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I’ve only recently begun to learn about cyan­otype, which is pho­to­graphic print­ing process that cre­ates a cyan-blue print. Pho­to­sen­si­tive solu­tion is applied to a sur­face (such as paper or fab­ric), and left to dry in a dark place. Based on the inten­sity of the ingre­di­ents in a solu­tion, dif­fer­ent tones of blues can be acheived. Casey Robert’s work exper­i­ments with this process, using it as an con­cep­tual ele­ment of her work. He writes:

My work illus­trates a fan­tas­tic land­scape. It rep­re­sents nature’s sub­tle way of deal­ing with the pecu­liar aspects in the rela­tion­ship with mankind. A giant glow-in-the-dark heart, or a pile of pre­cious gems tells us that we are loved, just as blood squirt­ing from an oak tree trunk says, all is not well. I am inspired by my con­ver­sa­tion with the land­scape, I imag­ine long mono­logues when pine forests make me laugh and moun­tains test my patience.

All images via his website.

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Laura Gee intro­duced her­self to me, and upon vis­it­ing her web­site I found an illus­tra­tor who not only illus­trates, but cre­ates instal­la­tions and curates as well.

Laura’s own work uti­lizes sim­ple, bold images and sup­port­ing text that’s often short and sweet. I espe­cially liked this one:

Paper is also some­thing that Laura explores in the three-dimensional sense, cre­at­ing popup let­ters and hand cut and assem­bled. She curated an exhi­bi­tion, Toy Shop where she made minia­ture houses to pro­mote the show.

All images via her web­site.

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It has been a while since I have talked about the work of Ky Ander­son, but I love it all the same. I enjoy Ky’s use of color, and despite their more muted char­ac­ter­is­tics, they are not mud­dled. And, if they are mud­dled, Ky explains in her state­ment that they are that way by their very nature:

If you stop what you are doing and look as far away as you can, even if it is just in the other room, or if you are lucky enough to be out­side, look as far away as you can. There are so many things/stuff/objects in your way of see­ing far into the dis­tance. Those dis­trac­tions, objects, pat­terns and the small­est open­ing that lets you see even fur­ther are what my paint­ings are about. They are about the things in the way of see­ing as far as you can. Some­times these objects in my paint­ings are from mem­o­ries, mem­o­ries of the color of a room or shape of a hill. The com­bi­na­tion of the strug­gle to see in the dis­tance and flashes of mem­o­ries make up the sto­ries within my paint­ings. Out of these thoughts comes work that looks almost abstract, but in my eyes the com­bi­na­tion of shapes and col­ors have stories.

All images via her web­site. Ky also has a blog detail­ing her art col­lec­tion, which I really enjoyed view­ing as well.

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Anna Hig­gie is another artist today whose work focuses on the por­trait. Stark con­trast, frac­tured space, and metic­u­lous mark-making are a few ele­ments present in her work.

Anna has worked for a num­ber of dif­fer­ent clients, includ­ing Nordstrom’s, Bloom­ing­dales, and other fashion-based enter­prises. Her illus­tra­tions def­i­nitely illus­trate the essence of a lifestyle, with good look­ing peo­ple and inter­est­ing patterns.

All images via her web­site.

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These draw­ings by Liisa Kru­us­mägi are mixed media pieces that I really enjoy. There is a heavy empha­sis on the face, with other lines sim­ply indi­cat­ing the body and cloth­ing. It cre­ates a nice push and pull of com­po­si­tions. I think treat­ing the whole piece with the same atten­tion to detail would be overkill for the eye.

I per­son­ally love the stark, heavy line alone on paper. I am reminded of the work of Egon Schiele.

All images via her web­site.

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I really love Jay Cover’s work. Bold, graphic, and shape dri­ven, his work tran­si­tions to dif­fer­ent media and dimen­sions flaw­lessly. His work is so flat and very styl­ized, and that is what I love most. Just look at his ani­mals– their snouts exist on an entirely dif­fer­ent plane than their eyes. Some­thing that could never make sense in real life, but is just one of the many beau­ties of art — inter­pret­ing the world in your own way.

All images via his Flickr. Check out his web­site.

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I am sorry for the delayed post today! My brain is cur­rently work­ing at half capac­ity, as I am suf­fer­ing from a nasty sinus infec­tion. Have you ever popped your ear and it’s made your jaw ache? I have, last night. Not fun.

Enough with my whin­ing. Onward! Amanda Gehin describes her­self a fan­tasy archi­tec­ture engi­neer work­ing in goauche. Amanda’s use of color and media, in addi­tion to her back­ground, give these pieces a unique feel. They have, simul­ta­ne­ously, a feel­ing of a patch­work quilt and a 8-bit video game.

I really enjoy how Amanda has designed these pieces.The bricks, stair pat­terns, and rugs give these paint­ings a Tetris-like move­ment to me.

All images via Flickr.

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Vanesa Zen­de­jas is an artist liv­ing and work­ing in Chicago. She works on paper and with objects to cre­ate sculp­tures, and has an upcom­ing show with Katy Keefe (who I have writ­ten about pre­vi­ously). The show is titled Liv­ing With Them, and is Roots & Cul­ture Con­tem­po­rary Art Cen­ter from April 1st through April 29th. The idea behind her work is look­ing at how the past still res­onates with mod­ern culture:

Look­ing to the objects that sur­round us, the work of Vanesa Zen­de­jas deals with the recon­structed mod­ernism we live with and that which is present in our com­mon knowl­edge of art his­tory. Sculp­tures and works on paper res­onate between clas­si­cal abstract forms and famil­iar fur­ni­ture, arrange­ments and tex­tures. The work also looks to the more obscure Amer­i­can geo­met­ric abstrac­tion­ists and their direct influ­ences, always keep­ing in mind our mod­ernist lin­eage and how that effects us.

All images via her web­site.

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I used to have hair that was pretty long. You could do all the fun things with it, like braid it, putting a bun on the top of your head, brush it a sat­is­fy­ing 100 strokes…but then I decided to chop eight inches (maybe more!) off. While I don’t often regret my deci­sion, it’s look­ing at work like Stella Lee’s that makes me miss hav­ing longer locks.

The graphite against the soft tone of the paper is entranc­ing and sooth­ing. Stella’s draw­ing style has a gen­tle motion to it, and does a won­der­ful job of ren­der­ing hair. Hair can be drawn many dif­fer­ent ways, but often times it can be hard to get the shad­ing just right to make it seem that it is simul­ta­ne­ously one body but many indi­vid­ual strands as well.

All images via her web­site.

Also, I love the die cut that Stella has done to her sketch­book! Leaves me wish­ing I was a bit more thought­ful with mine.

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I know that these murals are noth­ing new (but new to me!!), but I recently came across the work of Andreas Rag­nar Kas­apis. His paint­ings, which are painted on both wood and on walls, are beau­ti­fully ren­dered. Color is grad­u­ally lay­ered, as is mark mak­ing, and Andreas is not shy to show us how an indi­vid­ual piece pro­gresses. I love the tra­di­tional, painterly approach, and its pair­ing with an art form that has really only taken off quite recently in comparison.

All images via Flickr. Check out Andreas’s web­site too.

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