Tag: art

Streetart of Oslo
It is really hard to walk slowly in your own city. I happily snail around any other city, taking days going 6 blocks. But in my own town it is really hard to slow down. But you have to, if you're going to catch the textures.Streetart in Oslo. There are great variety, artistic skills, and ...

Textures of London
Last year, i actually got my arse in gear, and went to London. Good thing, that, considering the pandemic of 2020 ...

Inside my brain: lasers and gold
This was going to be a triumphant article about a stellar idea, a struggle of problem solving, learning curves, dangerous lasers, and the final, exuberant splendid result in all its plasticky-golden glory. Yeah, well… The idea! …so the idea: to laser engrave a bunch of slices of my brain in transparent acrylic, stack them… it ...

Beautiful plywood
laser engraving 3D I have mentioned elsewhere, I love laser cutters. I got to try one at uni, and to do some pretty cool things. And wanted to make more. I could have made files and ordered the pieces from professional companies, but the laser is a tool and unlike any other, and to get ...

Beautiful chemicals
I am scanning my father’s positive slides and negatives, a Himalayan task. He took a good deal of photographs, starting in the 50ties. I am guessing about 3-4000 35mm negatives, colour and black and white. 12 boxes of slides, and an unknown amount of 9x6 I have not even dug out yet. It is of ...

Hexagon Project: doodling for two hundred frames
In the chaos that is self-employed life, it's hard to find the time to do personal projects. Personal work is a great way to explore styles and hone your skills. Especially as a graphic designer, I think personal work is muy importante. But when do I do it? After about a year of not doing ...

The continuum of science, art and design
Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer; art is everything else. – Donald E. Knuth [two_third last="no"] The definition of categories of design, science and art are not clear-cut. Neither one have a universally-agreed on definition, and professor Martin Kemp at University of Oxford argues that though these categories are ...

Kjell Aukrust: rural Norway in a nutshell
Kjell Aukrust was a legendary artist, humourist and illustrator. He is most famous for his wacky stories from a particular part of rural Norway, full of bizarre and hilarious people, inventions and creatures. They make little sense to people from other countries, the Danes certainly do not get it at all. I grew up with ...

The art, design and architecture of birds
What is architecture? What is design? What is art? Conscious choices. Some kind of cognitive processes that says "naaah. that doesn't work" or "fabfunfantastic!" That is what bowerbirds do. I came across them for the first time as a child. A newspaper we subscribed to used to run a small "interesting-facts from the natural-world" section in a hidden ...

Stealing posters
They say in art the greatest compliment is to be copied, and the greatest compliment for poster design is when your poster gets stolen. It seems that print posters are dying. Now we have digital screens that cycle – for the most part – commercials. Should we care? Are posters merely something arty people and ...

Elin’s bubbles
My friend Elin is turning out to be quite the photographer. To my delight, her work is turning increasingly abstract, and her latest batch is of frozen bubbles. What fascinates me is the sense of spindrift in the crystalline structures. And the ephemeral nature of it; of ice, water, air. Delicately frozen in time, frozen in ...

Hexagon Project – Serial Doodles
Doodling is a great habit to generate new ideas through keeping active. Sketches, drawings and experiments without any objective allow the mind to roam free and prompt new ideas. That's how inspiration is born. Sometimes it's hard to make time for doodling in between all the serious work for customers. That's why I created my ...

The network
The network. The most common question I get when people see my drawings are "how long did that take you?!" The next question is "what is it?" Neither question being relevant or interesting. It seems a piece of work is weighted and valued by time and meaning must be figurative. I find this very odd, this need for everything to ...

The New Tangram Book
Puzzles have always fascinated me. Language puzzles, escape rooms, logic problems. When I code, I tend to see the coding problem as a puzzle that I need to solve. Especially CSS feels like that lots of the time. Recently, I dove into my parent's bookcase and fished up this old jewel: This 70s book is ...

Sensory homonculus
Sensory homonculus: of all nonsensical stuff I have made, this sensory homonculus is up there. Stoneware clay, watercolour, acrylic paint. Sensory homonculus Sensory homonculus Sensory homonculus Sensory homonculus Sensory homonculus Sensory homonculus Sensory homonculus Sensory homonculus ...

A-maze
Listening to the QI No such thing as a fish podcast, I was alerted to the story of a Japanese girl, while clearing her caretaker-fathers stuff, found this amazing work. Apparently, he spent seven years doing this. I doff my hat. You can buy a print - more on this story here ...

You know you want one: science nerd merit badges
Out of the generosity of the Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique I have been allowed to recreate their science nerd merit badges. You can find the indexed list here, or you can go directly to my Cafépress profile. No, this will not in any way make me rich and/or famous, ...

Illuminating letter D
As mentioned in a previous post, I have dragged out some old tools and materials and started gilding again. In gilders cushion my previous life as a bookbinder, I bought a very old gilder's cushion that actually sits on top of a drawer. I have not seen this anywhere else; it seems a well spent ...

Words of gold
This stack-exchange question inspired me to dig out old skills and tools. Untouched for years, I got out my bookbinders gilding cushion and related paraphernalia. Getting back into the fiddlyness of handling gold leaf, I have squandered a few sheets. But it is fun. One thing: you cannot be impatient handling it, breathing is forbidden, ...

Shel Silverstein – anything can be
“Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” I only discovered Shel Silverstein a few years ago... I can only blame it on not having grown up in an ...

There is grandeur in this view of life – visualising Darwin
If I were to give an award for the single best idea anyone has ever had, I had to have to give it to Darwin, ahead of Newton and Einstein and everyone else. It is not just a wonderful scientific idea; it is a dangerous idea. it overthrows, or at least unsettles, some of the ...

Voynich manuscript – secret knowledge or brilliant hoax?
Since we are on a roll with old books and manuscripts, I give you the 240-page Voynich manuscript. It is an unsolved enigma: a manuscript found in Italy; the paper has been dated to between 1404-1438. It contains text in an unknown script, unknown language, and illustrations of non-existing plants, constellations and humans apparently doing ...

Sofie’s book – bookbinding in the digital world
Back in the mist of time, I did my apprenticeship in hand bookbinding. There are basically two directions; two different apprenticeships: literature binder, or ledger binder. I am a literature binder (also called publishing or library binding). But back then it was considered essential to have a broad understanding. So part of the apprenticeship was ...

Skulls and bones
I have a thing about drawing skulls and bones. Not of any morbid fascination (I think), but because they can really be a challenge. The texture and colour of bones are interesting, and the ultimate challenge is to draw a skull first with graphite on white paper, then with white pencil on black paper. This ...

Beatriz Aurora: The art of the resistance
Beatriz Aurora calls her drawings "painted stories", and her subjects definitely have a lot to tell. The Chilean artist had to exile to Spain during the 70s. She knew she couldn't go back to Chile, but there were other places in Latin America that could use her art, so from Spain she travelled to Nicaragua, then to El Salvador and finally ...

Doodly deck of cards
Doodly deck of cards: Being a big fan of doodles, I got the idea some time back of making a deck of cards. The idea came when I found a few places that will print your custom deck of cards; and what is cool is that you could use it for business cards and such, ...

The colour orange – “bitwixe yelow and reed”
Orange is a tricky colour: when pale, it can be seen as yellow, when dark, it is seen as brown. Bizarrely, orange did not get its English name until 1512. It was named after the fruit, though you could have thought it would have been the other way around. Even in the middle ages, English ...

Watercolours I
I bought a watercolour set to replace my measly pocket one. This one, in contrast, has 45 colours, as opposed to 12. I was never a painter, but playing is good. I have tried some "realistic" stuff that turned out far from just that. Nevermind; doodles are good too. There seems to be no doubt ...

Creativity, according to the creative
Creativity, according to the creative - what they say is the essence of creativity..: Any mental occurrence simultaneously associated with two habitually incompatible contexts. Arthur Koestler That moment of insight becomes the creative act as a joining of two previously incompatible ideas. Lyall Watson The association of two, or more, apparently alien elements on a plane ...

W. B. Gould: artist and convict
William Buelow Gould (1801 – 1853) was an English artist convicted for stealing a coat and was sentenced to seven years of labour in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). He constantly got into trouble, also in the penal colonies, and was regularly punished for offences such as drunkenness, petty theft and forgery. His talent, however, got ...

WPA posters – art in the depression
During an extended period of the depression in USA (between 1935-1942), the US federal government supported artists by commissioning artwork for non-federal places and activities. Early on in the project, posters were painted by hand, each individually created. Later on, they were printed with silk screen. According to the US library of congress, "over two ...

Early utopian imagery, memories of no places
Yisela Utopias. The no-places. I’ve always been attracted by them. The first utopia ever written could have been Plato’s Republic. Or the Genesis. However, the first one I discovered was Thomas More’s Utopia. I still can’t believe it was written 498 years ago, in 1516. Utopia is a strange book. Most scholars agree it’s a satire, a criticism ...

Fritz Kahn: the human as industrial palace
(I was horrified to discover that Wikipedia does not have an entry on Fritz Kahn in English. I was utterly unaware of how deep into obscurity this multitalented man had fallen. Update: my pigheaded ability to pester strangers have resulted in an solid entry on Kahn on Wikipedia. Many thanks to Yngvadottir ). man as ...

Hackers and painters
Paul Graham has a background in computer science and art. He wrote on the connection between the two in the essay Hackers and painters. It begins: When I finished grad school in computer science I went to art school to study painting. A lot of people seemed surprised that someone interested in computers would also be ...

Doodles, creativity, alphabets and cognitive noise
‘…qualities like quiveriness and vulnerability come to mind when I think of creativity… creativity requires a sense of smell, a palate to taste the scents that make brilliance. All life feeds upon the random. Creativity is the haute cuisine.’ -Douglas Hofstadter ...

3D printing: liver and silver
I am guessing we have all heard of the exciting new technology and research were it is possible to print organs. To me this is mind-blowing on so many levels: ponder the implications. We could print entire organ systems, repair damage, replace tissue, digitally mould external and internal organs. Just thinking about what this could ...

Icy words
Icy words: I present the beautiful icy typography of Nicole Dextras. I doff my hat to you, Nicole, for a wonderful idea, and for the willingness to work in the cold. global desire flux national consume global resource war ego negotiated space local reason silence view human intimacy ...

Human skull
You can actually buy some stuff with my drawings on them. Here, some examples of the human skull drawing. Head over to my CafePress home and have a look around (considering posters. Maybe later.). glass framed tile woven pillow card pendant t-shirt magnets sigg bottle coffee mug ...

Ernst Haeckel: art and science through the microscope
Ernst Haeckel Ernst Haeckel (1834 – 1919) was what we call a renaissance man. He was a professor, biologist, philosopher, physician, naturalist and artist. His contribution to biology, evolutionary theory and art is still mind-boggling; we owe a great deal of biological understanding and terminology to him. He was a great promoter of Darwin's theory ...

Creativity
…qualities like quiveriness and vulnerability come to mind when I think of creativity… creativity requires a sense of smell, a palate to taste the scents that make brilliance. All life feeds upon the random. Creativity is the haute cuisine. – Douglas Hofstadter ...