Fine Art News
News: Handmade Living Paper Dolls
Inspired by Jules Verne sea demons, Bea Szenfeld's “Sur la Plage” collection includes 12 pieces handcrafted with cardboard. The idea of unconventional material constraints is a classic art school "test", as well as a typical (and somewhat tired) formula for competitive design reality shows. However, Szenfeld's garments do transcend the material and would surely win any Project Runway challenge.
News: Trippy 3D Illusion Graffiti
Paper Donut is a collaborative graffiti project between Justine Ricaud and Alexis Facca. The French duo paint geometrical illusions as urban art (with the exception of the gallery installation below). They've also posted some detail shots that give you some sense of how it was done.
News: Zipper Motorboat "Unzips" the Ocean
Evocative of master Pop artist Claes Oldenburg, Japanese artist Yasuhiro Suzuki built a motorboat facsimile of a massively scaled zipper pull. From an aerial view, it's parting stream resembles a parting zipper. Absurdly fun. Previously, Soft and Squishy Sculptures.
News: The Barrel of a Gun Has Never Tasted So Sweet
In keeping with today's theme of dark and twisted sweets (edible blood slides), check out this German gun-sucking art project. For a piece entitled Freeze: Revisited, Florian Jenett and Valentin Beinroth made handgun replicas crafted from ice, in an array of flavors, including coke, black currant, licorice, and cherry.
News: World's Largest Artwork Stretches 9 Square Miles in the Heart of Icy Siberia
Artist Jim Denevan works on a massive scale. He's "painted" the northern beaches of California, and etched away at the Nevada desert.
News: AMAZING What You Can Capture With a Macro Lens!
Photographer Suren Manvelyan presents an incredible series of macro photographs of eyes, entitled: "Your Beautiful Eyes".
News: The King is Back! More From the Anal-Retentive Pencil Tip Sculptor
Yes, that's Elvis Presley. Yes, that's a pencil tip. Yes, that's simply...insane. The Telegraph shares more work from the incredible Dalton Ghetti. Miss the last post? Check it out.
News: Dead Flylashes
Would you glue fly legs to your eyelids? More or less stomach churning than gluing your eyelids to your...eyelids? (Shudder.)
News: Get Your Portrait Drawn in 1 Minute or Less
Melbourne-based graphic designer Benjamin Hammond just launched a site called One Minute Portraits, where the artist draws quick portraits in less than a minute. It works like this: email a photo of yourself, Hammond creates the portrait, and you can choose to buy the original if you like it. (OR pick up a few drawing lessons and do-it-yourself.)
News: Evan Penny's Real Life Acid Trip
When viewing Toronto based artist Evan Penny's work, Ron Mueck immediately comes to mind. The clear similarities include a representation which is completely photo-realistic, a playfulness with scale, and the mutually shared background in Hollywood SFX.
News: If the World Were Made of Pixels...
Texas based artist Shawn Smith brings the digital world to reality with his woodcut pixelated sculptures. The combination of a traditional material (wood) with a contemporary concept results in surprisingly fresh work. Plus, the craftsmanship appears to be impeccable. Check out his artist statement below.
News: It's a Swan. Wait, No...It's a What?
Italian artist Guido Daniele is a master of illusion. Hired by an advertising agency to create body paintings of animals, Guido more than surpassed the concept with several different campaigns. Check out these insanely well crafted hand paintings, and if you're really digging it, try these temporary tattoo animal hand puppets. Doesn't quite compare to Guido, but fun, nonetheless.
Bio-Couture: Designer Makes Clothes from Bacteria
Wish there were a way to combine the glitz of wax paper with the glamor and status of bacteria? Consider these singular, single-cellular garments by sartorial scientist Suzanne Lee, who grows clothes from cultures of yeast and bacterial cellulose.
News: Barf to Beauty
Ok, the word "barf" may be a little strong... but, c'mon, would you put a dead rat on your scanner bed?
News: Careful, No Pooping in This Pizza Box
It's amazing what you can do with an ordinary material like cardboard... or a truckload of discarded pizza boxes.
News: Cardboard Mechanics
We love it when everyday material is used in a new and unexpected application. Cardboard is something most of us take completely for granted. We need it when we're moving, and that's about it. When Frank Gehry created the cardboard chair in 1972, he blew the minds of both the furniture and the design world. So strong. So durable. So fluid.
News: Pencil + Camera Mashup
Drawing is a popular here at Wonderhowto, as is photography. Put the two together and...voila, enter Ben Heine.
News: Olafur in the Sky with Diamonds
Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson totally inspires us here at Wonderhowto. His waterfall installations on the Hudson River. His incredible sun exhibit at the Tate in London. His concepts and execution are dazzling. Plus he has Taschen book that weighs a frickin ton. (Yes. The tonnage does translate to respect.)
News: "Star Wars Fridays" in the Office, Please
Casual Fridays is so yesterday. Ignore the pretentiously relaxed dotcom dress code. Mock the jean-clad Wall Street bankers racing to grab a seat on the Hampton Jitney. Let's return Friday to a proper dress code. It's time to honor the greatness of George Lucas.
News: Canon 7D Jerry-Rigged to Shoot Pinhole Video
We've had our fair share of pinhole cameras showcased in Wonderment. And while the pinhole is certainly cool, it typically creates the same, familiar effect across the board. This time we have something slightly more unusual for you.
News: Artist Kills Himself (No Big Surprise... Once You See His Paintings)
At age 32, Tetsuya Ishida apparently threw himself in front of a speeding train. No huge surprise given his exceedingly twisted paintings. To us, he seems to possess a certain internet sensibility. Precisely executed, bizarre, and dark in theme. We dig him.
News: Suburbanite Turns Lawnmower Into Automated Art Machine
Jeremy Wood has turned the normally mundane task of lawn mowing into an art process. For the past nine years, Wood kept his mother's yard perfectly manicured, tracking every single motorized lawnmower ride with a GPS, and then converting the data into "maps".
News: The World's Slowest Porsche
Sounds like an odd bragging right, but hold your horses, artist Hannes Langeder's handmade Porsche is pretty damn interesting.
News: This $50K Sculpture is Made of What?
53-year-old artist Scottish artist David Mach uses tens of thousands of matchsticks to create sculptures of animals, as well as religious and political icons. He first creates a plastic or fiberglass mold, and then inserts the matchsticks, one at a time. His work sells anywhere from $30,000 to $52,000... unless he sets the piece on fire, of course.
News: Massive Cocoons Trap Humans Like Flies in a Web
INSANE what you can do with a truckload of packing tape. Viennese/Croatian design collective For Use/Numen uses the common junk drawer office supply to create massive, self-supportive cocoons that visitors can climb inside and explore.
News: What's Going on Here? Amorphous, Living, Breathing... Butts?
Love it. Spooky. Weird. Visually compelling. Entitled, "Klunk Garden", the piece was made by (well-known-in-the-art-world) Austrian artist collective, Gelitin. Looks like one of those cheesy little tabletop zen gardens. You know what I'm talkin' about:
News: 32 Amazing Murals Depicting Each & Every World Cup Team
In honor of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, ESPN commissioned the Wieden+Kennedy ad agency (the same group that did the amazing aquarium Nikes) and the AM I Collective (a group of artists based in Cape Town, South Africa) to create 32 murals, depicting each and every team. Very nice work, beautifully done.
News: Jak & Jill Got an Eye for the Eye Candy
Via WonderHowTo World, She Shops: Sometimes I RSS-unsubscribe from Jak and Jill (I don't need to waste my time looking at hot models in hot-hot-hot fashion!).
News: Azuma Makoto's Serious Flower Power
I'm totally drooling over artist Azuma Makoto's insanely lush, decadent floral arrangement-sculptures. Drop. Dead. Beautiful.
News: R-Rated Golden Books (For Adults Only)
Pixar animation artist Josh Cooley presents a series of drawings based on R-Rated movies in the style of G-Rated Golden Books (you remember, the children's books your parents probably read to you as a kid). Keep an eye on Cooley - his book, Movies R Fun, should be coming out later this year.
News: Somewhere, in a Far Off Land, Buildings are Video Game Consoles...
Joseph Ford's photography series couldn't have a more befitting name: If I Were President...
News: Super Cute Japanese Chicks Play Lady Gaga Dress Up
Japan rules cosplay culture, and these superfans are no exception to the rule. Tokyo Fashion hits the streets, Fruits style, capturing these top-notch, über stylish fashion homages to the infamous Lady Gaga.
News: Nope, This Is NOT a Black and White Photograph
Paul Lung requires nothing but a 0.5 mm technical graphite pencil, plus one sheet of A2 paper to create a nearly perfectly hand drawn facsimile of a photograph. The 38-year-old graphic designer of Hong Kong spends up to 60 hours on each labor intensive drawing.
News: Iowa Fireman Hacks Camera to Snap Photographs from Outerspace
Iowa firefighter Pete Lilja has modded the software of a Canon powershot to record images of Earth, from as high as 85,000 feet!
News: Careful, Don't Fall Down the Rabbit Hole
When two houses were scheduled for demolition, artists Dan Havel and Dean Ruck of Art League Houston decided to take advantage of the situation and create the super trippy Tunnel House.
News: Kim Joon's Naked Body Art (Possibly NSFW)
Wow, naked + batman + tattoo/body painting = some pretty "out-there" art... Korean artist Kim Joon has been fascinated with tattoo culture ever since his days in the military as a young man. Since, he has taken his obsession into the fine arts realm, treating the human body like a blank canvas. Interestingly, his images are not created as one might expect. No physical painting of the models is actually involved.
News: Fossilisation Machine Cuts 1,000 Year Process Down to 3 Months
Artist Austin Houldsworth of the UK has come up with a device that drastically speeds up the process of fossilisation. Entitled Two Million & 1AD, Houldsworth is capable of creating a fossil in a few months (which otherwise might require thousands of years). Houldsworth is currently experimenting with objects such as a pineapple and phesant, but ultimately hopes to fossilize a human. Houldsworth proposes:
News: Magical Orbs of Graffiti Light
We've seen several examples of light graffiti on WonderHowTo (1, 2, 3), but this one is truly eerily beautiful. Australian photographer Denis Smith pushes the envelope with his project Ball of Light.
News: Spooky Disembodied Lips, Tongues, and Spit Bubbles
Artist Julia Randall's photorealistic colored pencil drawings of disembodied lips, tongues, and spit bubbles kinda give me the creeps (in a perfectly good way, of course).
News: Demented Kids Drawings Brought to Life... Somewhat Chilling
Wow, kids and their wild imaginations... Monster Engine is a gallery of kids drawings copied by painter Dave Devries. The project began in 1998, when Devries posed the simple question: What would a child's drawing look like if it were painted realistically?