad in shells and shabby-chic battered wood installations. No, my shell thoughts have been drifting further afield, to the long lofty corridors of Firenze’s ubiquitous Uffizi gallery, home to surely the most famous artistic depiction of a shell in all the world, not to mention the picture perfect Venus rising from it’s pearly-smooth contours. I am of course talking about Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, a work full of allegory, beauty, flowing locks and scattered rose petals. What more could you want on a Spring afternoon as you sit down with a cup of tea and a madeleine. And just in case you can’t make it all the way to Florence to see the original, why not gaze upon this Norm take of Botticelli’s masterpiece, breasts, flowing locks and all.

The Birth of Norm Venus (after Botticelli) (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Apr 7

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The Daily Sketch – Easter Egg Norms

Who would have guessed – Norms are born from spotty eggs, just like birds. And so Easter is a special time for Norms – their distinctively Norm shaped eggs are celebrated in all their spotty magnificence, although for Norms, these multi-coloured polka dot creations are just a matter of biological Normativity, developing naturally as the egg matures towards the acme of its gestation, when the baby Norm, feeling the call of the world around him, quivers, shakes and cracks through the delicate shell of his prenatal home.

Easter Egg Norms (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Sadly, for those Norms who don’t make it, this is what happens. Oh dear.

Norm Egg Soldiers (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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Apr 6

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The Daily Sketch – Viernes Santo

It’s Good Friday, arguably the most important day in the Christian calendar, and, if you’re not into that kind of thing, an excuse for a day off to do some DIY! I always remember Good Friday with a degree of childlike fascination at an overwhelming morbidity and yet a profound sense of excitement at the scale and importance of the day. In the church where I used to be a chorister, they would hold a three hour service. Towards the end of that service they would strip the contents of the church bare leaving the place utterly bleak. This would mark a huge contrast to Easter Sunday morning, whereupon the church would be bursting at the seams with flowers and a sunny sense of celebration. For many, the role of the church on Good Friday has disappeared, and along with it, much of what made the day special for me in the past has filtered away. I couldn’t even find Ben Hur on the television, which could always previously be relied upon to instal a little Romanic pomp into the day!

Once again I find my thoughts floating towards Spain where, on this “Viernes Santo” they hold the most solemn procession of them all – a wax effigy of a startlingly lifelike dead Christ, and a weeping Mary, while the participants in the parade are dressed in an eery black and, at least in Marbella, there is no band – only silence and a recurring, foreboding drum beat. It’s chilling.

Marbella's startlingly realistic wax effigy of the dead Christ, paraded on Viernes Santo

Since Spain has very much been the concentration of my approach to Holy Week on the Daily Norm, I thought I’d mark Good Friday/ Viernes Santo with the most substantial Norm Sketch I have yet completed – far bigger than the rest and packed full of detail, this is a full on Semana Santa parade, complete with crowds, a tronos, the nazareños, the women wearing mantillas, and the altar boys wafting incense through the air. And below, just so you don’t miss a thing, some detail shots.

Semana Santa (Miercoles Santo) (2012 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Enjoy Good Friday, however you choose to spend it, and see you back here over the weekend.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2005-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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