Arts Archives | Page 3 of 3

Animals

The First 70 Film

September 7, 2012 Animals

The First 70 is a beautiful short documentary made about California’s legislature plan to close 70 state parks. In the wake of budget deficits, the state’s $22 million a year savings would come at the cost of some of the more beautiful parts of the wild west coast. While the film came out earlier this year, I recently purchased a digital download of the film and gave it a mini screening to friends. Heath Hen Films did a fabulous job showing some of the gorgeous scenery of these less famous, but still critical state parks. I recommend you purchase the film and plan a trip to some of the parks that remain open.

The First 70 Trailer from Heath Hen Films on Vimeo.

Architecture

Gabriel Dawe’s Thread Art

September 3, 2012 Architecture

Via Colossal, some excellent colored thread installations from Texas artist Gabriel Dawe.
Colored Thread Installations by Gabriel Dawe thread installation color

Colored Thread Installations by Gabriel Dawe thread installation color

Dallas-based artist Gabriel Dawe (previously here and here) creates colorful site-specific installations using bright gradients of suspended thread. Above is a small selection of his work over the past year as part of his Plexus series. Despite the geometric precision in each installation, it’s fascinating to see how some works become sort of amorphous clouds of floating color, and I’m sure seeing these on a computer screen hardly compares to seeing them up close. See much more on his website.

Architecture

Geometric Animals

August 21, 2012 Architecture

Mirrored Geometric Animals by Arran Gregory
Via Colossal:

Mirrored Geometric Animals by Arran Gregory taxidermy sculpture mirrors animals

Arran Gregory is a London-based sculptor and illustrator. He recently opened a solo show entitled ‘WOLF’ at Print House Gallery in London. The exhibition which runs through September 6th, includes both illustrations and a pair of gorgeous faux-taxidermy animals including a wolf and rhinoceros head sculpted from mirrors. You can see much more on his Tumblr and a number of prints are available in his shop. Photos above by Ravi Sidhu and Tida Finch. (viafancy)

Animals

Lumadessa’s Dogs

August 14, 2012 Animals

Lumadessa is an art and design label started by Josh Brill. These prints are charming, I’d love to see them expanded to many more breeds!

Architecture

ParaNorman

August 2, 2012 Architecture

ParaNorman is a new stop-motion film due out this month by the animation firm Laika. Based in Portland, Laika has gotten critical praise for its first foray into feature films, Coraline. With their second film, Laika ups-the-animation-bar, using the first ever 3D printed pieces for a stop motion character. As you can see below, there are so many steps in just assembling the model that it makes the head spin.

Architecture

Full Size Dollhouse

July 2, 2012 Architecture

Canadian artist Heather Benning took an abandoned farm house, and made it into a human-sized dollhouse.

Art

Futura: Still Strong, 85 Years On

June 26, 2012 Art

It’s sometimes hard to believe that something “modern” looking could be close to 100 years old. But that’s the beauty of timeless design. In the world of typography, Futura is that case in point.

Here is a beautiful short film about Futura.

Futura was designed in 1927 by Paul Renner. Based on geometric shapes, it became representative of visual elements of the Bauhaus design style of 1919–1933.Commissioned by the Bauer Type Foundry, in reaction to Ludwig & Mayer’s seminal Erbar of 1922, Futura was commercially released in 1927. In designing Futura, Renner avoided the decorative, eliminating non-essential elements. Indeed, Futura is one of the very first sans-serif typefaces ever created, and it has been used in countless applications, from movie titles to corporate identities to even the NASA Apollo 11 plaque that sits on the moon. Here’s to the next 85 years, Futura. I bet you’ll still look good in the year 2097.

Art

Cailan Burns’ Tasty Colors

June 8, 2012 Art

Cailan Burns is an illustrator from Adelaide, Australia. His work is both trippy and charming. The piece above, entitled Mothface is so dripping with color and depth that I feel like licking the computer screen would result in a high.

Via Grove:

From the artists’ portfolio site:

My works are crafted through the use of a range of mediums including paper collage, acrylics, water colour, canvas, wood, ink, digital collage and composition using Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator.

I draw inspiration from a wide range influences such as Children’s Book Art, 60’s Psychedelic Poster Art, Russian and Czech Animation, Cultural Masks and Costumes, Folk Tales and Japanese Anime and (Yōkai) Ghost Stories.

Art

Shaping Nature

May 23, 2012 Art

The Land Art of Sylvain Meyer

Some nice”land art” by Sylvain Meyer, similar in nature (ha!) to Andy Goldsworthy’s work. More on Goldsworthy, the grandfather of land art, soon.

Via Colossal:

The Land Art of Sylvain Meyer land art installation art

Wonderful land art installations by French artist Sylvain Meyer who modifies wooded areas and landscapes to create various impermanent patterns, sculptures, and textures. Everything seen here was constructed without the use of Photoshop, even the mossy spider. Whoa! See much more over on Flickr. I’ve also finally crated a land art tag for Colossal. (via ruines humaines)

Art

Østersøen

May 18, 2012 Art

Colossal has a great look at a fantastic stop-motion music video by Vincent Pianina & Lorenzo Papace, entitled Østersøen. It is artistically and emotionally impressive, and makes me want to get back to my stop-motion work!

Exquisite Papercraft Stop Motion Video for Ödland video music animation

Via Colossal:
I was absolutely floored watching this enchanting stop motion video directed by Vincent Pianina and Lorenzo Papace for a song called Østersøen that was also written, composed, and recorded by Papace for his band Ödland off the album Sankta Lucia. What strikes me most about the video is the transitions between scenes, as objects change scale or as the camera zooms in to reveal alternate dimensions embedded in the smallest of areas. You’ll watch it two or three times before you see everything. See many more making-of photos over on Le Petit Écho Malade. Can somebody please give this Papace guy lots of money so he can make a short film? I would pay lots of money to see it.

Design

Design Couple: Carl and Evelina Kleiner

May 10, 2012 Design

Photographer Carl Kleiner and his partner Evelina are known for some of their highly-designed photography for IKEA. Carl works as photographer and Evelina as the stylist. Together, their projects are beautiful and fun, showing a great sense of pattern and color. Here is a collection of some of their more well-known work, plus some you may not have seen before.

Design

Google’s Project Glass

April 5, 2012 Design

Google seems to be bringing us one step closer to that Cyborg future…

We think technology should work for you—to be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t.

A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.

Please follow along as we share some of our ideas and stories. We’d love to hear yours, too. What would you like to see from Project Glass?

Books

If Rocks Could Sing: A story made of stones

December 13, 2011 Books

I’m a rock collector. As are my parents. We stroll the beach and collect interesting stones, beach glass, and they live on our windowsills and countertops at home. Children’s author Leslie McGuirk has taken it to the next level, finding stones in her native Florida that take the shape of letters, numbers, even creatures. Her book, If Rocks Could Sing, is entirely made from photos of those stones, un-photoshopped.

“With sharp eyes, endless patience and vivid imagination, McGuirk seeks and finds rocks in the shapes of alphabet letters and items representing those letters. Begs to be pored over again and again.” — Kirkus Reviews

Design

Zombie Wedding

September 27, 2011 Design

Wedding photos, jeeze they sure get boring. No, I’m not hatin on true love, but people, those overly heart-throbby airbrushed galleries make us want to puke. Thanks to this couple for keeping some humor, creativity and originality alive, even on the day of nuptials.

Via YouMightLikeThis:

Design

Texture

September 14, 2011 Design

Via Colossal:
Chicago-based artist Dolan Geiman has some cool wooden constructions, cutouts with excellent use of color and texture.

Geiman said he travels quite a bit around the U.S. and picks up objects wherever he goes and uses them in his work. Call them inlaid sculptures or 3D silhouettes, they’re just plain cool.