LIMITED EDITION PRINTS NOW ON SALE

The prints of my pen and ink portrait of Tommy Cooper went on sale this week. I was pleasantly surprised by the prints; it is possible to see the varying tones of black made by the ink wash used on the larger dark areas  and even some of the brush marks. I had not expected that detail to show but it does; it is almost like looking at the original.

At present there is one on auction on Ebay with a starting price lower than the actual retail price. Visit the auction by clicking here.

Alternatively, full price copies can be bought on my website; to visit the page click here.

    

LIMITED EDITION PRINTS - TOMMY COOPER

Within a week or so the first of a series of limited edition prints will become available for sale. There will only be fifty copies of each one, making them an extra special collector's item. Each print will come with a letter of provenance from me. Each print will be printed on art paper and signed by me (and dedicated to the purchaser if so wished), ready for mounting and framing. 

More details to follow soon.

Dai Vernon Desktop Wallpaper

Another free desktop wallpaper; this time of a detail of my portrait of Dai Vernon. As before, the usual terms apply. This is free to download and use but only for non-commercial purposes; the image is copyright and legal action may be resorted to if the image is used for any money making purposes. The colour of the image has been intensified on a stylistic whim.

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James Randi Desktop Wallpaper

One more desktop wallpaper; this a detail of my sketch of James Randi. As before, to download simply either click on the link and the image will load in a new window and you can download it from there - OR - right click on the link and download from the options that appear.

To be repetitive, the image is copyright and is only to be used in a non-profit way. Any commercial use will result in appropriate action being taken.

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Penn Jillette desktop wallpaper

Here is more desktop wallpaper as promised. It is a detail of a sketch of Penn Jillette. There is more to be found at my website http://johnhelvin.net and at this website http://magicianstheexhibitiononline.com 

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To download the wallpaper either 

(1) Click on the link and the image will load into a new window and you can download it from there. 
(2) Right click on the link and choose to download the file.

The artwork is copyright. Use of the wallpaper is free provided the image is not used for profit in any way.

FREE DESKTOP WALLPAPER

Recently on Facebook I made available a small selection of desktop wallpaper I have designed; some are photographs by me or a detail of pieces of artwork of mine. I asked for input on the different screen sizes that people would like them to be and below are links to  jpegs based on people's replies.

Although they are free to download, use or pass on to friends, the copyright remains mine and anyone found selling them or using them within any 'paid for' product  may be subject to legal action. 

This is the first design; more designs are to follow over the next few weeks.

 

To download, click on your chosen screen size below, the picture will be loaded into a new window, then right click the mouse on the image and choose the menu option to save the picture.

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John Archer Interview

In April's issue of Mystery Magazine you will find an interview - by Walt Lees and myself - of one of the winners of Penn and Teller: Fool Us, John Archer.

Click on the link below for more details.

http://www.themysterymagazine.com/

Update Regarding My Website

Well, my website has been cleansed of the naughty spambot software that was attacking it and creating fake web pages full of spam. My lenghthy and daily chore of deleting huge numbers of files is now thankfully at an end. My webhost did their job well and by the end of next week I’ll be able to restore any missing files that are meant to be there.

This Only Works on One Day of the Year.

Write down a three digit number. Each digit must be different. The difference between the first and last digit must be great than one. This is number ‘A’. Reverse the order of the digits of ‘A’ to create a second number. This is number ‘B’. Subtract the smaller number from the greater. You now have a third number, ‘C’. Reverse the digits of ‘C’ to create a fourth number, ‘D’. Add ‘C’ and ‘D’ together. The result is number ‘E’. Multiply ‘E’ by 1,000,000. The result is number ‘F’. Subtract 966,685,433 from ‘F’.

Substitute the digits with the appropriate letter from the following list: 1=L, 2=O, 3=F, 4=I, 5=R, 6=P, 7=A. Read the result backwards.

Updates on Projects

The question that I have received most is ‘Why have you stopped uploading videos of your work?’ I have not stopped making the videos, they simply have not been uploaded yet. The reason for the delay is that I have been using different methods of filming other than time lapse photography and the results require more time in editing them into short videos. The reason for the change was to obtain a better quality of picture in the videos. The camera and software being used had a setback of a low resolution when in time lapse mode. It is a bit of an oddity considering all the other modes have a high resolution.

I have tried editing together a series of photographs for several oil paint portraits and the results are okay. Because the paintings take more than one day, it is a reasonable method to use but it is of no use when concentrating on a drawing or ink sketch which can be finished in an hour or two. It is too much trouble to get the right amount of photos, it interrupts my concentration and prolongs the task in an unacceptable way.

For these reasons, the time from the picture being completed and the video of the work being uploaded is now much greater.

Another reason, as far the project The Dead is concerned, is that the videos have been held back until after this year’s Remembrance Day. Although it was explained that the project is for Remembrance Day 2010, based on only one video from the project being made available there has been continual questioning from people regarding its use this year. Therefore, as stated above, no more videos from that project will be uploaded until sometime in November.

The only other piece of news is that the project Magicians has been given a longer time scale for completion due to the list of portraits required being lengthened.

Results of Oil Painting Poll

Some weeks back I put a Poll on my blog asking people to vote for the next magician to have their portrait painted in oil paints. The Poll ended this week and I now have the results:

David Devant - 54%
J. N. Maskelyne - 23%
Harry Blackstone senior - 15%
Houdini - 8%

So, at the end of the week, I shall begin a portrait of David Devant. A video of the final picture will be posted on You Tube near the end of September. However, you will not have to wait that long for new videos of other artwork to appear on my You Tube Channel. Next week, I will be posting some videos of my new project The Dead.

Update on The Sherlock Holmes Museum in London

Back in February of this year I wrote a review of The Sherlock Holmes Museum in London (You can read it in this blog by clicking this link). I gave reasons why it was a very good place to visit; I did, however, add a few criticisms. Well, recently, John Aidiniantz of the museum added this comment to my blog entry: "This is a good and well-balanced review of the museum and the criticisms have been accepted and addressed by the museum." Because the blog was so many months ago and therefore people may not read Mr. Aidiniantz's recent comment, I thought it was only fair to include it in a new blog entry highlighting that the museum has replied. After all, if one of the people involved in the running of the museum can take the time to reply, providing an update on the points made in the blog, then it should get a mention.

The Essential Dai Vernon and other things

My copy of this book arrived today; nice, new and shrink-wrapped. It is a very commendable asset to any magician or researcher in that it gathers together many of Vernon’s books into one handy volume. However, there are some disappointments as a book collector. Considering the large amount of photographs in this book, those of Vernon illustrating how sleights are done and the section of extra photographs, the paper chosen should have been of a better quality than that used. Mike Caveney’s Magic Words got it very right in the quality of paper for Revelation by Dai Vernon. Because of that, the photographs reproduced in that book have fantastic tonal quality and detail. Comparing my first edition of The Dai Vernon Book of Magic published by Harry Stanley in 1957 with its counterpart in L&L Publishing’s Essential Dai Vernon, the printed quality of photographs is better in the Harry Stanley edition simply through a better choice of paper. Oh well, we cannot have everything and the fact that The Essential Dai Vernon even exists is a boon not to be overshadowed by nitpicking.

Another worthy book that arrived today is The Notebook edited by Will Houstoun. It is a bit of a must for anyone interested in the history of magic and collecting or researching old magic books. Houstoun, a member of the Magic Circle, was shown a handwritten notebook in the Magic Circle’s library by the Executive Librarian Peter Lane. The notebook dates to the early nineteenth century. The unknown author of the notebook collects together eighty conjuring tricks, some by well known magicians of that period. Houston has provided a facsimile of the notebook with a transcription of the text, along with some helpful notes. I have read only one negative review of The Notebook and the author of that completely missed the point of the book as a social text and historical document. The book is not without flaws but no book exists that does not. If Houstoun reprints the book then, as with all books, the errors will be expunged.

On a completely different subject, my main website is still in the process of being overhauled. One hurdle not yet successfully leapt is programming a shopping cart and checkout for the site. This will make it possible for people to buy books directly on the site instead of going to one of my other three internet outlets. The advantage to this is mostly for UK customers. I have become dissatisfied with the increase in cost of postage and packaging being charged to UK customers by a company that I was going to use for mail order distribution. They want to charge customers a flat rate of £4.75 to deliver a single copy of A Briefe And Pleasaunt Treatise, Entituled, Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions by Thomas Hill anywhere in the UK. I have therefore decided that I will handle distribution in the UK and the postage and packaging for the book will be free to UK customers. While I get the checkout sorted on my main website, I have put some copies of Thomas Hill’s book for sale on my Ebay shop. The price is £10 and postage and packaging is, as stated above, free within the UK.

Vote For The Next Portrait Of A Magician To Be Painted

The project of portraits of magicians continues (not all the portraits are available to see on the internet). Not all the portraits will be oil paint on canvas and I thought I would give people a chance to vote as to who will be the next magician to be painted in that medium.

So, below is a poll with four historical magicians. Vote for the one you think should be the next subject for an oil painting. Voting ends on the evening of the 31st of August. In the meantime, I will be painting some watercolour portraits of modern magicians and a pen and wash of Egyptian Hall during the Maskelyne period.



The above poll is in javascript and may not appear in some internet browsers if javascript is not enabled.

Portrait of Dai Vernon

A Bit Busy

I’ve been more than a bit busy recently and so I haven’t much to report in terms of travel or entertainment. In fact, I’ve been so busy I haven’t kept up with my correspondence and so I publicly apologise to those who haven’t heard from me in a while. Hopefully, August will bring some ease to my schedule and I can relax a bit.

I am able to relate a few titbits of interest.

In reply to those who have asked, yes I will be uploading another video of artwork soon - an oil painting of an iconic magician of yesteryear. There will be no more pen drawings for quite a while. The project has more than enough of them. There will be some pencil drawings but mostly, from now on, the portraits will be in paint of one kind or another. The bad news is that client has told me that the UK is not going to be one of the exhibition's venues. Not entirely unexpected considering he lives in Italy. Once again, I would like to remind everyone that the videos of the artwork will be removed from the internet once the exhibition begins. The portraits are to be published in a book. I will give more details on that when I know them.

Dr. Richard Wiseman’s latest book seems to be doing well. You can learn more at http://59seconds.wordpress.com/
I’ve ordered my copy. I enjoy reading myth busting books. I can recommend an out of print book by another psychologist, R. D. Rosen, called Psychobabble (not to be confused with a new religious book using the same title). Rosen coined the phrase psychobabble when studying the trend for new psychotherapies that swept the western world during the Sixties and Seventies. Another psychologist who took a practical look at things that do and don’t work was Robert Cialdini, whose book was simply called Influence. Both are very interesting books.

R. Paul Wilson, of BBC3's The Real Hustle, now has blog you can follow.
http://rpaulwilson.wordpress.com/beijing-bound/
You can also read a good interview of Wilson in the recent issue of Magicseen. For more details on that:
http://www.magicseen.co.uk/

I recently received the first issue of Gambit published by Benjamin Earl. It’s always difficult to judge the quality of a magazine from its first issue because there has been no reader response to guide the editor. It’s good but considering its high price and the promise made regarding the magazine’s proposed content I hope that the second issue, which will be on sale soon, has fewer gags filling dead space and more articles on card magic.

Don’t forget The LaBaL Competition is still running and the closing date is not until the 15th September so there is plenty of time to get a copy of the latest issue of The LaBaL from its editor and publisher, Al Smith, and enter the competition. For details on ordering a copy look for the advertisement on the left hand side of this page.

In Search of the Paul Daniels of the Ancient World

That is the title of my article which appears in the latest issue of Classical Association News. Before anyone makes any jokes about the subject being on the early career of Paul Daniels, I should make clear that it is about magicians in the ancient Greek and Roman world.

The latest issue of Classical Association News is significant because it is the last one to be edited by Dr. Jenny March. She has been its editor for the last twenty years and has now chosen to retire from that role. Dr. March has been a kind and wise editor (kind enough to allow even my work to occasionally be published in the pages of Classical Association News), who has the talent of shaping the content of Classical Association News to fit neatly into each issue and yet modestly never letting her presence to be felt on any page except in the brief editorial. Even in what is her final issue as editor, she modestly kept tributes by contributors to a minimum (any less and there would have been none) and the emphasis of her farewell editorial was more about others than herself. I wish Dr. March a happy retirement.

The new editor is to be Dr. Tony Keen. He is a Blogger and and can be found at tonykeen.blogspot.com

Portrait of Romany, Diva of Magic

The LaBaL Competition

In the July issue of the The LaBaL I am sponsoring a competition where one of the readers can win a paperback copy of A Briefe and Pleasaunt Treatise Entituled Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions by Thomas Hill, the text of 1581. For those who do not know, The LaBaL is one of a handful of British magic magazines which are independent of any magic club. With the demise of Abra in March of this year and The Magician Magazine last year, we are left with only four such magazines in the UK (I would be glad to hear from anyone that can name more British based magic magazines which are independent of any magic club). They are Jerry Sadowitz’s The Crimp, Mark Leveridge’s Magicseen, Benjamin Earl’s Gambit Magazine and Al Smith’s The LaBaL.

Each magazine is very different. Magicseen deals with the subject of magic in a general way touching on all or any news items, interviews, reviews, etc. Gambit’s sole concern is card magic. Both Magicseen and Gambit have their own websites where copies can be bought. The Crimp is filled with Sadowitz’s caustic humour. It is only for sale to people whom Sadowitz considers to be trusted magicians. The LaBaL is the creation of magician Al Smith.

Al Smith was the editor and publisher of Abacus, a magic magazine that went out monthly for ten years. After finishing his time with Abacus he wanted to edit a less demanding periodical and so he created what he calls a “now and then quarterly”, The LaBaL, which is now in its sixth year. He calls The LaBaL a ‘Magzine’; note that it is not a magazine with an ‘a’ but a ‘Magzine’ with the letter ‘a’ missing. Al Smith has taken the words magazine and fanzine and crushed them into one word: Magzine. It is a good description for The LaBaL. It has some of the qualities of a fanzine, a no frills spiral bound A4 periodical published for and contributed to by those who share a love of a particular interest; at the same time it has the editorial standards and number of pages of a magazine, along with the fact that some of the contributors are professional practitioners of that shared interest. Each issue contains news, reviews, tricks, etc.

If you are a subscriber to The LaBal then be sure to look for the competition in the July issue. If you are not a subscriber but are interested in The LaBaL, then you can buy a single issue or take out a subscription directly from Al Smith. He can be contacted by writing to A. Smith, 17 Osbert Road, Rotherham, South Yorkshire, S60 3LD, UK.

Tying Together Loose Ends

It has been a busy number of weeks for me; however, some of the main tasks have been completed or are near completion. One task was redesigning my main website to give it a few extra sections which would bring together various items on the web related to me. There are now sections on art, photos and videos. They do not contain everything that is on the web to do with me, just a reasonable selection making it easier to view things without going to the trouble of visiting a list of sites to see what is new. There is a new section on books. This is not been fully added yet and only lists some of the books available from one of my internet bookshops. When it is complete, there will be books listed there which are not available in my other shops and which can only be purchased through the main site. I am being encouraged to do the same with some artwork but I am against the idea at present.

I have received some questions asking why I have not posted any more videos of art on YouTube since last month. I have reached the stage on the Magicians project where I am now working on paintings as well as drawings. I am not making time lapse videos of the paintings and so there is nothing to post on YouTube or my main site. I still have a list of drawings to do and videos of those will be posted on the net as usual as and when they are done. Something that should be kept in mind is that all the videos pertaining to the Magicians project will be removed from my YouTube channel and my main site shortly after the project is completed. Once again I would to thank the people that have been kind enough to contact me and write nice things about my art. It is very much appreciated.

Another task which is nearly complete is the corrections to text and cover of A Briefe and Pleasaunt Treatise of Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions by Thomas Hill, the text of 1581. The proof copy of this book highlighted errors which had been missed at the editing stage and so I have been glad of the opportunity to deal with them and finally get ready to put the book on sale.

Thomas Hill was a compiler of books on various matters such as dreams, gardening and almanacs. One book stands out however and that is his Naturall and Artificiall Conclusions. It was, as far as we know at present, the first book in English to include some conjuring tricks. Aha, some of you might be saying, is not Reginald Scots’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft the book that has claim to that accolade? It was, until someone pointed to Hill’s book as having an earlier date of publication. Trevor Hall, a magician and bibliographer, researched the matter carefully and showed that Hill’s text predates Scot’s not merely by a few years but by several decades (for more on that, read Hall’s book Old Conjuring Books).

For some people, however, magic is not the sole interest of Hill’s book. The book includes items in many fields of interest amongst which are metallurgy, chemistry, botany, biology, and crackpotology. Yes, that is right, crackpotology. Hill includes a number of crackpot items that even he probably did not believe and some he certainly knew could not possibly be true. The book has relevance to the history of all these areas and even to the history of religion in the United Kingdom. Hill’s book was published during the turbulent century of the beginnings of the English Reformation and two of the items in his book may therefore have been very controversial: how to walk on water and how to change water into wine. Both are literal attempts at each task, showing that each can be done by non-miraculous means.