The Duck Pirate

 

Costa Magarakis, a Tel Aviv-based artist also known as The Duck Pirate, specializes in sculpture that uses shoes as the base objects for some of his work. Footwear in his hands can become an animals body, a sailing vessel, or an imagined creature. As a child he spent time looking through his grandfather’s antique encyclopedia and old books.  His results often feel stolen from drawings in children’s books from days gone by, often imitating  Jules Verne or in modern day, Tim Burton.

Costa produces each sculpture thru a long  process in which each shoe must be made suitable for reforming. Once he softens the old shoe, he adds fiberglass resin and a wide variety of materials that might include, glass, wood, metals and paint. Finished sculptures can sell for up to $1200.00.

 

Alexander Jansson Fairytales

Alexander Jansson was born in Uppsala, Sweden. His first drawing was a ghost when he was only two years old. By the time he discovered Star Wars, his world view changed forever. Because of a loss at a young age, abandonment has always been a part of his work.

Alexander runs his own design studio, called Sleeping House. While he specializes in cover art and illustration, he also created his own style called “Greenpunk”. His mixed media technique is a collage of elements from his photos, models, drawings, and paintings that he blends into the same picture. In order to give these digital pictures a natural touch, he spends much of his time adding scratches, dust and brush strokes.

Mr. Jansson influences include a dark and mysterious touch like that of Tim Burton. The artist creates a mystical world full of miniature houses and characters that are into music.

This artist has done work for Disney, Radio Sweden, and the NYC Ballet among others. Alexander Jansson is well worth following, if only for the inspiration from his work .

 

<p><a href=”https://vimeo.com/15423744″>Ramone Bosco teaser trailer</a> from <a href=”https://vimeo.com/user3086663″>Alexander Jansson</a> on <a href=”https://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a&gt;.</p>

Crayola Crayons

Crayola brand crayons were the first kids crayons ever made, invented by cousins, Edwin Binney and C. Harold Smith. They had already invented a new wax crayon used to mark crates, but it contained carbon and was too toxic for children. This started research into nontoxic drawing tools for kids. They were confident that the safe pigment and wax mixing techniques they had developed could be used for a variety of colors.

The brand’s first box of eight Crayola crayons made its debut in 1903. The crayons were sold for a nickel and the colors were black, brown, blue, red, purple, orange, yellow, and green.

Some of these photographs were taken by Bryan Derballa, and show the inside of the Crayola factory which produces around 12 million crayons every day.

Today, there over one hundred different types of crayons being made by Crayola including crayons that: sparkle with glitter, glow in the dark, smell like flowers, change colors, and wash off walls and other surfaces and materials.

The modern crayon, originating in Europe, was a man-made cylinder that resembled contemporary sticks.  The word Crayola was created by taking the French words for chalk and oily and combined them. Later, powdered pigments of different colors replaced the charcoal. Later substituting wax for the oil made the sticks sturdier and easier to handle.

Maria Rubinke Extreme Porcelain

Usually when someone works in porcelain, they are trying to follow traditional methods. Artist Maria Rubinke adds a twisted turn to her work pushing what is acceptable in the world of art.

Currently based out of Copenhagen, Denmark, Maria Rubinke blends innocence with grotesque in her work, creating porcelain sculptures with shocking streams of red glaze originating from rips and tears in their bodies. She uses a mixture of cute and surreal to pull people between these extreme opposites.

Most vintage or Victorian porcelain dolls are delicate and beautiful. She doesn’t do that. The children have innocent faces, but are completely twisted. The portrayals in Maria’s sculptures bring to mind the work of Edward Gorey, the American artist and writer known for illustrated books depicting unsettling scenes in Edwardian settings.

She doesn’t yet have her own website, (although it is in progress),  but you can check out more of her work on her Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/rubinke?fref=ts

Burning Man Festival

Originally held in 1986 at San Francisco’s Baker Beach, the week-long Burning Man Festival now takes place in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. The festival is a week-long event that starts on the last Monday in August, and ends on the first Monday in September. Up to 68,000 people from around the world gather at the festival and spend a week in the remote desert isolated from the outside world.

The festival gets its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy, which is set ablaze on Saturday evening. The event is considered an experiment in self-expression, art, and self-reliance. It’s become a gathering for hippies, artists, musicians and dancers who can for a week explore artistic expression. Money is never exchanged at the event, instead the participants gift each other to get what they need. The main attractions of Burning Man include massive art installations, all-night dance parties, marathon kite-flying sessions, unconventional fashion shows, and classes where festival goers can learn things like Hula Hooping.

They head off one week later, having left no mark whatsoever and wait for the next Burning Man.

http://www.burningman.com/

 

 

Trina Merry – BodyPainting

Trina Merry has the ability to turn human beings into living canvases with her finely detailed paint works. If you ever get to San Francisco, stop and examine the street art and graffiti murals. There is a chance there might be an almost naked person hiding there.

Merry got started when she was asked to get on stage at a concert and get body painted in her underwear. She then apprenticed under the well known body painter Craig Tracy in New Orleans.  She uses non-toxic hypoallergenic paint applied with a brush or airbrush. The painting is temporary, and begins to change texture as soon as she stops painting. For this reason photography is necessary to document the work.

Merry chose the structure of a temple in order to bring awareness to the social business venture “Beyond the Four Walls” in order to empower women in Nepal.

Daniel Lai Book Sculptures

From old books that people no longer want, Daniel Lai creates art with several mediums in varied styles and subject matter, bringing new life to old paper. The artist, also known as Kenjio was born in Malaysia, moved to the United States in 2000, and is now living in Tennessee.

Each book sculpture is made by folding the paper to create a fan effect and adding a clay figure of a man. Each of the folded paper sculptures look like a large flower. The figure is then added to suggest a moment of thought. His series of “Thinker” sculptures echoes Rodin’s “The Thinker”

These literary sculptures show the need for knowledge and the limits time gives us to gain that knowledge.

Mini Key Guns for Jailers

Most guards today don’t actually carry firearms, unless they’re isolated away from the prison population. In the old days however, prison guards needed a little backup power while using both hands to open cell doors. Hence the creation of jailer key guns, a cell door key that doubled as a primitive one-shooter. These “turnkeys” were filled with gunpowder that would fire the miniature key-pistol in case there was any trouble from the prisoner when the cell door was opened. They may not have been too effective, having only one shot, but it was enough to discourage the plans of potentially dangerous prisoners.

Since most of the key guns were thrown in rivers and swamps after prisoners took them during escapes, they are now very rare and only line the pockets of antique collectors.

Paper Anatomy by Lisa Nilsson

American artist Lisa Nilsson creates anatomical cross sections of the human body using rolled strips of paper, a technique known as quilling or paper filigree. Quilling is a time consuming process in which paper is wound tightly into small rolls of different colors and then positioned to become works of art.  Nilsson is able to choose exactly the right material to imitate the organic structures making each piece appear as real cross-sections of humans and animals.

The construction is done with  Japanese paper and the gilded edges of old books. Quilling was first practiced by Renaissance nuns and monks who made artistic use of the gilded edges of worn out bibles, and later by 18th century ladies who made artistic use of lots of free time.

http://lisanilssonart.com/section/282102_Tissue_Series.html

Tree Troll of Kim Beaton

Seattle-based Kim Beaton with the help of 25 volunteers built a 12-foot tall tree troll out of completely non-toxic materials. In 2006, the artist and a team of volunteers spent 15 days creating a unique tree troll out of papier mache, wood, metal plates and other materials. The sculpture looks realistic if that is possible, but it’s the friendly face inspired by her father that gets your attention.  In about forty minutes after waking from a dream about her father, she had a rough sculpture that said what she wanted. The next morning she began making phone calls, telling her friends that in 6 days time they would begin on a new large piece. Fifteen days after starting, they were done.

The flexible building material was developed by the University of Michigan and has been used to improve earthquake resistance in structures. Beaton molded it around plywood to make the sculpture. The strength of the material meant people could enjoy the sculpture without risk of damage. Resembling something from “The Hobbit”, It’s public art and people should touch it and kids can play on it. The troll has been given a coat of buttermilk, and blended moss and lichen, in the hope of attracting further growth.

Beaton moved from Montana to New Zealand to work on The Hobbit with Weta Workshops.

http://kimgrahamstudios.com/