Never Be My Friend When I'm bored, I browse through my friends' Facebook images, choose my favorites, and draw them. Sometimes I take... liberties. Let's just call it artistic license. R.I.P. when I drew you looking like a corpse. I occasionally wonder why I still have friends at all. Mark Jenkins // Street Installations Kristiansand, Norway London, England Montreal, Canada Cologne, Germany Besançon Rome Rio de Janeiro Tudela London Dublin Moscow Winston-Salem Seoul Royan Bordeaux Puerto del Rosario Barcelona Malmö Washington DC Washington, DC
Tang Yau Hoong Dreamlike Self-Portraits Express Young Artist’s Inner Musings Ben Zank is committed to producing a new photograph every single day of the year. The devoted young artist/photographer from New York is another master on the surreal on the rise, creating self-portraits that defy explanation or logic, while still keeping his viewers not only captivated, but entranced. Zank is no doubt blessed with uncommon talent, and luckily for us, he is also dedicated to making art, fine art in fact. His flair definitely is evident in his extensive collection of originally conceived realities. ”I go wherever my imagination takes me,” says Zank of his decidedly offbeat work. Often times he is his own subject, dressed in dapper suits, placed inside bizarre situations that straddle the surreal and bizarre. Zank was born in the Bronx and at the age of 18 he started taking photographs for kicks after he chanced upon a Pentax ME Super in his grandma’s attic. “I didn’t go to school for photography. See Zank’s exemplary world of the bizarre and odd here.
75 Exceptional Moleskine Notebook Artworks Moleskine notebooks are a favorite among many artists, designers and writers. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and with many different kinds of paper. The elastic closure and pocket in the back of each one adds to their utility. The popularity of Moleskines among the art community ensures that there are thousands of great examples of Moleskine art out there. Flickr alone has a huge pool of Moleskine artists. Below are 75 fantastic Moleskine artworks, all collected from Flickr. Fine Art and Illustration A lot of traditional artists opt for Moleskines, due to their variety of paper types and their durability. Moleskine 2 by Andy Gosling: A heart and the letter “A”, created from interwoven arteries. Moleskine book 5, page 72 by Steve Loya. Moleskine Sketches by Jimbradshaw. Moleskine book 1, pages 61 and 62 by Steve Loya. Moleskine “A cat in my head” by Framboisine Berry. Moleskine Sketches by Jimbradshaw. Moleskine book 6, page 55 by Steve Loya. Art Journal Yoga by Macchick1.
Before I Die & Candy Chang What matters most to you Interactive public art project that invites people to share their personal aspirations in public. After losing someone she loved and falling into depression, Chang created this experiment on an abandoned house in her neighborhood to create an anonymous place to help restore perspective and share intimately with her neighbors. The project gained global attention and thanks to passionate people around the world, over 1000 Before I Die walls have now been created in over 70 countries, including Kazakhstan, Iraq, Haiti, China, Ukraine, Portugal, Japan, Denmark, Argentina, and South Africa. The walls are an honest mess of the longing, pain, joy, insecurity, gratitude, fear, and wonder you find in every community, and they reimagine public spaces that nurture honesty, vulnerability, trust and understanding. The Before I Die book is a celebration of these walls and the stories behind them. 2011, New Orleans, LA. Cordoba, Argentina. Najaf, Iraq. Brooklyn, NY.
20 PSD Tuts That Will Turn You Into A Photoshop Guru Many people can use Photoshop, but only a select few can call themselves gurus. Learn all the methods in the 20 tutorials below and you’ll be well on your way to joining this elite. Rather than focus on tuts for beginners, intermediates or advanced users, we’ve simply chosen ones which produce jaw-dropping effects. All of them are easy to follow, although most do require at least some prior knowledge and experience. 1. Follow this tutorial to create dazzling, multi-layered, semi-transparent lettering, with a Perspex-like quality. 2. 3D Pixel Stretch Effect File this tutorial under “simple but effective”. 3. Turn a simple cityscape into a torrentially flooded wasteland. 4. Become the master of light and glow on Photoshop with this brief, easy-to-follow guide. 5. Use masking tools, layers, gradients and lines to turn your favorite piece of 3D text into something more colorful and commercial. 6. Mental waves do not exist, but if they did they’d look rather like this. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.
Surreal Photography by Caras Ionut Talented Romanian photographer Caras Ionut has created this impressive series of surreal photography… Caras Ionut Le talentueux photographe roumain Caras Ionut a créé cette série impressionnante de photographies surréalistes… Masterpieces Painted By The Chinese TotallyCoolPix A Van Gogh? You’ve got it. A Dali? You’ve got it. A Rubens? You’ve got it. 1 A painter eats his lunch in a studio at Dafen Oil Painting Village in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province April 25, 2011. 2 Painting brushes are placed for sale at a shop at Dafen Oil Painting Village, in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, April 25, 2011. 3 Pigment tins are placed on the roof of a studio at Dafen Oil Painting Village, in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, April 25, 2011. 4 A painter works on an oil painting next to a portrait of China's late Chairman Mao Zedong in his studio selling the portraits of U.S. 5 A two-year-old boy, the son of a vendor, sleeps next to oil paintings at a gallery at Dafen Oil Painting Village in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province April 26, 2011. 6 A vendor waits for customers in a gallery at Dafen Oil Painting Village in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong province April 26, 2011.
18-Year-Old Photographer's Spectacular Conceptual Self-Portraits - My Modern Met 18-year-old Laura Williams joins the ranks of fellow young, extremely talented photographers such as Alex Stoddard and Kyle Thompson in creating spectacularly surreal and expressive self-portraits. The Cambridge, England native's photograph entitled Invisible recently went viral, with over 800,000 views on Flickr alone. The photo depicts Williams sitting on the grass with a piercing look in her eyes, holding a mirror that conceals her body while reflecting the empty area surrounding her. Many of Williams' photos involve concepts of concealment and hiding, as parts of the body and face are obscured by smoke, mirrors, and masks. "I like the idea of creating an image that’s perhaps a little less obvious, like an illusion," she explains, "one that really intrigues the viewer and tries to trick the eye." The photographer is inspired by many different things, including dreams, music, nature, light, and other photographers. Laura Williams on Flickr via [Laughing Squid, Flickr Blog]
Story Behind Those Stunning Cinematic Gifs Here at theMET, we're always looking for creative projects that catch our eye. More than anything, we love posting about work that pushes boundaries, showing our audience something that has been changed, flipped or spinned into something magically different. Then, we see it as our job to find out the story behind such projects. What inspired the artist or photographer to start down that path? A few days ago, when Met member Mark Huckabee put up a post called Astounding Animated Gifs, we knew we had to dig deeper. Before we go into that more, enjoy these lovely cinemagraphs that they sent directly to us. What's been the response like, so far, on your animated gifs? Which of them is your favorite piece and why? What do you hope others get out of these works? Which gif has been the most popular and why do you think that is? Were you inspired by other gifs or anyone else before you started this more artistic ones? What do you have next in store for us? From Me to You website
Alex Stoddard - About Alex Stoddard was born in Jacksonville, Florida and spent his childhood growing up in the deep south. He began taking self-portraits at the age of sixteen in the woods behind his Georgian home, and this stirred in him the need to create and express himself through the craft of photography. His work focuses on the human form and the process of infusing it with natural surroundings. He also strives to create whimsical and surreal portraits. Alex is currently based in Los Angeles, California. Gallery Representation: Fahey Klein Gallery www.faheykleingallery.com Selected Clients Universal Republic Records American Repertory Theater Llewellyn Worldwide LTD Pak International, Obstinee by Ika Orchard Fiction UK Publications Better Photography Magazine Rangefinder Magazine Phosphore Magazine La Repubblica Digital Photo Magazine POSI+VE Magazine Shanghai Weekly PhotoSTAT Magazine Romania Libera Doze Magazine Dolce & Gabbana's Swide Magazine MEMO Magazine Musetouch Magazine Kwerfeldein Magazine