Art Wortd Coop

These are a couple of random doggies that I shot while on vacation this last week in Galveston. Even when I get away from work I am drawn to other people's pets and especially when I am away from home without my dogs I feel a strong need to talk to everyone I see that has a dog. I swear if I lived in a tourist town I might start a business renting out a "dog for a day" for travelers like myself that go through dog withdrawal when traveling. The bottom photo reminds me of Jamie's pup Fergie.

I was a little bummed two years ago when Marvel Comics killed off the original Captain America, Steve Rogers. However, as you may know, this month Marvel is bringing Rogers back in a five issue limited series entitled Captain America: Reborn. To celebrate, I did a recolor of my Tron Disc template to create a papercraft model that represents the good Captain's shield set in a stone base. Hope you enjoy it.

Template Info
Scale: 1:6
Finished Size: 8.5" (21.6 cm)
Number of sheets: 2
Number of parts: 9
Difficulty: 2/5
Download

Previous Marvel Comics papercraft:
Mjolnir, Thor's Hammer
Blink's Quiver
Doctor Strange's Eye of Agamotto
Spider-Man Mask

Hey guys, I am home and settling back into work after a quick weekend trip to Galveston Texas. The city seems to be recovering well from Ike. I will post some cute dogs I shot on the strand tomorrow. I did not shoot a lot of photos. This house caught my eye right as we drove towards the beach and we went back the next day to shoot it.

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Keywords: miguel angel martinez monje grew up in alicante spain spaceships and robots lego models of his favourite TV series like Mazinger Z and Space 1999 and Tron and Star Wars passion for mechanical and vehicle design graduated as an engineer at the polytechnical university of catalunya barcelona killzone 2 liberation video game concept art

I enjoy nicely detailed architecture papercraft. I am not sure why I don't post more of it, especially since I am an architect by trade. I will have to do better in the future.^^ This papercraft saloon is a free sample from Whitewash City which produces scale model building templates for use in Old West tabletop RPG games. All the models at Whitewash City were designed by Eric Hotz and are 30mm scale (also known as "S scale" or 1:64 scale). The PDF template for the saloon may be downloaded here.

My latest experiment in mixing digital photos to create a photo narrative. Most of these pictures were taken over the weekend of the 18th and 19th of July. I turned 30 on the 16th, and my father urged me to visit the family, and celebrate my birthday in Chicago.

The first occasion was dinner at my Aunt's house. The family was entertaining a Syrian Orthodox priest from Iraq, who I had the pleasure of meeting.

The second occasion was the following day at the Shed Aquarium in Chicago. I hadn't been to the Shed in fifteen years and immediately fell in love with gazing at the bright, exotic fish. I would have liked to meditate a little longer on the life of a fish, but I was too busy taking pictures.

Woah.... Went to Yellowstone for a week and now I am trying to catch up on shop stuff!

Some nice vfx work from the upcoming film DISTRICT 9.





Keywords: animated flash sample loop helicopters over city spaceship over earth alien invasion cinematic shot from movie district 9 nine a neill blomkamp film presented by peter jackson sony pictures due out august 14 16:9 2.35:1 aspect ratio

Last week was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon mission, so the thoughts of some papercrafters (like myself) have been turned towards papercraft models of spacecraft. Here is one of the best crafted models I have seen in the spacecraft category. This 1:48 scale Apollo 11 Lunar Module was created by Japanese designer U-Don. If you would like to attempt his ultra-detailed papercraft yourself, U-Don has provided a 13 page template along with 14 pages of photographic instructions on his web page here.

"You’ve probably heard of a Clipping Path in Photoshop. Well, a Clipping Mask in Illustrator is pretty much the same thing (Corel Draw calls it a “Powerclip,” and in Freehand, “Paste Inside”). It’s a vector path that masks, or “clips” out part of the image. Clipping Masks provides vector artists with more flexibility when building and organizing files. For designers, they can be scary at first, but are easy to de-mystify... Here we go:

In Photoshop and InDesign, Clipping Paths are often used to isolate an irregular shape in a photo to create a “cutout”. Since irregular vector shapes can be easily made, why would you need to use a Clipping Mask in Illustrator? Most of the time, they’re used to crop a set of irregular shapes into a neat, simple shape. In this regard, it can be helpful to think of them as “cropping masks.” Except with one benefit: the cropped or excluded part of the image doesn’t really go away, it’s just hidden. Let’s have a look. Full Article (via iStockPhoto)

Glitz, Glamour & Gambling. Since 1959, the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign welcomes you to the heart of the Strip, where heart-pounding excitement, the amazing shows and non-stop gaming action await you at every turn...

No wonder Las Vegas has been called Sin City, because the seven deadly sins are all-over the place. Let us entertain you with this "Las Vegas Show" vector elements, free to download and use under the Creative Commons Attribution.

If you post the vector on your site, please make sure to include a link to www.vector-art.blogspot.com Download



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This video is just way too cute! The web is abundant with interspecies wet nurses but this is one of the first videos I have seen of an animal grooming another animal from a different species. The tabby cat is digging the attention and the deer seems really happy as well... makes you wonder if the cat has been oiled up with a tasty treat or something. I don't mean to be cynical. Enjoy the cuteness and have a great weekend!

By the way, video originally discovered over at the Animal Crazy Blog.

This is a full size papercraft model of the helmet that the character Alan Bradley wears after he is teleported inside a computer in the Tron 2.0 video game. Alan is the computer programmer who wrote the Tron program. The Alan Bradley character was played by actor Bruce Boxleitner in the Tron movie and voiced by Boxleitner in the video game. Except for the more elaborate decorative pattern, this helmet is very similar to helmets seen in the original movie. I was very pleased with how well the parts of this model fit together when I was building it. The finished model is sturdy enough to be worn, but it may require some padding inside to get it to fit correctly. Here is the template info:

Scale: 1:1
Finished Size: approximately 8"(20.3 cm) "ear to ear"
Number of sheets: 9
Number of parts: 35
Difficulty: 2/5
Download (includes lined & unlined PDF's and a PDO)

Previous Tron papercraft:
Jet's Identity Disc
Sark's Identity Disc
Tron's Identity Disc
Hog Goggles
Bit - Yes, No and Neutral

Earlier this summer someone with another pet portrait company e-mailed me to see if I might like to feature their artwork on the blog. Nine out of 10 times I decline or ignore these sort of requests because lets face it, I am here to talk about "me", and occasionally I'll link to some of my dog artist friends that I share a support system with. So seeing the e-mail I rolled my eyes and clicked on the link, expecting some beginner site and so on. To my pleasant surprise I was charmed by not only the originality of the artwork, but also the clean slick website that presented it.

These fresh and original works are create on cardboard. When you visit their site be sure and click on the images so you can see the pop up window that will have a mouse-over showing you the depth these works have.
Their starting price is only $125 so I may just have to see what they can do with a Scottie. I really do adore their use of unexpected materials and their playful style. Check out RonandJoe.com and tell them Art Paw sent ya.

Here we have a collection of consistent, unique and interesting seamless patterns for Adobe Illustrator users. You can use them for digital artwork decoration or brainstorming.

Below you will find image previews, artist info, download links and usage instructions. If you use some of them, don't be shy and post a link to your work in the comments section...
The resources have been released under CC Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License

Retro Flower Patterns
A floral pattern for Adobe Illustrator from Water Pistol.This set contains three variations of the pattern you see above. To use, expand the ZIP file, open the PDF with Adobe Ilustrator and bring up the swatches palette (Window>Swatches). Download

Vector Target Swatches

A free seamless pattern resource from Chibiki. The pack includes red, orange, blue, green, purple, yellow and gray versions of the swatch. To use, load the PDF file with Adobe Illustrator and open the swatches palette. Download

Flowered Pijamas

A cute five-color pattern from Jill Schwegel. You can use it for designing a web background, decorate a clothing design concept or just fill negative space with something fresh. To use open the PDF with Adobe Illustrator and bring up the swatches window (Window>Swatches>. Download

Cherry Background

A free vector background design resource from Julia Syrykh. You might find use of it as a web background or as an environment for your latest flash animation. Customizable with Adobe Illustrator. Download

Aloha Seamless Pattern

Another seamless pattern for Adobe Illustrator from Jill Schwegel. The swatch is constructed by hibiscus flower and pineapple shapes, available in large (300x300) and small (150x150) tiles. To use, expand the ZIP archive, open with Adobe Illustrator, and bring up the swatches palette. Download

Floral Pattern

A free EPS flower from Skeedio. You can customize the artwork with almost any popular vector graphics editor (Corel Draw, Inkscape, GIMP, Adobe Illustrator, etc.). Download

Damask Pattern

A free damask pattern for Adobe Illustrator from Grunii. To use, expand the ZIP archive and open the AI file with Adobe Illustrator. Download

Seamless Bubbles

A collection of seven seamless bubble pattern swatches for Adobe Illustrator from Chibiki. To use, load with Adobe Illustrator, draw a vector object, select it, bring up the swatches window (Swatches>Window) and apply a pattern of your choice. Download

52 Seamless Halftone Patterns

A collection of 52 seamless halftone patterns for Adobe Illustrator by Faerie Dreamer. To use, load the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator by selecting File>Open>Browse (Don't use click+drag) and bring up the swatches panel. Download

45 Degrees Stripe Patterns for Adobe Illustrator

A free pack of 28 vector pattern swatches for Adobe Illustrator Nagash. Stripes in 7 different sizes, rotated left and right; Straight line and faux-pixilated line; Black-transparent, and black-red variations; To use, load the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator and open the swatches palette (Window>Swatches). Download

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A few days ago I witnessed an excessively sad event. A huge group of merchants was thrown out (by the police) of a hall in the center of Warsaw (which they had been renting for several years), and the events turned violent and nasty, with throwing of stones and fights and tear gas and general havoc.
Although it did look like some sort of incomprehensible flash mob or other performative party, one could hardly squeeze it into the “new art” category, were it not for one significant detail: the commercial hall is to be substituted by the Museum of Modern Art. Of course, the city authorities claim the undoing of this most hideous hall is necessary for the construction of a second line of the metro, but the fact is: the temple of 90’s-style small, bad quality commerce will be replaced by the temple of contemporary art.
The obvious implication of this week’s events is: the Museum of Modern Art will arguably be the most despised building in Poland. So far, the only (extremely heated) debates about its character, name (Contemporary or Modern?), and, of course, its shape, interested only fairly elite circles. The building itself raised most controversy, with its austere, “modernist”, or, as some put it, uninspired look. But all this was nothing compared to what happened last Tuesday: the masses moved. There was naturally no talk of the museum. Yet sooner or later, the topic will appear. The Museum will be built, and the tens of thousands of people around the country who considered what happened an act of injustice will have a surprizingly clear symbolic enemy: Modern Art.

But the hundreds of people gathered at the hall entrance would not be customers anyway. Meaning, they don’t fit the profile. Not the current one, and not any potential profile of someone “we” seem to want to educate into (our) art, into (our) culture. Why? Because the social differences are so big, it is still unimaginable for the common art curator/cultural agent to think of these people as spectators, art amateurs, partners. Just as they were hardly a partner for negotiating a new commercial deal (they rejected several offers and refused to participate in further negotiations). We will hear: They are outside of the reach of... of us, the cultural people, the elites, the-educated-ones. They are a lost case.

This is obviously the moment when the conflict becomes helpless. Each party is convinced that the others are barbarians, their entire world is wrong, corrupt, and unworthy of any contact.

Do these people need us to defend them? I believe this is not a question of need. It is a question of true access to culture. Of initiatives, or rather, structures, which would allow for a potential integration of all citizens.
The Museum of Modern Art has already had many great exhibitions. But these initiatives are clearly focused on a prestigious audience, they are intellectually sophisticated, but beyond that, they don’t seem to reach out to a “larger” audience. This reaching out has been happening in many museums around the world (take the Brooklyn Museum, with their great program of interactive activities where once a month visitors can have a totally different experience of art, which includes, for instance, making their own art prints and parties with known DJs).
In Warsaw, we have a truly outstanding exhibition relating to the great Alina Szapocznikow, an artist whose work is largely unknown outside of Poland, yet here is already considered as a crucial reference for anyone interested in modern art (the exhibition ends Sunday). Her works combine eroticism with power, femininity with a great understanding of structure and drama. Possibly the most impressive among the works presented at the show is the huge female belly sculpted in marble (actually it's a double-belly), which impresses, attracts, scares, and ultimately leaves us at a (as always unbearable) distance. What is made to counteract this distance in terms of programming? Some lectures, discussions, guided tours, and a new documentary film. All this is great for me or you. Interesting indeed.
But what about the reaching out? The search for new, active audiences?
Well, many of the women present during the events at the commercial hall were convinced to join in the creative thinking about stone – they reached out, grabbed the pavement stones, and threw them at the police. I claim they did it not only because they were “part of the mob”, but also, because they were hardly ever offered any serious alternatives.
Isn’t it time we thought about those others as true potential consumers of culture, who can be sought just as we seek the already accustomed artsy amateurs?

A friend of mine suggested that the 2000 salesmen thrown out on Tuesday be hired at the Museum Store.
Beyond this ironic (and hilarious) take lies the feeling that something is going terribly wrong in the way we are approaching the idea of social change.
I have been often showcasing projects with social agendas. They were more out-going, accessible, they were social sculptures or other initiatives which claimed a different approach to the audience-connection.
But at such instances, I wonder: can't social sculpture strive for effectiveness? Isn't it terribly passé to hide behind our we-are-only-poor-artists shields?


PS. The Museum of Modern Art does attempt to create a social space of dialogue, as in the initiative of a Park of Sculpture in a poor part of Warsaw. One can see the idea. Yet paradoxically even an artist like Rirkrit Tiravanija seems to have transformed of his relational aesthetics here into a... well... esoteric sculpture.
Hopefuly, this cube, and tens of other artcubes, can make a difference. Yet for the moment its futuristic, mirror-like shape seems all but ironic.

This week I have finalized some artwork for a few big pups. Meisie's Mom ordered 2 portraits and she will qualify for our repeat client discount that we are offering this month. Pete & Haley are new clients and their Mom is taking advantage of our 8 x 10 promo. Click here to learn more about our July sale ... keep in mind that it ends soon.

I stole my question from—“Predicting the Present”—an interview with science fiction writer Cory Doctorow in the Harvard Business Review.

His answer:

I believe that from the artist’s perspective, today’s art must presuppose copying. If you are making art that you expect people not to copy, then you are not making contemporary art.

A bold claim; it places the activity of copying at the center of contemporary art-making. I struggled with this at first. Maybe I was in denial, but I didn’t want to believe that “copying” could be the prevailing zeitgeist. After several days researching and writing this essay, I’m coming to see the light of our Xerox-infatuated culture . . .

Let’s resurrect that boogie of a concept, “postmodernism”. After John Barth, famed contemporary novelist, first condemned postmodernism as the “literature of exhaustion”, he later recanted and saw the possibility for a “replenishment” and a transcendent “synthesis” in literature. He wrote:

The ideal postmodernist novel will somehow rise above the quarrel between realism and irrealism, formalism and ‘contentism’, pure and committed literature” to combine the most vital aspects of past literatures.(1)

The exact terms that Barth uses are not as important as his idea of synthesis. I believe contemporary art, and specifically contemporary fiction, sees itself as a synthesis of genres, styles, approaches, materials, and modes. This has to do with the tendency in contemporary art to distrust “totalizing mechanisms” and “grand narratives”, and instead to employ ironic juxtaposition, pastiche (mixing high and low art), and imbuing works with a naïve sense of playfulness.(2)

Novelists aren’t the only ones recycling outmoded genres and repackaging them, musicians are too. Portland band, the Decembrists, loosely based their fourth album, The Crane Wife, on a Japanese folk tale; but listening to the album, you’re more likely to attribute the lyrics to 19th century Irish literature. While combining many styles, baroque pop, progressive rock, and folk music, the transcendent, replenishing synthesis John Barth refers to becomes increasingly self-evident.

We are living in the age of the re-mix; where the creative act of re-mixing and combining styles and vignettes claims an originality of its own. This may be scary to some, but to others it means unfettered creative freedom.

One musician and producer from Israel, known as Kutiman, rose to fame almost over night with his music video project ThruYOU. Kutiman created a seven track wonder from video material exclusively found on YouTube. Each track mixes samples, such as drumbeats and base lines, to produce seamless melodies and elaborate compositions. The tracks employ a variety of instruments (guitars, pianos, drums, harps, synthesizers), and reflect a variety of influences (R&B, Funk, Reggae, Jungle, Afro and Jazz).(3)


The collagist impulse, I argue, is seen across disciplines. A parallel to Kutiman is Luisa Rabbia in the art world. Recently I read an interview with Rabbia in Art in America (June-July 2009). Rabbia’s range of works include drawings, collages, video art, porcelain and paper-mache sculptures. In her most recent project, she uses images on the web that have been made by someone else, much like Kutiman uses video clips from YouTube, and integrates these images into a “non-existent landscape”.

The collagist impulse in contemporary art is more than merely combining images, sounds, or pieces of text. I see it as inherently social and global—a departure from the artist’s role as private and alienated from society. With technology that knits us together in a million different ways, there is now an augmented awareness of each other.

Local issues become more prominent and so do seemingly random intersections between different parts of the world. Along with the freedom implicit in new technologies and mediums, artists embrace a mixture of narratives and feel comfortable (and liberated) creating their own story from the varicolored cloth of the many.

Rabbia writes, “What is different now is the fact that the images are not mine, but come from the experiences of other people. I stare at the images a long time, and try to bring my own journey into their journey.”

When talking about contemporary art, I also use the term “collage” as a metaphor for combining disparate elements into a singular tableau. Michael Cheval, a Russian artist who I’ve written about before, borrows the style and technique of 17th century Dutch art and combines them with his own surrealistic dreamscapes. The historical elements in Cheval’s paintings, 17th century dress, courtly figures, jesters are not historical references; but instead part of an inventive and original assemblage.

The 44,000-seat Kaohsiung stadium designed by Ito goes even further with pushing the boundaries of contradiction. A stadium that resembles a giant coiled snake combines the expansiveness of a super-stadium while maintaining a transparency and openness between inner and outer worlds. Nicolai Ouroussoff, from the New York Times, writes, “Mr. Ito’s stadium seeks to maximize our awareness of it while still creating a sense of enclosure.”

I love how Ito describes his architecture. “I am looking for something more primitive, a kind of abstraction that still has a sense of the body. The in between is more interesting to me.”

Contemporary art revels in the spaces in between. In between materials, styles, stories, histories, and techniques. Contemporary art is the art of perpetual discovery, an art without a destination, only entry points and possibilities. And if it is true what Corey Doctorow says about today’s art presupposing copying, then it is only because copying is merely a first step towards something greater and less recognizable.

More essays are available at Escape into Life

Image Credits:

Travels with Isabella 1 (2008), Luisa Rabbia
Under the same sky 5 (2009), Luisa Rabbia
A la Guerre comme a la Guerre #1, Michael Cheval
Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai-shi, Japan (2001), Toyo Ito
Kaohsiung Stadium, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (2009), Toyo Ito

As I have said before, monkeys always make me smile, and this one is no exception. This colorful monkey is the work of Belgian artist "Fossfor" and may be downloaded from her Flickr page here. As if you couldn't tell, the title of this paper toy is "Monkeyking".^^

Today and tomorrow will be pretty busy. I am finalizing artwork for Meisie, Zoey, and Mia. Meisie's project has been in-house for a couple weeks now. She is a lovely Ridgeback and her human has ordered a few gift portraits from us in the past. We are doing 2 portrait projects from 2 different pics for Meisie.

Zoey & Mia are 2 fluffy pups that will ship to Canada. I am still playing around with Mia, but I will post Zoey below. Check out the ground on this first sample of Zoey. I incorporated the actual photo background layered on top of one of my painterly grounds. I set the photographic layer effects to be hard light and then played with color and splatter brushes.