![]() | Jorge González (@jorgeilustra) |
Historia de Alfred Nakache y Jacques Cartonnet para la Revue Dessinée. pic.twitter.com/PUuVDDvJ6N | |
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![]() | Jorge González (@jorgeilustra) |
Historia de Alfred Nakache y Jacques Cartonnet para la Revue Dessinée. pic.twitter.com/PUuVDDvJ6N | |
At first glance, the colourful characters created by Berto Fojo might appear playful but on closer inspection his creations seem troubled and ridden with angst. His images are fuelled by a dark sense of humour and an ability to create characters that have bags of charisma.
William Blake (English, 1757-1827)
When the Morning Stars Sang Together, The Book of Job
More William Blake on hideback

Handling edges is a skill that all fine artists will need to learn sooner or later. Edges that are out of focus are vital in paintings in order to create the 3D illusion of making things look like they recede in a landscape painting, for example. Edges that are blurred make things appear they are moving.
The handling of edges is to be applied in all mediums, although some are more cooperative than others. For example, with pastels all you need to do is massage the dust with your finger and you can achieve any degree of softness, whereas in acrylics the paint dries too fast and it's impossible to blur, like with oils. Watercolor requires experience to know exactly when to apply the pigment to the wet paper.
There are three kinds of edges in all mediums:
Diffused Edges
The contour of forms can become completely lost, leaving little or no definition. Use diffused edges for the following:
• The last plane in your background, when indicating foliage
• To create ethereal cumulous clouds
• To create realistic waterfalls that appear to be moving
• To indicate crashing waves in seascapes
Soft Edges
The edge is recognizable, but blurry.
• Distant trees and evergreens in backgrounds
• Distant hills
• Things in the peripheral areas of a painting
• Water reflections
Hard Edges
Clearly defined with no sense of being out of focus.
• Rocks
• Buildings
• Rocky mountains
Advice on how to achieve soft or diffused edges:
Oil and Pastel:
Massage the paint to the degree of blurriness desired. These tow mediums are very easy.
Watercolor:
1) Apply water to the paper.
2) Wait about 5 minutes for the water to be absorbed and/or until the paper is no longer glossy.
3) Add just enough water to create pasty (not runny) pigment. If necessary suck the excess water out of the brush by squeezing the bristles where they meet the ferrule while holding the brush vertical to the paper. Note: Rough paper is more cooperative than cold-pressed paper when it comes to controlling soft edges.
Acrylic:
Scumble the adjacent color (such as the sky on the edges of trees) and lightly feather it in until the transition creates the blurred contour.
"Landscape Painting Essentials" and other video courses are available at NorthLightShop.com. North Light has also just released a new eBook written by Johannes titled Landscape Painting Essentials. Join his online art classes at http://improvemypaintings.com.
The post Painting Tips: The Value of Hard and Soft Edges appeared first on Artist's Network.
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| (credits on cards - excuse black boxes, but many artists don't put their phone number on their websites so I blocked them out here) |
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| Jeremy Wilson sends the best mail. |
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| Jeffrey Alan Love |
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| Serena Malyon and Kelly McKernan |
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| Jeremy Wilson |
Driven by super-human forces and undaunted by the powers of nature, artist Simon Beck (previously) trudges across sand or through knee-high snow to create massive geometric drawings left behind in his footprints. From sandy expanses on the shore of New Zealand to frigid outlooks in the Swiss Alps, any pristine surface that stretches for hundreds of meters can work as a suitable canvas for Beck's designs.
Each site-specific piece is planned well in advance on a computer and carefully mapped out on-site before the artist begins his grueling expedition. After walking for entire days, the painstaking details of enormous fractals, snowflakes, dragons, and undulating geometric forms are left in his wake—often with barely enough sunlight to snap a few quick photos.
Seen here are a number of pieces by Beck from the last year or so. You can learn about the fine details of his process in this FAQ and see additional photos over on Facebook. He also published a book of his work titled Simon Beck: Snow Art.
In 1964, artist Yoko Ono (b. February 18, 1933) published Grapefruit — a collection of her poems, drawings, and instructions for life, constituting a sort of whimsical activity book for grownups. Nearly half a century later, on the eve of her seventieth birthday, she released a sequel titled Acorn (public library) — a new set of "action poems" bearing the same sensibility of irreverence and earnestness, subversion and sincerity. Aswirl between them are Ono's distinctive dot-drawings — abstract three-dimensional shapes reminiscent of Thomas Wright's pioneering 18th-century depictions of the universe.
Fusing the playful and the philosophical, the pieces are grouped into sets according to the attentional focus of their particular activity — the sky, the city, the seasons, the home, the sounds and sights and sensations that surround us. Undergirding the poems is a robust optimism and a meditative quality that accomplishes the seemingly impossible — inviting deep reflection not through the weight of analytical reason but through the levity of intuitive insight.
SKY PIECE I
Towards the end of the Second World War, I looked like a little ghost because of the food shortage. I was hungry. It was getting easier to just lie down and watch the sky. That's when I fell in love with the sky, I think.
Since then, all my life, I have been in love with the sky. Even when everything was falling apart around me, the sky was always there for me. It was the only constant factor in my life, which kept changing with the speed of light and lightning. As I told myself then, I could never give up on life as long as the sky was there.
Tell us when you first noticed the sky.
Tell us when you first noticed that the sky was beautiful.
WATCH PIECE I
Watch a hundred-year-old tree breathe.
Thank the tree in your mind for showing us
how to grow and stay.
EARTH PIECE I
Listen to the sound of the fire burning
in the center of the globe.
SKY PIECE V
Autumn
Imagine running across a wheat field
as fast as you can.
Imagine your friend running towards you
as fast as possible.Imagine the colour of the sky. If it's clouded,
see if there are any blue spots.
If it's clear,
see if there are any clouds.
If it's stormy,
look out for thunder and lightning.
If it's snowing,
take your coat off
so you can wrap it around your friend.
SOUND PIECE VI
Summer
Tape the sound of your baby son crying.
Let him listen to the tape when he is
going through pain as a grown man.
CLEANING PIECE II
Make a numbered list of sadness in your life.
Pile up stones corresponding to those numbers.
Add a stone each time there is sadness.
Burn the list, and appreciate the mound of stones for its beauty.Make a numbered list of happiness in your life.
Pile up stones corresponding to those numbers.
Add a stone each time there is happiness.
Compare the mound of stones to the one of sadness.
CLEANING PIECE III
Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) for three days
b) for forty-five days
c) for three monthsSee what happens to your life.
CLEANING PIECE IV
Send a note of appreciation to silent courageous people
you happen to have noticed: parents, teachers, shopkeepers,
street cleaners, artists, etc.Keep doing it.
See what happens to the world.
Complement the thoroughly wonderful Acorn with Wendell Berry on how to be a poet and a complete human being, then revisit John Lennon and Yoko Ono's animated conversation about love.
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