Jingle Bells?....I think

Faux Beards

I really want one of these beards made by "imadeyouabeard" on Etsy. Looks like they are about sold out though...

Faux Beards

Christmas Creativity

I have friend who I exchange artworks with each year as christmas gifts. He's a luddite so I don't worry about him seeing this post. I recently bought this silly converted skateboard that was some type of "skiboard" from a local thrift shop for $5, and I sanded it down, primed it, and painted it with acrylics for my buddy's Barbershop. Acrylics are wonderful. They dry so fast, you don't have to wait two days to put on your next layer of details/colors. I had forgotten how much fun hands-on, non-digital art making is. It seems more rewarding, maybe just because its tangible.

I was trying out this Polaroid simulator program called "Poladroid" on that last photo. It's a pretty cool free little program. You actually have to wait/shake your photo to get it to develop faster though, and it only works on macs.

PS> For all my local friends who glance at this blog, if you find any old skate decks buy'em for me if they're smooth enough for painting, and under $5. I'll pay you back.

Chris Gilmour - Cardboard Art

I remember making a cardboard guitar when I worked at Dillard's in the St. George "Mall"

I thought it was pretty good but it's nothing compared to this guys stuff.

Chris Gilmour

Ninja Kitten's

Lots of video posts lately.

via: Josh Everett

Dicey Creative

Well done.

Reminiscent of Michel Gondry's Lego video

via: iso50

Little Joy: Self Explanatory

Happy Thanksgiving - May we all recognize our own personal Cornucopias (Horn of Plenty)

PS>We need more musical artists featured on here

video via iso50.com

Josh Keyes: Distinctly Fascinating

Memorable, creative, and well executed.
His SITE

I was going to post this guy awhile backbut I guess I didn't,... at least I don't think I have

Presidential Death Match Posters

I love these screen printed posters by Kevin Bradley.

Vector Park: Addictive Curiosities

I can't remember if I've posted about this place yet, but I scoped it out a few years back and enjoyed it. I checked it out more recently and noticed he has added a few other "games". If you have some time on your hands you should defiantly explore these. I don't know exactly how to describe what vector park is providing, its a unique type of interactivity/story telling/puzzle game/animation/aesthetic modern artwork. Be sure and try out the links under your four choices of "games" as well. The artist I believe is named Patrick Smith, and he does some of the most interesting vector flash work I've seen yet.

Here's the link: VECTORPARK.COM

Knitted Animation

Here's a new tedious method of animation. When I first saw this my mind was boggled that someone had knitted each frame, but upon further investigation I realized it was machine-knitted frames. But its still impressive, and nice they didn't resort to a computer simulation of knitting. I love seeing new methods of animation. Reminded of Michel Gondry's amazing work.

I think it would have been neat to show the actual knitting happening as part of the animation at some point.

via: drawn!

MISKA KNAPEK: 24 hour photographs

This concept is fairly simple, but I would have never thought of it. Read about how he creates these time-lapse single shots on his site. Also visit his flickr for more work.

via: Its Nice That

Print Design: Fun if the Project is Right

I had forgotten how fun Print Design can be if the client is right. I did these business cards last night for a friend opening his own barber shop. I refused to use any clipart or stock illustration, so I did all the illustrations. I think it gives off a kinda fun vintage/traditional/garbage-pale-kids-card kinda vibe. After looking at it again today, I still need to tweak a few things.

Pinstriping : Steady and Smooth

I'm doing some work for a friend that references a lot of the styles, namely Hotrod Culture, Rockabilly, Pulp Art, and Punk Rock. I've always been impressed by the steady hands and graceful skill of pin-strippers. I stumbled upon this video while I was looking for references.

Bansky's Pet Shop

I thought Bansky was just a gutsy clever graffiti artist. I didn't take him as diverse as he actually is. His pet store exhibit is pretty original and memorable. I have to hand it to him. He's a deeper artist than I had thought. A creative man indeed.

Here's a collection of VIDEOS of the exhibit

via HiFructose (I'm learning their website is great as well as their magazine)

Tom Haubrick: Tattoo Artist/Illustrator

I read about this guy in HIFRUCTOSE magazine this month.(Great Magazine by the way) Most of the works on his website aren't a very good indication of his depth. For some reason all his male characters never have a face on his site. But the article I read had illustrations of plenty of male mugs. His line quality and amount of detail is similar to what I hope to achieve with my style. Seeing his work made me realize how non-productive I've been. Now that I've finally got internet at my new apt, hopefully I'll start submitting more work.

Portfolio Site
His flickr

The direction of Skateboard Graphics: Progression?

I recently looked through this slide show claiming to be a brief summary of Skateboard Graphics. And I couldn't help but think that skate deck art has become less interesting as the years have gone on. Another site full of skate deck eye candy is Disposable: A History of Skate Graphics, where you can browse by artist.

Maybe its my unexplainable attraction to the artistic styles seen in earlier years, and my love of Jim Phillips and the Bid Daddy Ed Roth (not necessarily a skate artist). These styles seem to me to be more personal, engaging, genuine, original, and overall more memorable.

Check out the above links and decide for yourselves if skate graphics have progressed or not. I know there are a few notable skate artist out there doing original work today (i.e. Ed Templeton, Evan Hecox), but I can't think of many. Let me know if you know of some.

PS>An interesting note, Ed Roth was an active Mormon, who lived the last years of his life in Manti Utah. ...Manti?!

slideshow via: 37signals

A TRIBUTE TO BLUE AND GREEN

Watching these super clean slow-motion videos of colorful parrots, made me realize how much I love the colors blue and green together.

click the thumbnails to watch each video.

via: cpluv

Jermey Mayer: Typewriter Sculpture

His site's navigation is tough to use. Just click the first image you see then as pics load use the tiny arrows on the right and left. His full figure sculptures are my favorite. Jermey Mayer portfolio site.

via Drawn

Delicate Wreckage: Scott Teplin

Similar to Travis Millard of Fudge Factory but with more color, Scott Teplin has that playful illustrative stroke. He focuses on certain details and goes into almost a tangent with them in his work. His use of perspective and structures is reminisent of Eboy XV whom Clint posted awhile back.

His SITE
I think his Future Trash work is the most interesting.

ODD AUSSIE: Justin Lee Williams

He's defiantly got a distinct style. I'm not that jazzed about all his stuff, but I do enjoy his super fine detailed line work. He recently did some skate decks, which is something I've always wanted to do. I just bought an old skate deck from a local thrift shop and sanded is down and primed it. I just need to figure out what to paint on it. Any ideas?

Here's the link to HIS BLAUGH
(For some reason I still hate the word "Blog")

UbuWeb

UbuWeb is a treasure trove of mostly out-of-print and rare avant-garde and 'outsider art' films, poetry, audio, etc. It runs a pretty thorough catalogue of major and minor contributors to the avant-garde over the years, and while most of the material is a bit heady, there's plenty of instant thrills such as mp3's of Joseph Beuys' pop band. I suggest reaping its contents because it's on the verge of being shutdown due it being a completely free resource. 

Pieter Hugo: and His Hyenas

Not sure if I've posted this guy yet, if so let me know and I'll take this down. He's a South African photographer and takes some powerful and heavy photos. His style to me seems real journalistic. My favorite series of his are his portraits of Albino Africans in "LOOKING ASIDE" and his photos of guys with their pet Hyena's in "THE HYENA & OTHER MEN". I remember seeing a photo like this of a guy with his pet hyena on an album jacket, I wanna say it was an old Beastie Boys album? If anyone can verify I'd appreciate it.

Hyena's are nasty huge scary monsters and the one in the picture above doesn't even have a mussel on!? Check out more of his stuff HERE.

Chase Jarvis + Superfad

I think I've mentioned both Chase Jarvis and Superfad on here before, and they just collaborated on an awesome ad campaign for Kung Fu HD TV or something like that. Check out the video and photos. So much fun!

BURN LAB

We need some new posts so we don't have to look at that nasty photo of Jaws-mouthed John McCain every time we come here. This poster was featured on iso50 and on Burnlab's flickr account. I love this style.


PS> For some great new music for your 1970's Love-life scope this band I've been enjoying as of late !Pacific

Jill Greenberg: An Ego Bigger than the Moon

There is big news in the Photo world this week about Jill Greenbergs photos of John McCain. She was even blogged here before by Matt, and I left a comment on that post about how great her work is. You can see the controversial shots at Jill's site, http://www.manipulator.com. Her total lack of professionalism in using photos of McCain for her own agenda is pretty sad. Her own bragging about it just makes it even worse.

"He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated.”

I'm sure she'll be fine with her multi-million dollar a year contract with Vanity Fair, that is of course if none of her clients refuse her to photograph them for fear of her trying to blacken their image, but she single handedly cheapened the public's perception of editorial photographers in one day. Vincent Laforet said it best:

"what is terrible is the impact that this will have on every single photographer that ever takes a portrait or photo from hereon out - you can expect PR people to be more diligent than ever, hold the media back with even tighter leashes, and as a result often kill our chance towards original photography."

She was hired as a professional to offer her service and I'm sure that's what the magazine was expecting to get. A signature Greenberg image which I'm sure they paid thousands for, but instead Jill thought it would be better to crap on the magazine and the industry as a whole. If you've read this far you can check out the original story at PDN, and John Harrington's post about it HERE.

Stop motion film by PES: Western Spaghetti

via boing boing

Ryan Heshka: Not really Heshin

This guy's work is pretty amazing. His style is so true to old pulpy illustrations, yet his content so wacky. I also enjoyed his decision to include a section of some of his childhood drawings. (I wish I could find some of mine laying around, although they would probably be mostly of old NBA players with machine guns). Go ahead and pa-rouse his site but be warned, he seems to love drawing simplified nude woman standing from behind. I thought they were rendered tastefully.

Unrelated link

Harrison Haynes

Most notorious for being Les Savy Fav's drummer, H.H. is also a talented visual artist. Here's a link to his gallery— Branch Gallery—and his website. Cool stuff.

Vato

Here's a recent illustration I did for fun. I'm not really sure how I feel about it yet.

Cartoon Skeletons Exhibit

You might have to read the caption under each pic to know which dead character you're looking at.
LINK

Brought to my attention by Joshua; whom I treasure

Cut Chemist - 1st Big Break

That last claymation post was a little dark, so I thought I'd post this Cut Chemist video. It was shot using a 360° panoramic lens camera. The concept of a 360° degree lens is wild to me. I can imagine feature films being shot with something similar and projecting it on a round screen where viewer sits in the middle thus being completely surrounded and engulfed in a scene's environment. This idea probably has been carried out somewhere
panoramic camera

Claymation-ZombieNation

Sigg Jones

I was recently talking with someone at work about the "Gorillaz" illustrated style, and I remembered this memorable animated short from Nike a group of Students from Supinfocom school in France. The concept is really bizarre, but visually really entertaining. I like the way they set up their site as well. Real refreshing. Click the blue sticker/button at the top that says "Watch! Right Now". Heres the LINK to the video.

Creative Parking

more

Animation Fasination

I still can't believe how far the animation industry has come. This Short Film was done a group of students? STUDENTS?! Its pretty amazing, I just can't imagine how illustrated visual story telling can become any better. Pixar for example has yet to let me down visually. Although I still don't think they've topped Incredibles. WALL-E was good though. And while I'm out of the closet about my animation fascination I must recommend a few other flicks that have not received the credit they deserve. Monster House deserves a watch if you haven't yet. Its really no big epic film, its kinda just a low key fun animated Halloween flick with a slight "Goonies" vibe. Also I might have just been in the right mood, but "Horton Hears a Who" was by far the best film adaptation of a Dr. Suess', and the computer animation matched his illustration style perfectly.

Font Conference

Here is a funny video for anyone who knows anything about fonts.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766

Threadless Submission: First Attempt

I've hesitated to try this because I'm fairly reactionary to how well my art is received. I need to learn to use failure as a motivation or push to do better. I've recently submitted this design to Threadless and I'd appreciate your vote. You have to set up an account in order to vote, but its really only a few steps and not much information. I'd consider it a favor. You can vote.see my design HERE.

Dia De Los Mariachis

I have a few new illustrations to post up. One I submitted to Threadless and I'll show it when its up for voting, so you all can go help me on it. Here's one I did last night. I'm still tweaking it, let me know if you have suggestions.

Red Nose Studios

This group makes some amazing illustrations and photographs for various companies/print ads etc.

http://www.rednosestudio.com/

Orphan Works Bill Dying!

If you make a living as an artist be it a photographer, writer, illustrator, musician, etc this is great news. The Orphan Works Bill basically "makes it legal for anyone to use a copyrighted work for any purpose to go ahead and use it without a license if they have made a "good faith, reasonably diligent search" to locate the copyright owner." So if I try calling or emailing the copyright owner and they don't answer back, does that mean I made a "good faith, reasonably diligent search" to find the copyright owner? The current draft of this bill is ridiculous and would kill the commercial art industry.

This had been big news lately and I'm happy to hear that it has been shot down (for now). It's still a good idea to contact your senators opposing this bill or any new versions that I'm sure will show up in the future. You can do that Here.

Anna Kuperberg

Seeing as how I'm trying to make a living doing wedding photography, I look at tons of wedding photographers' sites. I thought I would share my favorite (so far) wedding photographer. She is based in San Francisco and her stuff is pure genius.

Anna Kuperberg

Kubrick's Carpet

Here's a fascinating little promo from the UK television station "MORE 4" on Stanley Kubrick. It simulates a bizarre continuous shot behind the scenes of his 1980's classic "The Shinning"(which I still haven't sat down and watched but this promo makes me want to go rent it tonight). Its all done from Stanley's perspective. It was shot with Mr. Kubrick's favorite lens and filter. The music is great as well.

Watch the clip

source computerlove

Dan McPharlin: Miniature "Mini Moogs"

This guy appreciates old synthesizers. His obsession has driven him to building extremely accurate cardboard miniatures. You can browse his work through his flickr site. Be sure to take a glance at his other flickr sets, he's a talented man.

TinEye Image Search

There is a new cool search engine for images called tineye, which will compare pixel data in your image to images in their database. It is in beta mode now so you need to request an invite, but I think it will be a great tool in the future to see if anyone is ripping off your works. You can search by uploading an image of your own or pasting a link to an image online. I uploaded a photo of my old vespa (the green one with the girl on my website) to see what would turn up. To my surprise it returned a black and white version of my vespa photo! It was on some kids myspace page in France! He's probably doing no harm in using it but it is a copyrighted image so I contacted photobucket, where the image is hosted, to see if they'll remove it. I'll see if the kid will reply to me and ask him to give me credit for the pic. Upload some of your work you have posted online and see if something turns up. This should work for drawings and graphic work in a jpeg format too.



http://www.tineye.com

Awesome Business Cards

This link has been floating around the internets for awhile, but if you haven't seen it yet you should. Creative Business Cards

Super rad superfad

I like it when others post because it reminds me to post! Here is some great video work from production company superfad.


http://superfad.com/gallery.php

Branislav Kropilak: Compare and Contrast

Another German artist. I enjoyed all of his photos. Its interesting to see what he decided to capture and build a series out of. His garages and billboard shots are my favorites. Site Link

Eno Henze: Generative German Genius

Eno Henze is a generative artist. Which means a lot of his art is generated by computer, often by code that uses randomization and extremely advanced creative mathematic algorithms, similar to what Joshua Davis does. Here's a link to Eno's site. This may only be neat to me cause I'm currently working in the realm of code meeting artist expression.