From Giliell, click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
From Giliell, click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
I’ve been working in pencil too long, does my head in. Pigments are my true love, and always will be. They’ve been singing to me lately, which leads me to the matter of paints. A while back, a friend was thoughtful enough to send me a whole bunch of watercolours they weren’t going to use (Hi, Kestrel!), and I about screamed with delight when I saw the Sakura Koi paints. I haven’t had those in ages, and I love them. Love them to pieces. I’m not impartial to Sakura; I have a whole lot of their markers in my studio, and their products have never disappointed.
I’ve written before about the sheer gougery in art products, everything costs a bloody fortune. Just trying to recoup your materials cost in any given piece can seriously hike the price you end up asking. There is, of course, a staggering amount of snobbery in the world of art supply. Many people end up convinced that name equals quality. Sometimes, it does. Other times, not so much. Some people are so convinced that name equals quality, they don’t pay any attention to the actual quality of the product. This is oh so true when it comes to paints. The best way to insure the quality you want is to make your own, but that does your wallet no favours. Back to the Sakura Koi – the set I bought ages ago, I did buy because of price. Sakura manages to attach a reasonable price to their products, which is not a crime, in spite of many people thinking so. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the pigments, clear, bright, and luminous. It’s very easy to get distracted by the ‘big’ names, and spurn the reasonably priced stuff, but it’s truly worth your while to give the reasonable stuff a try, there are many gems there which you won’t be disappointed in at all, and they’re a kindness to that wallet too. The 18 set shown runs around $27.00 these days, and the tubes are a very generous 12 ml, so they’ll last a long time.
Members of the Dora Milaje in “Black Panther.” From left: Okoye (Danai Gurira), Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o) and Ayo (Florence Kasumba). Matt Kennedy / Marvel Studios.
Carolina Miranda has the compleat rundown on Pantherian analysis:
Have you heard about the little movie that tells the story of a royal man-feline named T’Challa who is powered by vibranium and defends a secret African paradise named Wakanda?
Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” is not just an epic comic-book action flick — it could approach the $1-billion mark globally after its opening in China this weekend — the movie is a full-blown cultural phenomenon, generating a cottage industry of cultural criticism that touches on a spectacular array of topics, including racial politics, geopolitics, gender issues, beauty standards, design and urbanism. (Hello, Wakandan municipal transit system!)
In fact, there are so many takes on “Black Panther” that New York-based educator Roberto Soto-Carrion has helpfully compiled dozens of analytical stories related to the film and the “Black Panther” comics in general into a 14-page Google Doc called “The Black Panther Reader.”
Ms. Miranda’s summary is excellent, and provides a great overview, with many links for those who wish to delve deeper. You can read it here.
Example of an x-ray record (all photos courtesy X-Ray Audio Project/Paul Heartfield).
Several years ago, while poking around a flea market in St. Petersburg, musician Stephen Coates came across a record unlike any other he had ever seen. Rather than etched on vinyl, its tiny grooves were cut onto a medical X-ray, tracing shallow circles over the ghostly shapes of bones.
“I immediately knew I had to find out who made it, why they made it, and how they made it,” Coates told Hyperallergic in a recent phone interview. He soon realized that the 78 RPM he had purchased — a single of “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets — was just one of many strange, makeshift records created in the Cold War years of the Soviet Union. Produced and disseminated on an underground market to circumvent government control of culture, these flimsy sheets were known as roentgenizdat, or “bone music.”
Installation view of ‘Forbidden Music: X-Ray Audio in the USSR, 1946 – 1964’ at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art.
Working with photographer Paul Heartfield, Coates has since established the X-Ray Audio Project, a multi-faceted endeavor to chronicle and share the history of roentgenizdat. The pair has released a book and documentary on their extensive research and have also organized a traveling exhibition. It is currently at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where examples of the decades-old transparencies are on view along with documents and other ephemera that together tell the technical, cultural, and human stories of this particular form of audio. Visitors can also listen to digitized recordings of the bone music, which, like homemade mixtapes, are far from crystal clear.
An absolutely fascinating subject! Humans are utterly amazing in their ability to circumvent control, and there’s nothing like declaring something forbidden to bring out the creative rebellion in people. You can read and see much more at Hyperallergic. I would love to be able to see this show, if you have the chance, don’t miss it!
All of the stunning paintings in Svenska Fåglar (Swedish Birds) by the von Wright brothers (1929 folio version) are in the public domain, and free to download and use in any way you wish. This is exquisite artwork, so even if you don’t want to use it, have a wander anyway, your day will be better for it. Also in the public domain are Birds of Australia, Ornithological volume by John Gould (1804-1881), illustrated by Elizabeth Gould (1804–1841), which introduced more than 300 new birds to the world.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
From Giliell, click for full size!
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Finished! 18″ x 24″, pencil & marker on Bristol. Click for full size. I am so curious, so this is for everyone, not just fellow artists. For the artists, how would you depict cancer and chemotherapy? For all the non-artists, how do you picture things like cancer and chemotherapy? What shape do they take in your head? Prior to getting cancer, I can’t say I ever gave it any thought at all, and I’m not overly sure where the images in The Fight came from, they were just there. After trying to think about it for a bit, seems the main concepts in my head had to do with fluidity and a crackling electricity, mass power out of control.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
We don’t make a deal out of our anniversary, for a couple of reasons. We did try, at first, and the first three years we tried to go out and celebrate? Each time, the engine in our current car blew. That happened the evening we married, too. So we decided maybe ignoring our anniversary would be best. We also tend to forget about it. Oddly enough, even with the chemo brain, this time I remembered. Today is our 39th year legal; it’s 41 years we’ve been together. Rick will be home late this evening, and we’ll do what we normally do, and ignore the anniversary business.
All these years, they’ve gone so fast. Decades ago, we sat and talked, and you pondered whether or not we’d be together when you were 64. (Yeah, that song was playing.) Well, now you know. I love you with all my heart, more than ever. And here’s hoping the car doesn’t die on the way home.
Equipment: Phantom 4 Pro. Aperture: 3.2. Shutter Speed: 1/320s. Focal Length: 8.8
Comet Into Darkness by Drone Hikers. 2017-12-27 SKYPIXEL PHOTO CONTEST-Professional-Landscape.
One of my favourite shots. An early morning in Newfoundland, I was hiking on the East Coast Trail when I heard a bunch of seagulls. I quickly launched my drone to find-out what was causing the mayhem. It was a small cod fishing boat steaming towards the harbour, a truly magical moment.
Equipment: Mavic Pro. Aperture: 2.2. Shutter Speed: 1/200s. Focal Length: 4.7. Waterfall Hero by 夜雾深沉. 他是一位年过六旬的长者，他是吉尼斯瀑布跳水世界纪录保持者，在中国著名的黄河壶口、黑龙江吊水楼大瀑布他惊鸿一跃，令世人为之赞叹。在空中，他舒展矫健的身姿与神奇壮美的大自然融为了一体，“御”见英雄，定格那震撼人心的一瞬，将这飞跃化为了永恒…… He is over sixty, he is the world record holder for the Guinness waterfall diving. In China’s famous spout of the Yellow River and the great falls of the water tower in Heilongjiang province, he surprised the world with his leap. In the air, his action stretches the beautiful. Freeze the moment of the shock, take this leap into eternity.
Just a couple here, all the photos are utterly stunning, take some time out to look at all the Skypixel winners, you won’t be disappointed! Lots of inspiration, too.
Javier Limón y Concha Buika en Buenafuente. What a voice!
Click for full size.
© C. Ford.