I love these works by the South African artist Lorraine Loots. She started out back in 2013 doing a painting a day for a whole year which became the 365 Paintings for Ants project. Her miniature a day challenge was a success and she has continued the practice each year since. In 2014 she produced the 365 Postcards for Ants series where she explored her home city of Cape Town each day. Lovers of her work can bid on the original miniature painting or a very limited edition print of each piece is also sold.

In 2015 the artist is doing 100 miniatures with 10 prints of each work to be produced. She’s working on themed days like Microcosm Mondays, Tiny Tuesdays, Fursdays and Free Fridays. Potluck 100 is the name of the newest project. I couldn’t find an unsold work anywhere on her page so I’m guessing there’s a whole lot of people out there liking her work just as much as me.

Lorraine Loots – Giraffe | Giraffa camelopardalis giraffa. 15 x 23 mm (2015)

Lorraine Loots – “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess. 18 x 26 mm (2015)

Lorraine Loots – Bill Murray as Steve Zissou in Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic”. 29 x 20 mm (2015)

Lorraine Loots – Chacma Baboon | Papio Ursinus | Cape Baboons. From the Old World monkey family (and one of the largest of all monkeys). 26 x 24 mm (2014)

Lorraine Loots – “Dobby is free.” – JK Rowling. 25 x 25 mm (2013)

See more of her wonderful little miniatures at her website here, her Facebook page here, or at her Tumblr page here.

Tired of looking like all the other sheep in boring old textile clothes? You might be interested in wearable wooden sculpture! American artist Tracy Featherstone’s wooden creations may not win any awards for comfort, in fact some are more like walking prisons than clothes, but you’ll definitely be noticed walking down the street in them. They’re the craziest, coolest things I have seen in a long while, I love them!

Wood is such a neglected material in the fashion industry.

Tracy Featherstone – “Wearable Structure: Nodules”, wood, elastic, @ 6”x6”x4” each, 2010

Tracy Featherstone – “Wearable Structure: Yellow Pod”, wood and fabric, 4’x6’x4’, 2010

Tracy Featherstone – “Wearable Structure: Side Bump”, wood, 3’x2’x16”, 2010

Tracy Featherstone – “Wearable Structure: Head Organized”, wood and fabric, 2’x3’x16”, 2010

Tracy Featherstone – “Wearable Structure: Tudor Collar”, wood, collage, 32”x26”x32”, 2011

They’re so bizarre it’s hard to categorize them. Is it fashion? Outdoor sculpture? Woodwork gone wrong? Craft? Performance art? Who knows, but they’re interesting and they made me smile which was a welcome relief after spending the evening in the hospital with a family member! See more of the fascinating work of Tracy Featherstone at her website here.

It has been nicknamed the Brown Paper Bag after the governor general Peter Cosgrove called it the most beautiful squashed paper bag he had ever seen at the opening of the building recently. Frank Gehry’s only building to be built in Australia is probably one of his most criticized. I haven’t spoken to anyone who likes the building yet and it really doesn’t do much for me either. As much as I want to like it, I just can’t.

The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building in Sydney was built to house the University of Technology’s new business school department. Eighty-five year old Gehry says that 98% of what gets built today is shit and from what I have heard, 98% of the people who have seen the new Sydney building think it also fits into the shit category. I still haven’t seen it in the flesh yet but from what I have seen I’m no fan of the 180 million dollar building.

Frank Gehry’s reply to the critics of his building is a middle finger.. charming old fella.

Frank Gehry building in Sydney, Australia.

I think this is one of the more flattering views of the building but you won’t see this view unless you’re a drone or you commute regularly by helicopter.

I’m not sold on the Gehry windows. The 320,000 custom designed bricks don’t do much to save the project.

Interior of the Frank Gehry building in Sydney, Australia.

A detail view of the brickwork and windows of the Gehry building.

Elizabeth Farrelly of the Sydney Morning Herald said Frank Gehry was the Kim Kardashian of architecture: all curves and no content. I don’t think the comment works with this particular building though as there’s nothing sexy about it at all.

What do you think of it?

So, the last post I made about Pinterest was Pinterest and I on our honeymoon. Everything was perfect, we never argued and we thought we would live on the beach sipping cocktails for the rest of our lives. Well, a thousand or so pins later and now I see that Pinterest isn’t perfect. She’s still better than any of the social media alternatives and I still love her, but here’s a few things that bother me..

These things relate to Pinterest and Art mostly, so they shouldn’t be an issue if you only use Pinterest to find recipes or share your holiday pictures.

• Mislabeled Pictures – This can include a Matisse being called a Picasso, a student’s copy of a Matisse being labelled as a Matisse, and most annoying of all are those Chinese oil painting reproduction companies posting pictures as the original. I have only come across the latter a few times though, so it’s not a major problem.
• Small Pictures – Why bother pinning something you can barely see? I know I probably should get glasses but seriously, if the picture is not much more than a thumbnail, don’t post it. Same with blurry or pixellated images.
• Photoshopped Images – I know there will always be variations with digital images, just as there always has been with printed images, but some people should just stay away from Photoshop. They’ll pop a Rembrandt in Photoshop, intensify the colors, play around with the brightness and contrast and suddenly the Rembrandt self portrait painting looks like an Andy Warhol print.
• Cropped Pictures – Some are very obvious crops, especially if you know the painting, but many are just random, silly crops which are hard to notice unless you know the image very well. If you’re going to crop a painting, call it a detail! Tell people you have cropped a few trees from the Cezanne or you have turned a Francis Bacon triptych into a single panel work.
• Copyright Blight – I can understand artists having an issue with their work being stolen and used without permission online. They usually put a smallish copyright notice which doesn’t detract too much from their work and I’m fine with that (even though I would prefer they didn’t). But if the copyright notice is repeated several times and detracts from the image, just don’t post it online. Same with famous paintings, you probably don’t own the copyright for the work and stop posting your website url all over them.

It would also be nice to have paintings labelled with artist, title and year, but that would probably be asking too much. I’m not even going to suggest adding size, medium, and location to works

I shouldn’t complain too much though as I have really enjoyed using Pinterest this past few weeks. I have discovered so many new works by famous artists and so many new artists that I have never heard of before. Most pictures shared (pinned) are big, clear, and the artist is correctly noted.. and that’s all that really matters to me.

See my Pinterest account here.

I haven’t been posting much on Art News Blog lately as I was lost in a cave, but I’m out now and the art sun is shining, so I’m sure I’ll be out there looking for all sorts of arty things to talk about and share in the coming weeks. Something that I have discovered and fallen in love with just recently is Pinterest!! I have had an account for ages now but it just never clicked with me, I didn’t know what to do with it. It is THE social media platform for artists.

Firstly, go follow me here if you already have a Pinterest account and I’ll follow you back if you’re mostly pinning art, design, or food related pictures. I have started creating ‘boards’ of artists that I like and a few other things like ceramics and chairs, but I plan to add a whole lot more. It’s basically a wall of inspiration for me.

I can’t believe there aren’t more artists on it. Every artist and their dog or cat is on Facebook but they’re not necessarily on Pinterest. Yet I think Pinterest is a thousand times better than Facebook for art. Facebook is still good for drama and bad politics, but if you just want art and visual goodness then you need to be using Pinterest.

Here’s a few images that I have pinned so far.. (I only add pictures that I love, rather than just adding as many pins as I can find for each artist)

Rosalie Gascoigne. She’s an Australian artist for those that haven’t heard of her. Awesome stuff. See more of her work on my Rosalie Gascoigne Board here.

Lepanto by Cy Twombly. There’s lots more painterly goodness on my Cy Twombly Board here.

As some of you may know, I have a thing for chairs and seating. I have started gathering all sorts of chairy things on my Chair Board here.

I don’t like a lot of Christopher Wool’s work, but that doesn’t stop me from sharing the work that I really do like. So you won’t see any of his crappy text works on my Christopher Wool Board here.

Andrew Wyeth – Looking Out, Looking In. I do like more than just expressionist art Here’s my Andrew Wyeth Board here.

One of my favorite artists. Here’s my Jean Dubuffet Board.

I also have a love of ceramics. These beautiful plates are by Lari Washburn. Check out more fired and glazed beauties on my Ceramics and Pottery Board here.

Anyway, remember to follow me and I’ll do likewise if you pin arty stuff. I also have a foodie account here if you’re into recipes and making art in the kitchen! Pinterest is even more awesome for finding recipes than it is for art. I started a food blog too but I seem to neglect that as much as my art blog

I’m just going to pretend that I haven’t stopped posting for a couple of months and continue on like all is normal. Actually it probably is normal for me to disappear for a couple of months Anyway, I was recently on holidays for a week on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia and saw the DC artist Matt Sesow showing at the 19 Karen gallery at Mermaid Beach! His wife Dana Ellyn and the Italian artist Agostino Iacurci were also showing work.

I was there to see Matt’s work though as I have bought a couple over the years and have really enjoyed living with them. He had about 12 paintings there with many of his trademark characters making an appearance: the fish, the cat, the birds, the flag, the bunny, and all the symbols he uses in his works. There was a North American birds painting there but I like the version I bought a few years ago much more

Here’s the 2014 North American Birds painting by Matt Sesow at the 19 Karen exhibition (it has been sold).

And here’s the 2009 American Birds painting by Matt Sesow that I own. How much better is the version I own??!

Another view of the exhibition. I can’t say I’m a fan of Matt’s patriotic works, but that’s mostly because I’m so anti-system and dislike all forms of manipulation by the psychopaths who rule over us. I do love his crazy cats though!!

A fish, a cat and Miss America.

The work by the other two artists were good too, but like I said, I was there to see Matt Sesow’s work as it was quite a happy coincidence that he would be showing in Australia at a time when I just happened to find myself in the same part of the country. You don’t usually think of art when someone mentions the Gold Coast in Queensland. You think of sun, sand and party people, not art and culture.

All American Boy by Matt Sesow, All American Girl by Dana Ellyn, and Match Mismatch by Agostino Iacurci are showing at the 19 Karen gallery on the Gold Coast in Queensland until the 20th of December. More details can be found at the gallery website here. Find more of Matt Sesow’s work on his website here.

Danila Tkachenko’s ‘Restricted Areas’ project is a look at once important areas in Russia which are now deserted. Abandoned government projects, hidden cities, forgotten science, and empty buildings that were a part of a technological push forward. The cold Russian winter and the lens of Tkachenko have teamed up to remember these areas and make them beautiful. White is my favorite color

The Restricted Areas project by Danila Tkachenko is an ongoing work..

Danila Tkachenko – Restricted Areas

Danila Tkachenko – Restricted Areas

Danila Tkachenko – Restricted Areas

Danila Tkachenko – Restricted Areas

Danila Tkachenko – Restricted Areas

You can see more works by the artist at his website here. Another interesting project that he has worked on documents hermits and those who have abandoned society to live how they choose to, in the forests of Russia.

Everywhere I look lately I seem to come across amazing landscape paintings. The landscapes I love the most are those that can’t be mistaken for anything other than a painting. If it looks like a photograph of a landscape it’s probably better off being a photograph. John David Wissler’s landscape paintings are wonderful little painterly gems. They’re the sort of work I want to have around me at the moment as I need as much calm and beauty as I can find. I can’t afford to buy a Wissler landscape but I have one as my computer desktop at the moment

Here’s a few paintings from John David Wissler’s exhibition at Lancaster Galleries..

John David Wissler – Opening (Tuscany) oil on paper 7 x 8 inches

John David Wissler – Shifting oil on paper 5.75 x 10 inches

John David Wissler – Mid Morning oil on paper 5.75 x 10 inches

John David Wissler – Procession oil on paper 7 x 11 inches

John David Wissler – Resistance oil on paper 7 x 10 inches

Italy by John David Wissler is showing at the Lancaster Galleries in Lancaster, Pennsylvania through to the 27th of September. See more landscape paintings or find exhibition details at the gallery website here. The artist is also on facebook here.

I have been browsing the web for quadcopters and the aerial photography that can be taken with them and came across the story of Trey Ratcliff in Beijing. He was using his ‘New DJI Phantom 2 with Zenmuse H3-3d 3-axis Gimbal and Gopro Hero 3+ Black Edition‘ quadcopter to photograph the Forbidden City in China and was detained by Chinese authorities. They released him and confiscated his equipment but luckily for us he had already been filming Beijing for 5 days. Here’s some of what the photographer captured..

I think the Chinese authorities should have confiscated his photographs and used them for their tourism shots. Your freedom for your photographs

This is a great photograph. It’s of the Northeast Tower in Beijing, China.

Another great aerial photograph of China from a quadcopter.

Chinese traffic and CBD park from above by Trey Ratcliff.

The photographer put together this video below of his work done in Beijing. You’ll see his quadcopter in a few of the shots.. I really really want one! I’ll remember not to take it with me to China if I ever go though!

Read the whole Beijing adventure and see more photographs of China by Trey Ratcliff at his Stuck in Customs website here. He takes some amazing photographs of the world!

I’m not sure if this post is going anywhere, but I was just thinking about how many extra layers of skin I have had to grow over the years to be able to deal with life. As an artist you have to be able to deal with criticism or you should never let anyone see your work, ever. As a business owner you have to be able to deal with rude customers. As a blogger publishing opinions online you have to deal with those who don’t like your opinions. As a person you have to deal with LIFE.

Life is hard if you live it with thin skin. It throws everything at you and expects you to deal with it while smiling. I used to play along and smile while the monkeys threw shit at me but you tire of it after a while. I grew a few layers of skin each year and now at 37 or 38 or whatever age it is that I am now, I can confidently tell monkeys to keep their shit to themselves. I could have become too hardened and started throwing shit back at the monkeys but then I would be no better than the behavior I’m criticizing.

That’s about all I have to say for now, but here’s a picture of a turtle.. just because