india election pics

More amazing pics here

in flight

STeW, originally uploaded by S T e W.

beautiful color scheme and awesome patterned textures in the wings

Wolverine Japanese Style

I love ukiyo-e style art so I thought this rendition of Wolverine was particularly awesome! They're many more interpretations of him in various art styles over on the marvel.com website, they're celebration Wolverine Art Appreciation Month in order to promote the X-Men Origins movie.

WPA Posters

I'm doing some research for work, the project I'm working on is a flash piece which plays a snippet of FDR's speech regarding creating jobs. I was looking for some WPA posters for some art inspiration for the piece and I found these awesome examples on flickr, all uploaded by Banjohead except for the last one uploaded by wnyc. Click to enlarge.





These have such great composition and use of negative space, line and type.

elsita illustrations

I was doing some research for work and came across some of the work of Elsita Mora, her illustrations are so simple, beautiful and whimsical. She has an etsy shop where you can buy these prints along with her amazing paper sculptures and paper cuts. Be sure to also check out her blog.

Houndstooth details by McQ

Omg I need this dress in my life! I love how the houndstooth pattern gradually morphs into the birds. Its so beautiful and a great detail. I thought houndstooth had an overused run last season but apparently not! The amazing details and tailoring that went into these outfits just makes me wish I was a millionaires so I could buy them all!






I can totally see Gwen Stefani wearing these previous two outfits! *want want want*!!!




More F2009RTW over on style.com

Gualicho Street Art

Buenos Aires Mural

Originally uploaded by gualicho!

I love really bizarre and colorful street art, it definitely adds a new energy to urban settings. We have a lot of great murals in Philly but the style in which they're rendered are pretty traditional, I would love to see explosively bright modern murals like these too. Check out more of gualicho's work on his flickr, I love his color palette and imagination.


Universidad Creativa Mural in San Jose, Costa Rica

bombin vancouver

I posted about how lame I thought taggin was the other day, and here is something to illustrate my point! Instead of taggin something illegible why not tag a piece of art, something that makes a statement and contributes to a part of the community instead of just a selfish act of scribbling a fucking name?? D:



Originally uploaded by STeW on flickr.



Originally uploaded by STeW on flickr.



Originally uploaded by STeW on flickr.

Evil Twins Tattoo

Skull and Sakura by Johan of Evil Twins Tattoo

I am loving this style of Black & Grey with a hint of color. This Swedish tattoo shop is filled with some amazing talent, check out their portfolio of work! So beautiful!



I am in awe! *bows down* hahaa.

Deer & Wine

I've started working again and have been too busy to update this blog as frequently as I'd like. I've seen many wonderful and inspiring things and hopefully I get to post them sooner than later. I maintain two blogs and blogging is really like a second job. Between doing the research and finding material to post about, typing up the entry, proofreading it and resizing and retouching the images and what not, a good two or three hours can go by.



Awesome wine labels via all stripes


The color palette on these wine labels have inspired me for a project that I'm working on right now. I'm on a work computer and they haven't upgraded their software and I'm stuck with Illustrator CS2!!! *gasp* It seems almost primitive to be working on it when I've been using CS3 all these months and now there's even CS4!! Anyway I dearly miss the color guide function in CS3 :/



Deer Anatomy Screenprint by Mark Weaver

I saw this on flickr the other night, I love how deers inspire people to make so many weird things lol. I'm tempted to buy the screenprint from etsy but I'm hesitant because I dunno if it would freak me out to have in my tiny studio apartment. The red bg is quite loud, but then I think it would be fun to have something so bizarre in your home.

Spiderling Cloud Letterpress Edition

Spiderling Cloud Letterpress Edition, originally uploaded by cMaille.

I love this limited edition letterpress illustration. It's available for sale on etsy, proceeds go towards a charity that provides books for low income children.

Typography

Engraving by Sam Alfano

I saw an image of Sam Alfano's engraving work over on iLT a few days ago. I absolutely love this style of work, its used a lot in Black & Grey tattoo style. The igraver.com website has some more great examples.
Another great website I found via iLT is Image Spark, its basically an online mood board where users can upload pics that inspire them.

I haven't been keeping up with typography in a while since I was focused more on illustration but I'm doing some contract work involving animated banners whose main feature are words, so typography plays a big part in their design. The typography tag that iLT linked too has some amazing examples for inspiration, check it out.

Coraline

Coraline visual development drawings by Burst of Beaden

via Illustration Friday

Check out the bigger version on the link, they're amazing. I love the color schemes and line art quality. I haven't seen the movie Coraline as yet but I would love to see a movie done in the style of the drawings. Reminds me of some old school Hanna Barbera cartoons for some reason. Also check out Jon Klassen's blog with some more amazing work.

Kat Von D High Voltage Tattoo

High Voltage Tattoo
$19.79 on Amazon


Last week I picked up Kat Von D's first book entitled High Voltage Tattoo, I was pretty excited to flip through it because I've been wanting her to release a compilation of her tattoo work for a long time. I think the skills she has in terms of rendering realistic imagery onto the skin are just mind blowing.

I first became familiar with her work on the TLC show Miami Ink, on that show she was the only female crew member of an all male tattoo shop, although the men on the show had some great skills of their own hers really stood out to me. Before I saw her work I didn't give much thought to the artistry that really goes into tattooing, I didn't know much about it or had any respect for it, but seeing the things she was able to accomplish with a needle, ink and skin, were really amazing to me. It made me look at tattooing on a whole other level and her attention to detail, the intricacy and Baroque inspired artistry that she puts in her work are really inspiring to me.



Memorial tattoo by Kat Von D

Kat Von D now has her own show on TLC, called L.A Ink, for her shop she focused on hiring a mostly female and very talented main crew. The contents of the book range from the biographical to her portfolio of work. I wasn't that interested in the bio stuff as much, but I loved the portfolio section more than anything.
I can't really put into words how beautifully designed this book is, its something that you have to see for yourself. Conceptually its very Gothic and has many little intricate details that totally reflect the artistic and personal style and lifestyle of Ms. Von D herself. It makes for a great coffee table book and an awesome reference piece if you're an illustrator interested in tattoo work, or just someone who is a fan of hers and her work.



She specializes in Black & Grey work, which she thinks allows for more realism. My favorite thing about her work are all the little details she adds like the filigree and her use of shading to add volume and dimension. When I first started illustrating my work was very minimal but that was more because I was lazy and not a chosen aesthetic. Her work inspires me to take more time and really add those details that will make my work look like a completed piece instead of something half way done. You can always tell when you work needs that extra something to make it pop.

I love the fact that drawings she did as a kid are included in the book. I still keep a lot of my early drawings from when I was around 5 or 6, and some of the sketches I did in school while bored lol. Its great to look back on that stuff and see how much you've grown as an artist over the span of your life.



I highly recommend checking out the book if you're a fan of hers or you want to see some great examples of tattoo work if you're interested in getting one done yourself. The book has advice on how to go about selecting your tattoo, finding an artist, what you need to communicate to your artist, what the process will entail and what to do to take care of your tattoos. She also has a section where she busts some tattoo myths. There's a 3 page layout chronicling all the individual tattoos on her body, and at the end of the book the work from some favorite fellow tattoo artists is featured.

Its a great book, filled with rock n roll and some of the best tattoos in the world!

Kat Von D will be doing a book signing at Borders Bookstore on Broad Street in Philadelphia on March 7th! So look out for her in a bookstore near you.

MTV Duelo

MTV_duelo_01, originally uploaded by indio san.

I love everything about this design, its from indio_san over on Flickr. The textures and 3D aspects of it are fabulous and it has a nice use of a sunburst and the way the waves are illustrated are very organic and awesome. Great color scheme too.

Blue & Yellow

Steven Klein photography via Jezebel

Wow the male model's painted mask is one of the more visually arresting images that I've seen in a fashion shoot in a while. Reminds me a lot of The Joker. Also I love the use of color in this his wardrobe and makeup, the combo of yellow and red don't usually lead to such a sinister visual combo but I think the model's facial structure adds a lot too.

More pics and commentary at the source.

Julie Becker in Inked Magazine

Tattoo artist Julie Becker
Inked Magazine September 08 issue


This is one of my all time favorite photoshoots featured in Inked magazine. Inked is a rare tattoo magazine in terms of design, it debuted in Fall of 06 and when I picked it up I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw inside. I was like ... wow its so clean and not tacky looking! I really commend the design team behind the magazine because it really stands a cut above all the other tattoo magazines, which all have this same kind of trashy look. My first impression of Inked was that it was a lifestyle magazine for people who love tattoos or happened to be tattooed themselves. They hire great photographers and models and the magazine itself looks very highend. And not to mention that they have some great interviews and other written pieces.

Anyway this particular shoot was amazing, I ended up cutting out a lot of the pics and framing them on my wall in some filigree/gothic decorative frames. My only gripe with Inked is that their celebrity photoshoots rarely have any close-up or detailed photos of the person's tattoo. I mean I figure this personality is in the magazine because of their love for tattoos, so I want to see what tattoos they have. Don't make them wear a long sleeve dress shirt if that have a full sleeve. It defeats the whole purpose of being in a magazine dedicated to tattoo culture. I think that's why I loved Becker's shoot so much, the photos really captured the beauty and detail of her tattoos and it wasn't just an excuse to style her in lingerie and kimono robes.

Sailor Jerry

Spring '09 Sailor Jerry Catalog

I dropped by the Sailor Jerry store today in Center City because I was looking for some inspiration on two Valentine's tattooed themed designs that I'm working on. For those of you who don't know Sailor Jerry is a legendary American tattoo artist who specialized in nautical art with a touch of Asian style inspired tattoos.
There's a flagship store in Philadelphia that sells merchandise featuring his artwork, the store is beautiful and it has a great vibe. When you walk in you immediately get visually hit with a ton of really great and inspiring art. What I like about Sailor Jerry's style is his use of color and shading, his style of drawing wasn't the most precise or perfect but that gritty quality and the imperfection is precisely what gives it a great non-mainstream quality.

The Spring line has some really beautiful and surprising items compared to what this brand has offered in the past. These were my favorites.



Jumper $138


Pin-up Dress $130



These are adorable! They had these in the store today, the purse costs $42 and the wallet $24.


Women's Cardigan in Grey and White $74

I have a weakness for cardigans, which has resulted in me owning one two many gray cardigans BUT I really love this one and I kinda want it. If you visit their website you can see that the clothes I've featured here are a far cry from the lame stuff on their online store lol. At least this brand hasn't been completely bastardized like the work of Sailor Jerry's protege, Don Ed Hardy.

A lot of these items haven't arrived on their online store as yet, so check back later if any of these caught your eye!

Cherry Blossom Girl

World of Whimsy

I was reading the latest issue of Bust magazine and they had a write up about this French fashionista blog called The Cherry Blossom Girl. Its curated by this young woman called Alix, she has a really great sense of style and accentuates her outfits by photographing on locations to add an air of whimsy. She has a great eye for color and and gorgeous Chloe shoes. I love the mood she creates with each photo session, it lends a less superficial air to fashion and shows her passion.

The best part is that quite a few of her outfits are from stores like Zara and H&M, so they're not completely inaccessible to her readers. But unfortunately not all of us can afford fabulous shoes like these Chloe ones!



Check out her blog if you need some inspiration or to get lost in a whimsical world of fantasy.

Batman Haunted Knight

Batman Haunted Knight


The first time I browsed through this graphic novel I wasn't sure I liked the artwork, but I ended up picking it up again a second time a few weeks later and read through the entire thing and ended up finding the art inspiring in it. Its very loose and kind of gritty, it has a certain raw quality to it that lends well to the stories being told.

There are many great panels that visually draw my attention because I find the illustration style kind of unique for a comic book. These two panels in particular really stood out to me the first time I read it.

The way they rendered motion in this one panel stood out to me because usually comic books show movement in side to side panels, but I loved the take on it here. Its kind of a static approach to how you'd render hand drawn animation. I hadn't seen that in anything prior and I've found it inspiring for an illustration I want to do.





This panel has a really beautiful interpretation of Poison Ivy, I love the minimalist interpretation of the leaves, they give this long standing Batman villain a really unique visual look. I think if they make another Batman movie, Poison Ivy should definitely be a villain in it because environmental crisis is a very pertinent topic to our times. However I think the screenwriters of the new Batman movies would need to learn to write some female characters who aren't victims or love interests. Then again I find the Bruce Wayne of the Nolan movies rather vapid himself, now movie Tony Stark has some personality lol.