Funnelcloud Prints

I find that the art that has been catching my eye of late is chock-full of patterns and bright colors, ideally lots of both.  So it's no surprise that I went ape over these Funnelcloud Studio prints.  Funnelcloud is Rachel Roellke, who lives just one town over from mine!  What joy!  Scroll down for more happy prints:

One perk of her being a local is her fantastic patchwork Virginia print.  Is it weird that I love the shape of my state?  It seems somehow silly and yet also stately.  She also has DC and Maryland versions, and is taking requests for other states!  As much as I love the colors in the above prints (and lots more), as both a collector of river stones and builder of cairns in the wild, I fell head over heels for these:

Even in grayscale, those patterns just leap out at you.  And the shapes!  Is there a Funnelcloud Fan Club?  If so, sign me up.

Mikael Kennedy

I am in love with Mikael Kennedy's photographs.

Remember when I said all an artist had to do was paint me some waves and I was hooked?  Totally goes for photographers, too.  And if you capture the shoreline, make it bleak, bleak, bleak.  Some might find that depressing, but it never fails to take my breath away.  Kennedy does just that with all of these, from his Odysseus series.

Can't you just see that last one, blown up nice and big, dominating a big white wall?  I have the perfect place for it.  Come to me, waves.  Oh, and did I mention?  These are all polaroids.  Yum.

watching

These two videos showed up in my Google (or, I'm sorry, Topeka) Reader today, one right after another, and I loved them both so much I just had to share. The first is a time-lapse video of artist Phillipa Rice drawing a futuristic city. The second is an Etsy Portrait video about photographer Sharon Montrose, and if you've never seen her animal portraits, you need to go NOW. It's okay. I'll wait.

secrets and feathers

COVER, originally uploaded by Endofmarch.

This little love letter of a book by Endofmarch is fantastic, fantastic. The author's love and joy leaps off of every page and makes me want to dive in and swim with it. Simply lovely.

kelly reemtsen

I don't talk a great deal about painting on here, but I am a fan. I have a nice little collection (considering my age and income level, that is) of paintings, but I am also very, very picky. That said, I've just fallen in love with Kelly Reemtsen's art, and I'll tell you why.

To begin with, there's the subject matter. As such a huge fan of mid-century furniture and other retro ephemera, I love seeing it painted so well. Maybe I can't find or afford a Saarinen tulip chair or Eames rocker, but the paintings are charming and don't take up much space (see top photo).

Next, there's her vibrant use of color. The saturated hues combined with the retro subject matter give an unreal, nostalgic feeling, rather like the memories of a long-ago summer.

Finally, there's her use of space. The unrelenting use of white (she'll often use an entire tube of white oil paint in one piece) and generous negative space are broken only by the ground (an unobtrusive beige) or a shadow, and serve to make the subject pop. Her vibrant colors just serve to enhance the overall composition.

There you have it. Kelly Reemtsen combines retro subject matter with vibrant, saturated color and generous white negative space and the end result is a painting I wish I could step into. There doesn't appear to be a way to buy her works online, but she's listed with Caldwell Snyder Gallery in San Francisco, and you can view a selection of her works there.

via Design FormuLA, photos also from here and here

the artEEst

I'm a major advocate of finding art everywhere in your life, not just on a pedestal or canvas. All the same, I usually find that the artists are human. No more!




from Cute Overload.