50 Images - 1024 x 768

There is many artists whose imagination, talents and dreams have created the colorful fun characters like Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, Fairies, Pirates etc. In fact, you probably already know all of the Walt Disney Studios cartoon characters- you see them just about everywhere. Here is 50 images [1024 x 768.jpg] of the more prominent or important characters from Disney, for you to customize your desktop with. Featured characters include: Mickey and friends, Princess, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Bambi and more! Enjoy.

Download

• Lynn Goldsmith

American Lynn Goldsmith is a multi-talented, tireless photographer who is constantly pushing the creative envelope. Her career has spanned over 30 years as a multi-award winning portrait photographer whose work has appeared on and between the covers of Life, Newsweek, Time, Rollingstone, Sports Illustrated, People, Elle, Interview, US, Bunte, Paris Match, etc. Her subjects have varied from entertainment personalities to sports stars, from film directors to authors, from the extra-ordinary to the ordinary man on the street.

Her current series: In the looking glass, she works with digital technology exploring how identity is constructed. With self-portraits, Lynn presents the questions: How certain can we be of who someone is? Who do you become if you are not yourself? What is real? Many of the images closely mimic store advertising windows that present women’s fashion in fantasy environments. Goldsmith digitally reworks the motifs, re-presenting them as tableaux in which she plays all the human characters. Here, Goldsmith plays with the possibilities of who she can be. As she describes it:

“I want my work to help enlighten me. I’m interested in multiple meanings and a kind of ambiguity that frustrates any attempt to pin it down… I wanted to take what I had learned in my career to show how we are made up of multiple selves. We can see ourselves in terms of how culture has defined and determine us or we are free to make of ourselves as we will!”

Transposing her own visage into the mannequin(s) in the scene, she creates a tableau that mixes the real and imaginary worlds into one that is both and neither. Her pictorial exuberance is enchanted by an over-the-top quality, that is crammed with fabrics and lighting effects. These have an heightened surrealistic quality too, echoing perhaps, the Ballets Russes, or a scene from an 18th century court. The “characters,” as Goldsmith refers to her fictitious selves, hover in space between the animate and in the inanimate, between subject and object….

View [13] more samples of Lynn Goldsmith’s fascinating photography after the jump. more…

• Art-O-Mat

Becoming an art collector can be as easy as buying a candy bar, thanks to Art-O-Mats. These art-o-mat machines were pioneered by Clark Whittington to take old cigarette machines and retool them to sell pocket-sized original artwork. His machines have gained significant attention and are seen in venues nationwide, including the prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. There are around 82 active machines in various locations throughout the country, vending artists’ work on consignment for $4 - $5 a package. [ find an art-o-mat near you. ] This is my local Wisconsin supplier of 5$ art-o-matic splender. Very cool.

So, what do you get from an art-o-mat? Besides the apprehension affixed to the thrill of pulling the machine lever, you also walk away with an original work of art. What an easy way to become an art collector. [ art-o-mat samples ]

Want to be an art-o-mat artist? There are around 400 contributing artists from 10 different countries currently involved in the art-o-mat project, this list is growing fast. Incidentally, fresh works of art are being sort after on an ongoing basis. [ submission process ]

• final result

While some anime is hand drawn, computer assisted animation techniques have become quite common in recent years. However, this anime character is uniquely hard-coded by a talented (name unknown) coder/illustrator, using just html code. It’s amazing how much markup is actually used for just one small figure. I would imagine a mock-up drawing of the figure would be initially used, and then maybe notepad html editing software is used to generate the code. Click the link to take a look at he final result. Impressive…

• Pop Art Tutorial

Are you a fan of Pop Art? Ever wanted to transform a photo into a retro pop art style painting in Adobe photoshop? If the answer is yes to both of these questions, Melissa Clifton offers an excellent Lichteinstein-esque tutorial just for you.

Almost synonymous with Pop Art, Roy Lichteinstein become a pioneer of pop art in the 60’s with his benday dot effect comic-strip paintings. Benday dots were created using a printing process which combines two (or more) different small, coloured dots to create a third colour. This effect is achieved using Colour Halftone filter found in Photoshop, however Melissa takes you through a 2 step approach using just black and white Halftone Pattern. This offers a more cleaner looking finished result.

Here’s a list of more Pop Art style tutorials recommended for beginner to intermediate level photoshop users:

• Andy-Warhol-Up Your Photographs
• Pop-Art Part 1
• Pop Art Part 2
• Andy Warhol Pop Art Silkscreen Effect
• Photoshop Creating Pop Art Tutorial
• Create Pop Illustration
• Pop Art Video Tutorial

And, here’s a site that creates pop art style paintings for you.

• Product & Industrial Portfolio

My previous post displayed some of the best digital photo-realistic imagery in the business. Kevin Hulsey too, creates incredible technical illustrations, and ranked one of the of the world’s premiere technical illustrators. His exposure to both commercial and fine art contributed to his development as an artist and illustrator. Huslsey’s early work was heavily influenced by the Pop and Photo-Realist fine art movement of the 1960s. By the late ’70s Kevin was drawn to the commercial art world through his admiration for the work of David Kimble, Richard Leech, Tony Matthews, and Japanese technical illustrators Makoto Ouchi and Yoshihiro Inomoto.

Mostly self-taught, Huslsey has a strong background in architecture, drafting and design. He works in various mediums including oils, acrylics, airbrush, and computer graphics in both fine and commercial art. His site has numerous illustration tutorials and drawing lessons for all skill levels. These are excellent for anyone wanting to learn from a true master of his art. Excellent stuff.