http://www.linesandcolors.com Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:40:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Visual art is often presented as something that exists in its purest form "for art's sake", removed from any purpose other than to exist as art, sometimes seen as a rare and noble sort of abstracted "expression" of something. This is the impression that is glibly, and I believe wrongly, ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/07/04/edward-tufte/ I've written before about The Tale of How, a short, wonderfully original animation by The Blackheart Gang, featuring the artwork of Ree Treweek. I've also talked about Shy the Sun, a commercial production company featuring members of the Blackheart Gang, including Treweek and Jannes Hendrikz, which has been producing marvelously ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/07/02/the-tale-of-how-book/ Brett Helquist is best known for his illustrations for the popular A Series of Unfortunate Events children's books by "Lemony Snicket" (Daniel Handler). Helquist was born in Arizona, grew up in Utah, where he earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts from Brigham Young University, and currently lives and works in ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/30/brett-helquist/ Joseph Zbukvic is a Croation born artist living and working in Melbourne, Australia. Zbukvic's atmospheric, emotionally resonant watercolors have a wonderful characteristic of being simultaneously loose and crisp — loose in that he suggests rather than elaborating, and crisp because of his masterful command of edges. He has a highly ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/29/joseph-zbukvic/ Like anyone who works with painting, design or color in any form, I occasionally struggle with color; not just with mixing and choosing colors, but with the actual perception of color, the ability to answer the seemingly simple question "What color is that?" All of my studies of color and color ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/26/blue-and-green-or-is-it/ Trompe l'oeil, French for "trick the eye" is an illusionary art technique with a long history in Western art. The intention is to create an optical illusion, in that the viewer is given the impression that there is a three dimensional object or scene before them, not just a realistic ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/25/john-pugh/ Spanish painter Juan Gallego paints images that are technically floral paintings, though they are unlike any I have seen. Gallego take his inspiration in close-ups of flower forms that are convoluted, multi-layered and often have a wrinkled or withered appearance. These are the basis for his large scale compositions (it's instructive ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/24/juan-gallego/ Born in the Czech Republic, Peter Gric emigrated to Austria at the age of 12, and studied at the Academy of Arts in Vienna. His paintings are representational, but they largely depict imaginary objects or landscapes, that can at times seem architectural, at times organic and at other times, a ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/23/peter-gric/ For those familiar with the English Pre-Raphaelite painters, the phrase "modern Pre-Raphaelite" may sound as much an oxymoron as the Surrealist phrase "Soluble Fish", in that the Pre-Raphaelites named their group after their desire to return to the "pre-Raphael" purity of the early Renaissance. John William Waterhouse was never a member ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/22/jw-waterhouse-the-modern-pre-raphaelite/ Mattias Adolfsson is a 3D artist living outside of Stockholm, Sweeden and currently working for gaming developer Simbin Development Studios. Having apparently put aside traditional drawing for a while, Adolfsson returned to regular drawing when he started his sketchblog Mattias Inks, in 2006. Since then he has populated it with ... http://www.linesandcolors.com/2009/06/20/mattias-adolfsson/