More Stunning Portraits

Last month I posted some beautifully stunning portraits, most of which used unconventional mediums like embroidery and screw heads to create truly beautiful works of art.  These use more conventional mediums… but are anything but conventional.

 

Paul Cadden

After : Graphite on cartridge Paper A1 (yes, that means pencil on paper)

Although the drawings and paintings I make are based upon photographs, videos stills etc , the idea is to go beyond  the  photograph. The photo is used to create a subtler and much more complex focus on the subject depicted, The virtual image becomes the living image, an intensification of the normal.

 

Luke Haynes


[The-American-Context-#3]-American-Gothic
quilt base out of used and recycled clothes, linens, etc : 90″ X 90″ : 2010

I am interested in the choices we make to express ourselves to our world. The most apparent form of this is our clothes. We create an environment around ourselves to inform others how we desire to be perceived. By quilting I am initiating a dialogue between the immediate environments we create for ourselves, and the environments we inhabit. Where cloth, what we know to respond to as clothes, becomes the language of my work. The cloth becomes the medium that I use to create images and scenes rather than conceal and contain.

 

Shaka

du portrait de Lucian Freud 2.25m x1.40m Acrylics on paper 2011

 

Nick Gentry

 

Kyle Bean


Pencil shaving portraits | contributors page for Wallpaper* Handmade 2011

Happy Mother’s DAY!

Everyone checks out my mom. My mom’s hot.
Ashley Scott

In celebration of all my hot moms and grandmoms – I give you the best of me:

 

 

 

 

My mother said to me, ‘If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope.’ Instead, I was a painter, and became Picasso.
Pablo Picasso

 

Is It Art or a Playground? I Say: Playground Art.

When I ran across more photos of Hakone Pavilion by Tezuka Architects (which I wrote about a couple of weeks ago) I began to wonder how many other fun and beautiful play spaces there are out there for kids.  It turns out there are a lot of them… and they’re amazing.  I can’t imagine the excitement that I would have had to be able to play in some of these environments.  Alright, yes, I would still be excited.  Wouldn’t you?

 

Hakone Pavilion | Tezuka Architects

 

Net Z33 | Numen

 

The Patient Gardener | Visiondivision

 

Magic House | Luckey Climbers

 

 

Columbus Commons | Luckey Climbers

 

Brumleby | Monstrum

 

BUGA 05 Playground | Rainer Schmidt Landschaftsarchitekten

Nooks for Kids (DIY Nooks!)

Who doesn’t love a nook?  A quiet little place where you can hide from the world and have a moment to for stillness and quiet?  A place where you can tuck your secrets away and keep them safe?  Or even just a place that’s just your sized when the rest of the world is so big.

This roundup of nooks serve all of those needs perfectly and show what you can do with an awkward or unsightly closet with just a little bit of power tool and upholstery know how.  What are you waiting for? Go forth – make nook!

 

Even big kids like nooks (particularly these, with their solar chargers and laxed views on posture.)

Play in Japan

If you’re looking for amazing things to do with your kids in Japan…. look no further.  (Click pix for more info.)

Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam Woods of Net Knitted Wonder Space 2009

This piece is the “sculpture forest at the Hakone Open-Air Museum which,

includes several sculptures that children can play on. These include the “Woods of Net,” created through a collaboration between an artist and a team of architects. The pavilion is made entirely of wood, using traditional techniques seen in Japanese temples. A huge, brightly colored net hangs down from the middle of the pavilion like a giant hammock.

On the Overnight Tour at the Enoshima Aquarium. (C)Enoshima Aquarium

 

The Sagamigawa River Festival; approximately 1,200 koinobori hang from wire strung across the river.

 

You can even tour ninja villages!  Awesome!

Stunning Portraits

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a sucker for a great portrait.  I’d walk through the museums and look into the faces of people long dead and wonder what route they took to get to the studio.  Did they pass markets?  What did their shoes feel like? What did the roads feel like beneath their feet?  It’s such an exciting notion – to be transported in time to when the paint was fresh and wet.

But then there are some portraits make you wonder more about the artist.  portraits like these. Can you imagine deciding that you’re going to make photorealistic embroidery portraits?  Or use naked humans as your paint?  How about composing the heads of screws to create portraits?  I think they’re all amazing and beautiful and I hope you click through to learn more about the artists.

 

Cayce Zavaglia

detail of Sophie – Hand Embroidery: Crewel Wool and Acrylic on Linen, 14 x 35 inches – photo © Cayce Zavaglia

detail of Aunt Lin – Hand Embroidery: Crewel Wool and Acrylic on Linen, 16.25 x 29 inches
photo © Yatzer.com

 

Andrew Myers – Screw Art

Portrait of John. Dimensions 48 in x 48 in x 5 in. Medium: screws, oil paint and phone book pages

Portrait of Bill. Dimensions 24 in x 24 in x 4 in. Medium: screws, oil paint and phone book pages

 

Chris Dorosz – Paint Drop Sculptures

stasis 13

stasis 24 (jeff and sheldon with children)

 The ‘paint drop’ sculptures develop the idea of the ‘staple paintings’ further by trapping fallen paint drops in a grid work of clear vertical rods.  Through the viewer’s movements in aligning and de-aligning these pixel-like paint drops, full body portrait forms emerge and vanish.  By placing my subjects in a form of ‘stasis’  through the medium I mean not only to protect them for a little while, but alternately to underscore the tenuous nature of human physicality  where any moment life as we know it might just collapse into a pool of droplets or drift upwards into the atmosphere.

I hate that I don’t know who this artist is.  But I couldn’t leave it out. I found this image, uncredited, on Pinterest.  I think it’s amazing though.

 

Living with… or in books

I love books.  My ex used to confiscate my wallet before we walked into bookstores, not because he didn’t want me to spend the money but because he felt they might overrun us.  He had a point.

I think it was Cicero who said, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”  I agree.  They’re like my friends and I love them all piled up on top of each other.  I use them as furniture and decoration (see below.) I just kept thinking that there must be other amazing awesome solutions out there – cuz it’s a worse problem not to have books in your life than what to do with them once they’re there.

 

I also have this one architectural oddity in my house.  Yes, it’s a door that’s been cut out and turned into a bookcase.  Yes, it’s actually a functioning door too.  It leads to the attic.  Can’t say I recommend doing this – but it works for me and people are always asking about it.

I love the book room!  Why not use your books as a room divider?

How simple-perfect a solution is this?  Just take a wall get some 1x2s and glue a dowel on the front then sand/paint/mount and you have all those amazing children’s book illustrations as art and storage.

 

Love!  Love!  It’s just a bunch of tubing attached together.  Can you imagine this as a whole wall?  That would be so great!

This desk is built out of the only remaining books in a library that burned down.  They were repurposed when the library was rebuilt.  I love it!

The throne de bookage – it’s a library in a chair, otherwise known as the Bibliochaise.  What’s not to love?

Not terribly practical – but I could see it as the perfect solution for someone who was really into reading philosophy – just going round and round and round….

 

 

Awesome Playhouse Inspiration
(most you can buy)

Who doesn’t love a playhouse?  There really is something about having an imagination and a place of your own to explore the world.  And if that playhouse was a work of art… where would your imagination go.

(Click on the picture for more info.)

I want to play in your rattan fort!

  

Not exactly a play ‘house’ but I’m in love with it anyway.  Maybe it’s a play house-boat with climbing wall – a pirate’s training camp as it were.

Can you imagine being the little girl who has this playhouse?

(I also want a to be able to slide out of my bed!)