Never the same painting Twice/Breathtaking Imagination

The room was quiet. It was night time. I had homework when I typed in paintings in the search engine of my laptop. Thousands of pictures of paintings popped up in a the whole window. Normally one would be overwhelmed by all of the paintings in particular, but not I. No, my eyes seemed to ignore every painting except one beautiful master piece of fantasy artwork. It was calling to me. I looked at it 5 times and each time i discovered something new about it. . .

The Spirit of Flight -Josephine Wall- Acrylic on Canvas- 13½" x 14½

"The Spirit of Flight, the force responsible for the powers of movement of the wind and air, has gathered around her all the flying things she loves. Birds, insects, flying fish, swirling leaves, seeds of dandelions and sycamore trees, butterflies and fairies all dance around her in a grand array of wild free motion."

 

After seeing this painting I had to know who the genius was behind it. Josephine Wall is that genius. A visual story teller who paints in vibrantly bright colour as if light is being shown through the painting. With Fantasy as her guide she paints a variety of painting, from surrealism, to Greek mythology, and Nature. She paints to show the viewer a story. Whether that story is Earth or everyday life depends on the viewer. 

She paints with acrylic paint and many different sized canvases, usually large ones. She starts off general to specific, usually starting with the face and going out with the brightest colors and then working on it until she finds it perfect.

Although all of her paintings are fantasy, she does research real flowers and butterflies, so the objects in the painting are actual every day objects just used in a different, more imaginative way. I would love to own one of her paintings, they are magnificent. 

Here is the link to her webpage to check out more of her works: http://www.josephinewall.co.uk/index.html

Gothic Mind Trip.

Surrealism, a cultural movement of the 1920's that changed the way artist and writers viewed the world. Using an element of surprise in every piece of art drawn or painted by a surrealist. Ever since the 1920's there has been multiple surrealist artists and writer's. There is one that is a more recent surrealist who uses a Gothic touch in all of his paintings. This artist's name is: George Grie.
George Grie is 50 years old with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Arts and Applied Design Education. His style is Neo Surrealism, which is a darker more Gothic form of Surrealism. His media is in the digital arts. He uses multiple types of software such as: Adobe Photoshop, 3D Studio MAX, Terragen, Poser, DAZ3D, and Adobe Illustrator. Grie creates posters, computer wallpapers, and other graphic designs. He is now a  professional Multimedia Graphic Designer and joins the IBM Corporation as a lead new media specialist in Toronto, Canada. 

Dreams of Flying or Sleep Paralysis

This artwork was created by Grie in April 2008, so it is more recent. He explains this piece by saying that "Most of our dreams are well-forgotten by the time we are completely awake with an exception of, perhaps, dreams of flying. Flying dreams have always been provoking a certain amount of curiosity within the scientific community because of their elusive nature and mixed interpretations. Some flying dreams are believed to be an indication of ongoing physical growth, while others may be taken as a first step in lucid dreaming - a state in which a person can be simultaneously dreaming and directing the dream. Lucid dreaming is one of the famous esoteric practices described by Carlos Castaneda in “The Art of Dreaming”. Flying can also be a part of a manifest dream of your superiority over someone or something, especially if you’re freely manipulating your limbs at a high altitude. But as in real life, there’s no guarantee that you won’t lose altitude or stumble upon an obstacle in your dream." 

His works inspire a Dark aspect or reality and twists it to become something beautiful.

http://neosurrealismart.com/modern-art-prints/?biography/

I've Heard of Writing in Sand, But Drawing With Sand?

In 2009 Kseniya Simonova of Ukraine, won the competition "Ukraine's Got Talent". Not for singing, comedy or Juggling, but for her amazing talent of painting a story using sand.

(A small amount of nudity is in this video)
Simonova did not go through years of practice in the medium of sand like many artists do with their mediums, but started as an experiment to earn more money for her and her husband. She started off using beach and river sand but it was too course for her hands and did not move around the glass like it should have. After searching for a few days, they discovered volcanic black sand which is a really fine and soft sand  made from lava rock and other various minerals. Her canvas is a table with a glass table top with white paper taped to the bottom and a light underneath the table.
She had a passion for folk stories and history and tells some of these stories in sand art form, moving from one scene to the next by manipulation of the previous scene almost as if the elements of each scene were already there in the sand. Not many words can explain just how awesome these sand stories are. So a single music track illustrates what is going on in the picture. Other than that, complete silence.

It's Really Just a Chalk Drawing?!

Every single one of us as people has used chalk at one time in our lives. As students before white boards and dry erase markers, there was the chalk board, as children we drew on the pavements and made hopscotch squares and doodled little drawings that could easily be washed away by water. Artist have used this in the past as a way to get money just like street performers. This was only the beginning for British chalk artist: Julian Beever. 

Beever drew with chalk as one of his mediums just to receive change from passers by so that he could work on his artwork at home in his studio. It seemed to work out fine, having ideas here and there about three dimensional art from chalk. It was not until he saw the perfect bit of pavement left over by an old abandoned Garden that he decided to test out an idea.   

He had the idea to draw a woman swimming in a pool drinking coca-cola. He commented in an interview by CBS news that he messed up on the leg because it was not symmetric and stated that "I [Beever] didn't really have the experience at that time to realize exactly how to do that leg in relation to the camera" ever since that he has been improving making more and more amazing chalk drawings. 

What is his secret? Well for starters, being a skilled artist. However, the real secret in his 3D chalk drawings, is in the position in which one views the drawing. He starts out with a paper sketch of his idea. Then he finds the perfect spot for his drawing and places a rope barrier around the area. He then sets up a camera as his view finder (the top rim of the camera is the top rim of the paper) exactly where he wants the angle to be, then using the camera he places ropes down and chalks around them to be his starting point. The whole process takes about three days but it is well worth it. He just fills in the blanks from there, referencing the camera as often as he needs to. Once the process is done, people standing at the same angle as the camera, can see the drawing as if it is really there even though it is really just chalk on the pavement. And thus his illusion is complete. 

When stepping away from the angle that sets the illusion, one does not grasp what the picture is supposed to be. Take for instance this photo done on the side of the drawing. What does it look like? A surf board? Guess again.

It is actually a globe that is supposed to like this:

With Julian Beever actually standing on the "top" of the world, holding up a sign that says "Make Poverty History" in bold letters. Both pictures are of the same drawing, just at different angles. Amazing right? 

Julian Beever's Web Page

Animation at it's Best

There are many Animation studios in this world. Walt Disney Animation Studios, Dream Work's Animation studios, Pixar Animation studios, and so many more not-so well known Animation Studios. One of these studios, though not quite as famous here in United States, but in Japan, is to me the greatest animation studio there has ever been. That studios' name, is Studio Ghibli, located in the small town Koganei, Tokyo. 

Since it was founded in 1985 by head animation director and artist Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli has created 18 award winning animated films such as: Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbor Totoro (who has become the logo for the studio), Castle in the Sky, Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, and one their latest films, The Secret World of Arrietty. 

Miyazaki created the studio with friends and fellow filmmakers Isao Takahata, and Toshio Suzuki, in intention to create animated films for a family audiance using basic moral behaviors as well as traditional Japanese Culture.

This Video contains 7 of studio Ghibli's films.

You may have noticed in the video that Disney was mentioned. Well, when Ghibli got so popular in Japan Miyazaki as well as the other two founders, thought it may be a good idea to try to bring the films to the United States Audience. In the beginning it failed due to the edits made on their biggest hit Nausicaä of the Valley of Wind for being to heavily centered on Japanese culture for the American people to understand. When Mira-Max studios wanted to cut some of the film Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki sent the director an authentic Japanese Katana with a simple message saying "No cuts" and so other than the changing of languages, the film was not altered and the United states was perfectly capable of understanding the culture, so much in fact that it has one of the highest ratings in Animation history. Disney became highly interested in Studio Ghibli and with the promise of never cutting a single thing in their films, created a partnership.

What makes Ghibli so incredible? To me, a simple admirer of animation, is how magical the worlds that are created by Miyazaki as well as the other Directors are. Miyazaki uses simple watercolor to come up with these worlds that come from both his imagination as well Japanese culture. With simple lines and hardly any detail, he creates a character even more versatile than that of a 3D animator. In preparing for a film, he studies real humans and their movements and habits. For my favorite film Spirited Away he studied his best friend's daughters and how they would do their day to day activities as small as how they put on their shoes or how so much as their facial expressions. For the scenery, he studies how trees blow in the wind and how shadows fall on the ground and every little detail of how the world reacts to nature. 

If you have never seen a studio Ghibli film, I encourage you to go to your neighborhood video store and rent one. And just sit back and notice the simplicity of this amazing Studio's work.