Lithuanian photographer and artist Tadao Cern has been working on a series of hilarious portraits entitled, ahem, Blow Job, that depicts individuals enduring gale-force winds directly to the face. Say goodbye to the next 15 minutes, he’s taken 100 portraits so far. And if you liked these, here’s a similar series by Jonathan Robert Willis from last year. (via behance)

Trees made of books by Frederico Uribe (via the curiosity workshop)

Stacked firewood sculpture by Alastair Heseltine (via cmybacon)

The Voice of Winds (2012). Suspended tree branches of hollow earthenware by Kazunori Matsumura. (via surface)

Wheel tree photographed by Robert Holmgren

I have an enormous folder of saved links, things I’m on the edge about posting, or just want to save for later reference. From time to time patterns start to emerge and it just make sense to post everything at once, as has happened with books, waves, and people as pixels. Lately the theme has been trees, and these are my favorite tree-related endeavors I’ve encountered the last few weeks.

Argentinean sculptor Adrián Villar Rojas creates enormous sculptural works that seem like remnants of a science fiction movie set, or bizarre moments from a surreal dream. One of my favorite pieces is My Family Dead (2009), in which he created a life-size blue whale in the woods outside Ushuaia, Argentina. The beached cetacean is pockmarked with tree stumps, making me wonder if it’s being slowly claimed by the forest or perhaps it’s a native resident. Beautiful. (via devid sketchbook)

UPrinting offers a wide variety of products from business cards and brochures to envelopes, greeting cards, posters, canvas prints and more.

Make sure to check out their high quality eco-friendly prints that use recycled paper and vegetable/soy-based inks with lower levels of VOCs than traditional petroleum-based inks to reduce harmful carbon emissions.

Type City is a recent artwork by artist Hong Seon Jang that uses pieces of movable type from a printing press to create an elaborate cityscape. It’s fascinating to watch as the need for printed books and typography wanes, the unused objects themselves are more frequently used as an actual medium. Jang also completed a much larger Type City in 2009. Also, if you liked this, make sure you watch the creation of Ephemicropolis by Peter Root, a city built from 100,000 staples. Images courtesy Hong Seon Jang and David B. Smith Gallery. (via quipsologies)

As part of the recent Tokyo Hotaru Festival, 100,000 illuminated blue LEDs were released in the Sumida River. The massive installation of solar-powered spheres was meant to mimic a swarm of fireflies that twisted and bobbed along the river by moonlight. For those of you worried about pollution or safety, the lights were later caught downstream by giant nets. See much more over at Spoon & Tamago. (photos by jeremy v, makure, and ajpscs)

Designer Garth Britzman of Lincoln, Nebraska used recycled bottles filled with colored water to create stunning topographical shade canopy for a vehicle. I love how the natural shape of the plastic bottles makes the pooled water look like leaves. See more over on Behance. (via my amp goes to 11)

I just stumbled onto this expertly crafted series of birds found in Britain by Thomas Poulsom. His use of color and perfect selection of bricks really bring these animals to life. You can see the entire series of six birds here, and apparently there are many more to come. (via lustik)

Update: Thomas mentions that if enough people vote for his designs, they might become actual sets.

I’m heading out for a week or so on vacation and may or may not have access to the internets where I’m going. I actually intend on posting daily but anything could happen once I’m kicking back on a beach for the first time in a couple years. So, in case I become incapacitated with relaxation, I’ll leave you with some of my favorite art, design and culture blogs as of late. You’ll find tons of inspiration on these sites if posting here slows down a bit.

And don’t forget, it’s always fun to look at 100 random posts. Photo above by Kevin Meredith.

If you have 10 minutes to spare I strongly urge you to watch The Eagleman Stag, a lovely stop-motion short film by UK animator Mikey Please that won the 2011 BAFTA for best short animation. From Jason Sondhi’s review on Short of the Week:

Animated through stop-motion, the film incorporates thousands of hand-created models across 115 sets to tell the story of Peter Eagleman. From a young age, Peter possessed a peculiar awareness of time. Obsessed with the concept that any unit of time represents a differing fraction of one’s life depending on age, he becomes preoccupied with this “speeding up” of time as he grows older, and longs to reverse the process. In the meantime Peter grows, lives, ages. He becomes a celebrated entomologist, and through his work he stunningly stumbles upon a possible solution to his lifetime’s angst.

The foam used to create the models has such strange properties it’s difficult to believe these scenes aren’t digitally rendered. You can see a few making-of shots here. (thnx, jason!)