The Daily Norm

Jun 25

The Daily Norm Photo of the Week: St Blaise in the Sunshine

For all its different shapes and colours, and the play of sunshine and shadow, this photo, taken a few days ago on my sunny London balcony just had to make The Daily Norm Photo of the Week. It features a little statuette of St Blaise, the patron saint of Dubrovnik, purchased in the same glorious Croatian city from the bustling morning market they have there in the shadow of St Blaise’s church. Now transferred to England, this delicately glazed dark marbled icon looks happy enough on our balcony, particularly when the sun is shining causing his curly metal staff to form a stunning snail-like shadow.

But asides from the saint at its centre, glossy from the reflection of plants nearby, I love this photo for the vibrancy of the green plants and the stunningly red geraniums, offset into a blurred defocus in the picture’s immediate foreground. It is the very image of a warm summer’s day, complete with all the golden comfort of dappled sunlight which makes a green and leafy summer such a beautiful season to behold.

Let’s hope this summer will bring many a day like this one over the next few months.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Jun 23

Desert Discovery of a Catalan Cactus

Now that the huge stresses and celebrations of my London solo exhibition of paintings and prints at The Strand Gallery in May have finally started to calm down, and those 42 sold artworks have comfortably found their new homes, I am moving on to a new even more positive period of creativity as I start to work towards new goals and projects. Foremost amongst them is printmaking, not least because in September I will be exhibiting with the East London Printmakers in London Bridge. This means that my paintbrushes are temporarily down, and instead I am spending more and more hours scratching into hard metals, carving into wood, dipping in acids and turning the stiff wheel of a printpress as I continue making new prints for these forthcoming shows.

Readers of The Daily Norm will know that I have been making gradual progress with my printmaking since I started dabbling in this extensive medium over a year ago. Now as well as etching, which has always been my favourite medium in which to work (largely because it enables me to capture all of the detail I love to pack into an artwork), I have also stated working with multi-plate woodcutting which has given me equal pleasure.

Desert Discovery of a Catalan Cactus (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, etching and aquatint)

But in this next print in my series featuring the Norms, the little white blobs who are at the centre of this blog, I have returned to the medium of etching, here using aquatint for the tone, and zinc as the metal basis from which the image is transferred to paper. This latest print, Desert Discovery of a Catalan Cactus, was inspired by my February trip to Barcelona, and shows the Norms, in an arid dry desert, stumbling upon a cactus which bears a striking resemblance to Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia cathedral.

Illustrating Gaudi’s masterpiece as a plant isn’t too far from the truth either – Gaudi famously drew inspiration from nature in designing his buildings, and here I am simply taking his most famous building back to nature, albeit that the familiar cranes which surround the still incompleted building are still present.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this limited edition print, contact me through my website www.delacy-brown.com.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 19

The Daily Norm: 3,000 followers and counting

Since posting my last article on The Daily Norm, I gained my 3000th follower of this blog. Despite having written this blog almost every day since the end of 2011 and therefore being well accustomed to using words to express my feelings and experiences, I struggle to put into words just how delighted I am with the success of this blog, and how grateful I am for all those who have followed me since its inception. 3000 followers is as incredible number, and I can only hope that all those who have supported me will continue to do so as the years of blogging go on.

I was always a prolific diary writer (I’ve been writing a diary packed with pictures of my art and travels for 19 years now), but blogging really took my diary writing to a new level, not just because it enables me to share all of the photos I have taken and art works I have made in a digital format, but because it enables me to share my life with a far bigger audience. Because I try to keep my blog as an all-embracing homage to the good life, full of the positive notes which embellish my life with the colour and excitement that gets me out of bed each day, knowing that my blog enables me to translate that positivity to a wider audience has encouraged me to see life for all that is good in it.

When I go on holiday, I start compiling in my head how I will present those wonderful new experiences on The Daily Norm; when I create new artworks I get excited about sharing them on my blog way before they ever get seen in an art exhibition; and when I take photos, I get even more pleasure in perfecting the results knowing that now it is not just me and my family who will share in these images, but an audience of thousands. In short, blogging has changed my life.

French Norm (2011 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, digital image)

So I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for following me and sharing in my life, and hope that you will continue to do so. I want to thank my dear friend Cassandra, who suggested blogging to me as a way of expressing my relentless flow of creative energies, and also wonderful Wordress for giving me this fantastic platform to share my thoughts with the world, and with such ease and pleasure.

So by way of celebration I thought I would share, appropriately, a picture of my Norm, the character who is at the heart of the stories and illustrations which I post intermittently between art and travel posts on this blog. This picture was created digitally on my ipad, taking inspiration from David Hockney who has used the medium to create some of his most engaging recent works. My French Norm plays on all of the stereotypes of the typical Frenchman – the stripped jersey, the beret and the string of onions, and I just love him.

So please come back and see many more Norms, art works and travel tales on The Daily Norm soon and tell all your friends – 3,000 followers is incredible, but can it be bettered? I hope so.

Nx

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 18

Dubrovnik | Photography Focus: Part Five – Closing Miscellany

When I look through the Durbovnik posts which have dominated the pages of The Daily Norm over the last few weeks, I am struck again, not just by how incredibly beautiful the Croatian city is, and therefore how treasured my memories of my short time spent within it, but also by the sheer volume of photographs which the trip produced and which I have been able to share on this blog. And yet as I draw the final curtain on this grand Dubrovnik odyssey by posting what has now become something of a tradition with my travel tales – a post of miscellaneous shots – I cannot believe that I am sharing another 60 photos, each glorious in their own way. And believe me, I could post more.

Such is the natural consequence of a city which is so perfectly beautiful in every way, that for a photographer, artist or any creative, it is like having all your Christmases at once. No wonder as both photo enthusiast and artist, I have spent so long describing that mere 4 day trip to you through the pages of The Daily Norm. After all, it engendered not only photos in their hundreds, but also a sketchbook full of quick drawings, a collection of 4 new Norm sketches, and, almost certainly, a number of paintings still to come.

So before I blab on further, let me bring this post to a close so that, as promised by the name of the article, it is the photographs that get the focus rather than the words. And what a collection of photos they are. From boats bobbing on the water and gliding along the Adriatic at sunset, and washing hanging out to dry like a picture postcard from another era, to the elegant architectural details bursting from the seams of this city, and the flowers which find their way into the most hostile of Dubrovnik’s mammoth stone walls, these photos are truly a reflection not just on a city bursting with an abundance of beauty for all its many visitors to enjoy, but also of my own personal deeply satisfying visit to this diamond of Dalmatia.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Jun 17

Norms in Dubrovnik | Up the Cable Car

Like us, Norms do enjoy a good view. After all, their faces feature not the nose or mouth of humans (although rumour has it that these intriguing little creatures eat through pores that open in what would approximately be the location of a mouth on a human face), but two huge wide eyes, which are perfect for taking in the most stunning of sights. And where better to indulge their view-loving tendencies than from the Dubrovnik cable car, where the very best aerial view of the city can be admired.

Of course these Norms are a squishy lot, and that means that when it came to filling the cable car, rather a lot could fit in. That didn’t mean it was particularly comfortable for the tightly packed Norms however, and as this much happier lone Norm photographs the city from atop the hill, he cannot help but notice how those poor cable-car Norms look rather more concerned with the crush they’re enduring than the view below them. Still, they’re almost at the top, and once they get there they can enjoy one of the most unrivaled views of the Adriatic.

Norms in Dubrovnik take the Cable Car (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

And there ends my four-piece collection of Dubrovnik Norm sketches. I hope you enjoyed it!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 16

1 Comment

Dubrovnik | Day 4 – By land, by sea, by sky

On our fourth and final day in the stunning Croatian city of Dubrovnik, we had the opportunity to appreciate the city afresh not just by land, but by sea and twice by air. Of course the second incident of airborne appreciation was also tinged with sadness, as it was accompanied by the whir of a Monarch airplane which was wishing us through the air towards the UK. But hours before that tragic departure from the city commenced, our first airborne encounter can only be described as an experience of utmost exhilaration, as we took to the city’s cable car up to the steep hills behind the city to enjoy an unrivaled view.

Seen from the cable car, and from the various viewing platforms at the top of the hill, Dubrovnik unveils the secret behind its beauty and its longevity. Perfectly encased in solid walls, and situated on rocky crags sticking out like and island in the Adriatic sea, it appears almost impenetrable – hence why history has so perfectly preserved its ancient streets and buildings – rich pickings for every visitor to enjoy. The views were just amazing. Beyond a sea of terracotta rooftops was an actual sea of every shade of blue and turquoise, and beyond that the almost hairy verdant island of Lokrum, and a scattering of other small islands as the Dalmatian coast stretched out into the distance.

But it wasn’t just the views of the city that enthralled. Up on this hill behind Dubrovnik, beautiful mountaenous pastures were scattered with wild flowers and random rock forms for as far as the eye could sea, and cutting across the fresh mountain air, the quiet tranquil bong of bells hung around the necks of nearby cattle. Blissful. Sadly the onset of a passing rain shower had us running back for the cover of the descending cable car, and soon enough we were back in the little city centre, which had by this time become so much like home.

Of course the clock was ticking and our homeward bound flight was not far away. So we decided to while away the last view hours of our trip not by moping around full of the inevitable depression which follows the end of a sensational holiday, but by appreciating Dubrovnik from yet another new angle – this time from the sea.

Dubrovnik’s old port is full of little boats taking tourists out for trips around the nearby coastline, for no trip to Dubrovnik can be complete without appreciating the sheer scale and magnificence of its walls and its geographical position from the sea. For only around £7 each, we not only got a boat trip, but also the boat and a very friendly informative driver to ourselves. He took us along the great walls, explaining the ravaged history of the city including the many attempted (and ultimately successful) invasions of various foreign conquerors, right up to the shocking bombardment of the conflict in the early 1990s.

Then across the sea, we steered around the island of Lokrum which sits bang opposite Dubrovnik, and sailing behind the island discovered how rich an island of geological formations and unchartered natural beauty it is – there amongst sharply cut rocks were huge spooky caves and multi-dimensional forms – it was like a mystical land out of a fairytale. There were also a few nudist bathers thrown in for free – they might almost have been mythological, were it not for the trendy sunglasses placed upon their otherwise quite unaccessorised skin.

And so it was that, steering back into Dubrovnik’s old port, we felt fully satisfied that we had given this city our best, exploring its streets and slopes and squares and monuments on land, admiring its beauty from the height of its walls and the steep hill behind it, and appreciating its scale and magnificence from out of sea. Our final view of the city may have been from that London-bound plane, but we felt pretty sure that it would not be our last.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Jun 13

2 Comments

Norms in Dubrovnik | Life’s a Beach

There is nothing that Norms like more than a good day out at the beach. Their little round tummies sit particularly well with lounging around by the seaside, although they have to be careful to protect their pearly-white skin. I’m not sure that the bottle of factor 15 seen in this little sketch would provide apt protection to these reckless beach-going Norms. But Norms can’t be mistaken for being lazy. They love the water too, and bobbing around in warm seas is one of their particularly favourite occupations, not least in waters so clear and clean as Dubrovnik’s, particularly when the waters, and the beach benefits from a sensational backdrop of the city like this one.

So in my latest Norm sketch, we see the Norms in the midsts of a day of seaside happiness: one is sketching, sat up on the rocks, another teaching his baby Norm how to float with the help of a safety ring. On the water’s edge two little Norms are building sand castles from the rather limited stocks of sand to be found on Dubrovnik’s otherwise pebbly beach, and two more are being conscientiously healthy by playing ball games in between swims. One more Norm is about to go snorkelling in waters which are so clear as to afford him a great view of the fish within, while another is more concerned with that amazing city view, and has swum out quite far to get the very best vantage point.

Norms on Dubrovnik Beach (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen and ink on paper)

Life truly is a beach for this little group of holidaying sun-loving Norms.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 12

1 Comment

Dubrovnik | Photography Focus: Part Four – People Watching

I do enjoy a good spot of people watching – who doesn’t? And Dubrovnik, with its hoards of cafes set within picture-perfect squares and bustling marble-lined streets is the perfect place to indulge in a little people observation. What surprised me about Dubrovnik, a city famed for its tourist hoards, was how the character and spirit of the locals shone through, despite the fact that so much of the city is given over to tourism. Every day out of the church of St Blaise, wedding parties dressed in traditional costume would pile onto the church steps, let of celebratory smoke guns and fireworks and pose for group photos en masse. In cafes the same old locals who probably hang out around the same tables every day chatter calmly, oblivious or perhaps used to the fast pace of tourist visits going on all around them. In the local market, hardy street-sellers ply their trade to both locals and tourists alike, and in cafes, seasonal waitresses can occasionally be spotted daydreaming of another job, another ambition in their lives.

All this made for a great excuse for taking photographs, and many of the photos in this post were actually taken by my partner who loves capturing the true essence of a town and its people in the same way that I love doing the same with my sketches, paintings and my own photographic tributes. So due thanks must go to him for his input into this post which truly does sum up the atmosphere and warmth not just of Dubrovnik but of its very characterful, warm and welcoming people.

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and Dominik Woloszyn © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.

Jun 11

3 Comments

My Dubrovnik Sketchbook (Part 3) – Viewed from the beach

My third and final post sharing extracts from my progressively filled new sketchbook are those pages which I sketched while on the beach adjacent to the old walled city of Dubrovnik. I was a little reticent at first to take my sketchbook on the beach – I envisaged grease splodges from suntan cream and grains of sand getting into the binding. But then owing to the unique position of Dubrovnik’s beach right next to the city affording views over its world-recognisable skyline, who could resist? And so taking extra caution with my sketchbook, I stretched out like a sun-loving cat on my lounger and propped my sketchbook up on my knees and drew.

My first sketch is not of Dubrovnik itself, but of the verdant island of Lokrum which sits bang opposite the city out at sea and is covered all over with a lustrous growth of greenery. The island is mysteriously beautiful, and while its green colour may not come across in my black and white sketch, hopefully the texture of its rich vegetation does.

The island of Lokrum (Dubrovnik) viewed from the beach (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

For my second sketch, I departed my lounger and went to sit on a nearby rocky pier which affords the most perfect views of the city beyond. And it was this incredible view that I sketched that afternoon, taking a good 20 minutes or so sketching the various details of the city, and getting myself a royally sunburnt shoulder in the meantime!

The Old Port at Dubrovnik, viewed from the City's Beach (2014 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

I’m delighted with these first attempts at proper on-site sketching and miss the very process of taking out my book to start a new scene afresh. But I’m sure that this summer will provide further inspiration for me to fill those pages – and you can be sure that whatever I draw will feature on The Daily Norm!

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2014. 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. For more information on the work of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, head to his art website at www.delacy-brown.com

Jun 10

2 Comments

Dubrovnik | Day 3 – A tale of two cities

It is a rare thing indeed to find a holiday destination with mixes both superbly intact historical treasures with a good old golden beach. One can only dream of taking a dip in the sea when sweating profusely around the dry old ruins of Rome’s forum; and in Paris, a manmade beach clinging to the side of the moderately filthy River Seine in the summer months is about as good as it’s going to get. But in Dubrovnik, Croatia’s diamond of the Dalmatian Coast, you truly get the best of both worlds. Not only is the city a treasure trove of historical beauty encased in a perfectly unbroken ring of ramparts, but immediately outside of those stone walls are long beaches and crystal clear cerulean blue seas. And what’s more, Dubrovnik has to be one of the only beaches in the world where you can lounge out in the sun and swim lazily in the shallow waters while being afforded a stunning view of one of Europe’s most unique medieval cities.

Charismatic old streets in the South of the city

Day 3 of our trip made for a perfect demonstration of this fortuitous combination. In the morning we undertook yet further explorations of some of the narrower “back” streets climbing up to the seaward extent of the walls, where streets form successively more beautiful labyrinths of plant pots and strung out laundry, and the steps get steeper and steeper as you advance towards the sea. This then led us to the city’s Domenican Monastery, a place which is not only the epitome of tranquillity with a stunning cloister whose stony silence is interrupted only be the gently dappling of the sun, but whose museum claims to hold the heart of St Luke the Evangelist himself, as well as a good few other body parts of the great faithful.

The Domenican Monastery

In the afternoon, by contrast, we made our way down the winding streets which lead Eastwards out of the city, beyond the protection afforded by the mighty walls, and onto the nearest stretch of beach to the city – a wonderfully golden expanse fringed by warm shallow waters and of course benefitting from that incredible backdrop of the city. As this was, ostensibly, a city trip and we knew that this beach day was likely to be a unique endeavour, we splashed out on hiring two comfy loungers and eating our way slowly through the menu of the beach restaurant ably servicing the many beach goers. And in that mode we enjoyed this second face of the city, plunging regularly into its incredibly warm and clear waters, gazing in wonder at the views of the city rippled in the almost still Adriatic waters.

The beach of Dubrovnik

As evening descended , it seemed only appropriate that our evening dinner should combine both facets of sea and city – and dining out on the visually spectacular terrace of the restaurant 360, positioned up on one wing of Dubrovnik’s old walls, we were afforded a view not just back to the old city, but also over its port where small fishing boats barely moved in the still air of this warm evening. The food was apt accompaniment to this eye-watering view: my crispy sea bass with spiced cous cous and a basil puree deserves particular mention, although star of the show was a bottle of Croatian red – Lasina (2011) – one of only 600 bottles ever made, and so deliciously complex and richly velvet that I wished they had made a thousand more. But then that’s Dubrovnik all over: a place of rare treasures unrepeated elsewhere in the world, and all the more enjoyable for it.

360 Restaurant and Dubrovnik at night

All photos and written content are strictly the copyright of Nicholas de Lacy-Brown © 2014 and The Daily Norm. All rights are reserved. 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.