Van Gogh’s Olive Tree Paintings

Olive Grove - Vincent Van Gogh (1889) from Metropolitan Museum of Art

One of my blogging hobbies (“blobbies”?) is using CC Search from Creative Commons and the Flickr Commons to look up images connected to my blogging. This time the search term was olives. Olives were on my mind after visits to an olive grove and olive oil processing facility. Not surprisingly, the search tools led me […]

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Sacramento Murals: A City’s Stunning Surfaces (Gallery)

Detail of Maverique Style House mural, I Street between 20th and 21st. Portrait by Love Ponci, other features by Meme, Reds, and Beth Emmerich

(Disclosure: I received a discount on the International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC) registration fee in exchange for writing three posts about my experiences at the conference.) It was a long hot drive to Sacramento for the International Food Blogger Conference (IFBC) — a searing 95 F and increasing traffic intensity as I reached the city’s outskirts. Construction and […]

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Decorative Letters In 1880s-Era Good Housekeeping Magazine

Decorative letter W from 1889 Good Housekeeping

Before magazine designers and editors could use lots of photos to enliven their pages, they needed other methods.  In the late 19th Century, Good Housekeeping used decorative initials at the start of each article. Unlike typical initials, these weren’t simply larger or more ornate, but were creative depictions of letters that related to the magazine’s themes, […]

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Another Batch of Vintage Book Covers

"A Man's Man", book cover from the British Library

While browsing the amazing and often confounding Flickr Commons, I was entranced by a collection of late 19th century book covers from the British Library. The majority of the nearly 900 covers are “pulp novels,” but you’ll also find travel books, text books, and other miscellany. Last month I shared a batch of six vintage book covers, and this […]

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More Sketches by W.M. Thackeray

Big hair, drawing by W.M. Thackeray from Thackerayana (1875) - page 325

Thackerayana has too many enchanting sketches to be limited to a single post of Thackeray sketches, so I’m highlighting ten more sketches (this time as a “slider,” instead of a tiled gallery).  In the gallery you’ll find struggles with umbrellas, fencing vegetables, dancers, and more. I want to highlight one of the sketches, which I call “big […]

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Sketches by W.M. Thackeray, a Master of the Quick Sketch

A reader, drawing by W.M. Thackeray from Thackerayana (1875) - page 264

While searching for something or other in Flickr Commons, the wave of images included some attractive sketches of people struggling with umbrellas in a storm, elegantly attired dancers, and various other everyday happenings.  I soon discovered that they were from Thackerayana: Notes and Anecdotes, a book published in 1875. The book is tribute to William Makepeace […]

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Visiting a Pear Orchard Triggers Interest in Fruit Crate Labels, Part 1

(Disclosures: the farm tour was a pre-conference excursion arranged by the International Food Bloggers Conference. Although I paid to go on the excursion, it is possible that California Endive or the California Pear Board provided some subsidies to reduce participants’ costs. In addition, I received a discount on the registration fee in exchange for writing […]

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