Olivier Dunrea's Blog, page 3

The Medieval Writing Desk

This medieval writing desk is made from cardboard!

THE RED LIBRARY VAMPYRE ROOM BOX

Love this photo showing all the books (that open and are printed), scrolls, lights, and bookcase made from an old typesetting drawer (cut into 3 sections). This photo shows the overall view of the Red Library Vampyre Room Box.

Nosferatu searching for a book. Close-up of Nosferatu searching for a book. Good photo of all the items on the book shelves. Detail of a few of the items in the library. The book shelves on workbench in the studio.

Vampyre Room Boxes UpdateIt’s been a while since I’ve upd...

Vampyre Room Boxes Update

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this writing blog! Here we are about to celebrate Thanksgiving and I haven’t updated the Vampyre Room Boxes. So…before we get to Thanksgiving here are a few Vampyre Room Box updates.

Nosferatu showing off the empty Red Vampyre Room Box.

Another view of the empty Vampyre Red Room Box. Red Vampyre Room Box with more transparent curtains.[image error]

Getting Closer to the Final Design for the Front Cover

Being Productive during Lockdown

Life for us really hasn’t changed all the much since we went into lockdown back in March.   We work here in the studios and in our offices and are used to NOT seeing other living souls for weeks or months at a time when we’re working on deadlines.   The pups keep us entertained and hopping.

I have been working in the studio on Pearl and Pearl’s Lost Pearls but also writing more chapters in The Dark Secret of Wythe’s End.   I have designed a few sample front covers just for fun as well as making antiqued documents and diary pages.  I was thrilled to have discovered http://www.oldfonts.com where I was able to purchase a bundle of fonts that look very 17th, 18th, and 19th century in design and print!

Here are a few of the front cover ideas.   As well as photos of some aged documents I made.

I found a fantastic leather smith down in NYC that makes these rugged distressed leather journals.  She is making one for me without the regular journal pages and I will insert the replica 17th century diary pages that Phin discovers in the secret library.

Chapter by chapter the novel is coming together beautifully.

The Living Room

The living room is where we keep a cheery, cozy fire burning in the fireplace throughout the long, dark winter months.   We snuggle up on the large leather sofa with warm fleecy blankets for the pups and watch old movies.   A few of our favorite movies are:  Christmas in Connecticut, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, A Christmas Carol, The Man Who Invented Christmas, The Homecoming, The Man Who Came to Dinner,  and many other old classics.

This year we did NOT struggle with strings of electrical lights on the tree.   Instead, we bought clip-on remote controlled LED candles and they are FANTASTIC!  No fuss, no muss and they give the Christmas tree an old-fashioned Victorian look to it.

Henwoodie is ready for the holidays!

It takes about a week to get Henwoodie completely ready for the holidays.  We put the last finishing touches on the decorations last night, got all the candles in the windows, and settled down with the pups and nice cheery fire in the fireplace and watched The Holly and the Ivy (1952 black and white Christmas movie).   Now that the house is decorated I can concentrate on drawing and painting in the studio.

The dining room is always finished first.   The Christmas china and silver will be brought out for the meals eaten in this room.

Snowy Christmas Tree Day!

The best kind of weather when you are buying the Christmas tree is a SNOWY DAY!   We got about 10″ of snow the day we bought our Christmas tree.   It added more magic to the day and was just perfect!

Getting Ready for the Winter Solstice and Christmas

We have snow for the holidays this year!   We bought the Christmas tree while it was snowing—made it all that more magical.

Thanksgiving 2019