Shane McAdams - Ball point pen paintings

Brooklyn-based artist Shane McAdams uses ink extracted from ballpoint pens to create paintings. His images on paper are created by extracting ink from pen barrels, heating the liquid, mixing it with solvents and then applying to paper, allowing gravity, wind and other physical forces to dictate the movement of the ink.

 

 

Yeondoo Jung - Wonderland

The other day we received a mailing from a paper supplier at the office. It showed Wonderland project by Korean artist Yeondoo Jung. I was very taken by the idea to use the framework of children’s drawings. In this series, the artist takes a literal approach in translating information between actual children’s drawings and staged photographs. Space and distance are distorted as the artist’s photographs offer a mix of reality and fantasy in the interpretation of a child’s view of the world.

The photos are very colourful and vibrant. Such a simple, yet wonderful idea!

Patti Backer - whimsical art

I came across artist and illustrator Patti Backer (Patricia Monkey) on Instagram. I loved her drawings and paintings of the big-eyed creatures. So when she posted a photo of some postcards and asked whether anyone wanted some, I jumped at the chance! I had almost forgotten about it when about a week later my kids picked up an illustrated envelope from the doormat. In it were these wonderful cards!

Thanks ever so much Patti! Hope to see much more of you and your work on Instagram :-)) 

Next to her website, Patti has a blog as well.

 

Clement Valla - Seed drawings

Clement Valla is an artist and programmer interested in processes that produce unfamiliar artifacts and skew reality. Valla works within systems, applying a ‘programmed brain’ that pushes problem-solving logic to irrational ends. His recent work examines copies, repetition and reproduction markets – from Chinese ‘Oil-Painting Factories’ to drawings on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. This work explores the tension between individual creativity and the influence of systems and networks on the individual.

Each Seed Drawing is an aggregate of many smaller drawings, all produced as copies of one another.

Over a 3 month period, thousands of individuals were solicited to copy small simple line drawings, through an online labor marketplace called Amazon Mechanical Turk. As each copy was completed, it in turn was replicated by other Mechanical Turk workers. Each drawing is produced by a single individual with no knowledge of the overall forms and structure within the larger drawing.
The iterative process of copying produces growth-like structures in which different patterns of influence and large-scale structures emerge. These larger drawing characteristics are purely the result of local interactions; beyond the writing of the algorithm, no single individual is making larger decisions for the group.