So I'm taking it easy on the couch tonight and searching through the lovely work of Charles Harper. The man is a brilliant illustrator and wonderfully inspiring. I'm sorry to say that he died this last June at the age of 85. His work is gorgeous. He has this amazing way of simplifying and stylizing really complex nature scenes. I love how clean and beautiful his designs are. (The man makes zooplakton look dreamy!! How amazing is that?) His work from fifty years ago still looks fresh to me. I've put up a few pictures here so you can see what you think.
I'm drooling over his books. I really really want Charles Harper: An Illustrated Life but since it's $100 used I'm probably going to just have to dream. Still $100 is better than the $2,000 The Giant Golden Book of Life: An Introduction to the Science of Life, which he illustrated in the 50s, is now selling for. (If you are of a certain age you might want to check your closets for that one.) And happily Flickr has a group dedicated to him so if you want to see more for free you can go here. I was trying to think of what I would have to do to be willing to reward myself with a 100 dollar book.
I've been toying with the idea of attempting to spend only $150 on groceries for the month like Lindsey did, in Brooklyn(!!!). (If can be done in NY, it can be done anywhere!) She managed to make some pretty tasty sounding meals on that budget. Check it out here. I tried to get Aaron on board with the experiment but he was more than hesitant. I think his words were "terrible idea." Aaron and I do like good food and making food together is a way to spend time together so I sometimes lump our entertainment and food budget together. Still, I love a challenge. When I was at school I was living on ten bucks a week for food. Now I'm thinking if I could manage to keep the $150 food budget in April, I could use the savings to buy the Harper book. Man can not live by bread alone, right? Now I'm trying to think of what reward could be good enough motivation to persuade Aaron to join in. Any ideas?
6 comments:
If he can get through the month on the plan, he can get or make any meal he wants: steak, lasagna, turkey, ham...
Hi! I saw you linked me through my sitemeter (thanks!). I'm tickled you like the $150 food budget idea. You should definitely try it out! You, and your husband, might be surprised at the cool things you can still eat on a tight budget. It just takes extra planning and things like finding recipes that use similar ingredients. Anyway, good luck if you try it out!
(By the way, DiscoMom (who's in my ward) pointed me to your nursery blog a while back and I love it! What great ideas you have!!)
I love the Charles Harper stuff. I love how clean and un-fussy it feels--but still with lots of color. Fun!
The mumps outbreak email was several months ago. So, I think we're clear on that front.
I like the Illustrations that you showed by Charles Harper. Cool stuff.
I'm bad about food budgets. Making dinner is enough work, let alone trying to stay within a budget for it. :)
Actually they sent another mumps email yesterday...Aaron.
katy,
I hope you start to feel better soon!!! Let me know if you need anything and try not to catch anything like the mumps.
I wish I could do a food budget, it's so hard when you work full time to want to cook for dinner everyday.
I know if we tried Gregory wouldn't want anything in our fridge. We would be the couple you'd see at every fast food/restaurant in Charlottesville.
Feel better!
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