Tag: art

• The Picasso bug, where art and nature collide

  

  You can’t beat the brushstrokes of nature. Native to tropical and subtropical Africa, the oval-shaped Picasso Bug or Zulu Hud Bug is truly nature’s work of art.

  The Picasso Bug (Sphaerocoris annulus) is a shield-backed bug species with a vibrant carapace that does more than illustrate its aesthetic beauty. The mosaic markings serve as a warning to predators.

  Nicknamed “stink bug,” the tiny creepy crawler also emits a putrid smell when disturbed.

  As the famous abstract artist Pablo Picasso once said, “Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.” But seeing a bug like this would’ve tempted Picasso to become a naturalist instead.

  

  

  

  Wells Baum

  June 30, 2021

  Animals, Nature

  art, Insects, Nature, Picasso

• Meet Bolivia’s powerful female wrestlers, Flying Cholitas

  

  Photographer Todd Anthony took pictures of Bolivia’s indigenous female wrestlers for his new project, Flying Cholitas.

  This unique group of athletes wear more than stylish dresses and beautiful petticoats — they come together to demonstrate pride in their history.

  Once colonized by the Spanish and rejected as lower-class citizens, pejoratively known as “cholita,” they have since embraced the name to symbolize their persistent fight against subjugation and hierarchy.

  Symbolizing the culmination of strength, power, and beauty, the cholitas will not be denied in activism nor aesthetics.

  

  

  

  

  Wells Baum

  April 3, 2021

  Architecture & Design, Culture & Society

  art, Bolivia, Photography, Wrestling

• Topiary sculpture of a sleeping baby bird

  

  Here’s a bird you’ll never get tired of looking at.

  Children’s author and illustrator Claude Ponti’s gigantic topiary named Poussin Endormi or Sleepy Chick resides in Jardin des Plantes’ botanical garden in Nantes, France.

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Ma vie en Loire-Atlantique (@mavieenloireatlantique)

  The outdoor installation relaxes nearby Ponti’s zany other works, the sleeping koala. Who wouldn’t want these in their front yard?

  View this post on Instagram

  A post shared by Saben (@saben26005)

  Check out some of Ponti’s surrealistic books below. What a wild imagination!

  Claude Ponti! I used to spend hours looking at his drawings. So magical! pic.twitter.com/CNt0dcNu87

  — ank (@raplaplatte) May 8, 2018

  One of the biggest influence over my work i always forget to mention : Claude Ponti. Amazing illustrator & story teller, his use of allegories & metaphors would keep me hooked and rereading his books. ☺️ pic.twitter.com/PQQMviteFR

  — Violaine (vee) Briat (@violainebriat) November 6, 2020

  Wells Baum

  November 24, 2020

  Animals, Architecture & Design, Travel

  art, birds, France, Plants

• Yarn artist Liisa Hietanen makes human embroidered figures

  

  Knitting is a popular hobby in Finland. But 30-year-old artist Liisa Hietnanen takes the practice to a whole new level.

  She uses wool to create life-size crocheted sculptures of the neighbors in her village.

  “The slow handcraft techniques work as a counterforce to the accelerating pace in different areas of life,” says the artist, who uses photographs and face-to-face meetings to help create these fiber people.

  “To me the more important values in my works are not likeness or resemblance.

  “The works are rather about encountering someone very concretely, seeing the other for real and getting to know them slowly. I see these as relevant values and balancing actions especially in contrast to quick stirs and thin encounters in social media.”

  Check out more of Hietanen’s creative vision below.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Wells Baum

  June 3, 2020

  Architecture & Design

  art, culture, design, life, Photography

• Neanderthals were great hunters but poor artists

  

  Neanderthals were great hunters but poor artists.

  According to a study done by UC Davis psychology professor Richard Coss, Neanderthals used basic spear hunting techniques to capture tame prey.

  Meanwhile, Homo Sapiens developed the ability to throw spears as a result of chasing more elusive game in the open grasslands of Africa.

  Homo Sapiens were also careful planners, sharpening their hand-eye coordination by drawing out hunting scenes on cave walls.

  

  Such artistry not only made modern humans better visualizers and hunters, but it also helped them develop smarter brains.

  Historian and author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Yuval Noah Harari also argued that while Neanderthals might have had larger brains and finer tools than their fellow Homo Sapiens, they lacked the cognitive abilities for language.

  Homo Sapiens developed rounder skulls and bigger parietal cortexes that allowed them not only to translate visual images but share stories through word of mouth.

  Wells Baum

  May 15, 2020

  Animals, Culture & Society, Nature

  art, culture, humans, Nature, Neanderthals

• Beautiful apples from around the world

  

  William Mullan is a photographer who specializes in taking pictures of rare apples from around the world.

  The golden Knobbed Russet, the star-shaped api etoile, hard red Black Oxford apple — these are just a few of the varieties that appear in Mullan’s 200-page photo-book, Odd Apples.

  Writes Atlas Obscura on how Mullan’s fascination with apples came to be:

  Mullan was born in the United States, but grew up in the United Kingdom, where a teenage encounter with an Egremont Russet led to his love of apples. Its spicy, persimmon-like flavor “just blew my mind,” he says. But many of the apples he’s photographed were born in North America, including such romantic cultivars as the Black Oxford and Hidden Rose.

  “There’s just this sense of infinity with [apples] that I love,” Mullan says. While he imagines he’ll move on to other subjects in the future, for now, he’s still entranced by apples.

  Even better, during his exhibits, he slices the apples open and passes the edibles around for his audience to enjoy.

  You can follow Mullan’s work on Instagram.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  Wells Baum

  May 7, 2020

  Architecture & Design, Health, Nature, Travel

  apple, art, Nature, Photography

• Waves in progress

  

  Here’s something you can look at for hours: looping waves in progress.

  Created using visual effect software Houdini by Polish motion designer who goes by the name 00.032, according to her dribble page, the piece takes after Matthieu Lehanneur’s original physical work of the same vein.

  

  The French designer Lehanneur constructed a furniture collection called Ocean Memories that depicts three-dimensional ocean currents frozen into stone and bronze sculptures.

  

  

  Lehanneur and 00.032 demonstrate both static and motion-centric representations of the Earth’s ocean.

  Waves, a symbol of natural energy, have been a fascination with artists such as Hokusai for centuries.

  Wells Baum

  April 28, 2020

  Architecture & Design, Nature

  art, design, Matthieu Lehanneur, Ocean, video

• Pablo Picasso’s “light drawings”

  

  “Everything you can imagine is real,” said the legendary painter Pablo Picasso.

  In 1949, photographer Gjon Mili captured the painter using a small electric light in a dark room to paint the artist’s iconic centaurs, bulls and greek figurines.

  The chaotic images vanished as soon as they were created but thanks to Mili’s two separate cameras, Picasso’s timeless “light drawing” live on.

  Thanks to today’s advancements in virtual reality, one can replicate Picasso’s moves using Google’s Tilt Brush application on the Oculus Rift. The app lets your paint in 3D space with virtual reality.

  

  

  

  

  Photos by Gjon Mili for TIME, 1949

  Wells Baum

  February 4, 2020

  Architecture & Design, Technology

  art, design, painting, Picasso, Tech

• A 3D render of your eye under a microscope

  

  What does your eye look like under a microscope?

  Instagram 3D artist Frank J Guzzone gives us at least an imaginative glimpse into the workings of an eye.

  Don’t get carried away by the reality or irreality of the visualization. Just admire the concept.

  Eye doctors on Twitter have promptly responded to Twitter account ZonePhysics with rightful criticism. “There’s no windstorm in the anterior chamber,” writes Dr. Cheryl G Murphy in debunking the graphic tweeted with the headline “This is your eye under microscope.”

  As someone who stares at eyes under the microscope day in and day out, that’s not even close. Not that much movement on the iris. There’s no windstorm in the anterior chamber. Peripheral cornea blurred for no reason. The actual iris magnified is much more beautiful than this.

  — Dr. Cheryl G. Murphy (@murphyod) November 8, 2019

  Renders do not explain science — at least this one — but we can admire the fascinating illustration nonetheless.

  Wells Baum

  December 23, 2019

  Architecture & Design, Health, Science

  art, design, eye, Nature, science

• The floating un-Christmas tree

  

  Are you looking to think outside the box this Christmas?

  Look no further than the levitating un-Christmas tree, which features all the aspects of the traditional Christmas tree minus the pine tree itself.   

  

  Whether by virtual reality or a Harry Potter magic wand, the ability to minimize a Christmas tree into nakedness is a fascinating concept. As Leonardo Da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

  PS: If you’re interested in building a floating Christmas tree, you can find the instructions here.

  If you’re looking for other creative Christmas tree ideas, look no further than teasing people’s imagination by going through the roof! 

  

  Wells Baum

  December 3, 2019

  Architecture & Design, Technology

  art, Christmas, design, Holidays, Interesting