The Picasso of Pumpkin Carving

The (fleeting) art of pumpkin carving has certainly grown in popularity in recent years, partly due to increased exposure on social media, plus the rise of competitive television programs like Food Network’s Halloween Wars. Once called “the Picasso of Pumpkin Carving”, Arizona-based artist Ray Villafane finds himself in peak pumpkin season on this October 31,…

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Meticulous Movie Director Portraits

Movie buffs rejoice! While we certainly love movies, we are more excited about this incredible series of posters from a design and conceptual perspective. German multidisciplinary design studio Stellavie, in collaboration with illustrator/artist Julian Rentzsch, hit the mark with this superb series of prints paying homage to some of the foremost movie directors in history.…

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Incredibly Lifelike Wood Sculptures by Peter Demetz

Wood probably would not be a sculptor’s first choice to replicate ripples in clothing, flowing strands of hair, or someone emerging from water in a bikini after a swim. But Italian artist Peter Demetz sees no limits in his material of choice, which is what makes his work so remarkable. The incredibly lifelike details are…

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Patience & Discipline

It is said that patience is a virtue. And French artists/designers Xavier Casalta and Rémy Boiré are just oozing with it. Casalta’s specialty is pointillism, a technique in which small, distinct dots are applied in patterns to form an image. Boiré is a masterful hand-letterer, whose line work is impeccable. Together they created this phenomenal…

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The Medium is the Message

We really like the commitment of promising young UK designer Thomas Wightman. Showcased here are two school projects by the recent grad. That’s right, school projects. Wightman aimed high with these tremendously conceptual sculptures, and executed them with perfection. The intricate details are truly astounding. The objective of the assignments (aptly titled The Medium is…

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Good Things Come in Small Packages

Cape Town artist, and self-described miniaturist, Lorraine Loots is big on talent. Back in January 2013 Loots began painting a miniature piece each day, aptly naming the project 365 Paintings for Ants. And when we say miniature, we mean minuscule… some are barely as large as one’s thumbnail. Her love for detail, however, is not…

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Pencil Drawings… For Real!

In this age of computer-aided design and art, we have a certain appreciation for good old pencil to paper. And if some of our past posts are any indication (here and here and here), we are really taken with what is often referred to as “hyperrealism”. So when we stumbled across the work of self-taught…

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American Iconomics

The faces on U.S. bank notes are so ubiquitous that we barely notice them anymore. But San Francisco-based artist James Charles is intimately familiar with the intricacies of U.S. currency portraits. Charles is a mixed media artist with an array of talents, one of which is illustrative portraiture. By sort of a happy accident —…

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Passion for Paper

The art of quilling, a technique that involves rolling, shaping and gluing strips of paper to form decorative designs, has been around for literally hundreds of years. Russian-born, UK-based designer and artist Yulia Brodskaya has a masterful handle on the time-honored art form, and brings it into the twenty first century through use in advertising,…

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