Florals, golden hues, and rectangular hair… ahh, the lovely ladies of Indiana based artist Ryan Pickart. Very Klimt-ish, no?

{via Bonnie Tsang’s Pinterest board}

Oh boy – there’s alotta stuff {water colors, drawings, oil paintings} in the portfolio of Nashville based artist Kimia Kline, but I managed to edit it down to a few favorites from the ‘oil paintings’ section. Lovely girls, and lovely color palettes … ♥

Ok, who’s kinda freaked out by this scary cuteness? Me too… but it’s still my favorite kind of cuteness, and clearly Taipei based artist Hsiao-Ron Cheng has mastered it! She uses a combination of pencil, oil paint, mixed media and digital techniques to create these beautiful/weird little scenes… hm, I sure hope that girl’s scarf is going to double as a parachute! Well, at least she’s got a better chance than the bunny girl who just got eaten by a T-Rex. Ouch.

Oh, the lovely, whimsical work of Buenos Aires based artist Maria Elina Méndez. Suddenly, I want to ride a llama {or perhaps that’s an alpaca?}, while wearing black socks. It looks strangely relaxing, no?

Pencil, gouache, and paper on panel… and a few unsightly blemishes on the horizon made beautiful. Seriously… have you ever seen such lovely power lines? This is the work of American artist Rebecca Rothfus. I have loved her paintings for a long time, and I’m so excited to find out that I’ll get to meet her next April {she’s coming to GIRL CRUSH Austin, hosted by me and Alyson Fox!}.

Now, I won’t be in Austin until next spring, but if you’re there right now, you can see Rebecca’s work at grayDUCK Gallery, from June 15th ~ July 15th, 2012.

I arrived in Minneapolis yesterday for tomorrow’s GIRL CRUSH workshop with Jennifer Davis. It’s being hosted at Soo Visual Arts Center, and the director, Carolyn Payne, was sweet enough to invite me to stay with her for the weekend. Nice, right? Well, wait until you see what I found when I got into her house…

Gah! My very first question… who did this work? Her husband, American artist Terrence Payne. They are large scale oil pastel drawings. You really have to see them in person – they’re bold, bright, beautiful and really, really big! Oh, and then of course, there’s his new line of wallpaper with Hygge & West:

Yep. I am completely surrounded by amazing stuff!

Ok, I’m off to GIRL CRUSH, and I’ll report back next week with photos! Have a lovely weekend : )

Never been to the MoMA? No problem… New York based artist Jason Polan drew “every piece of art that was visible to the public at the museum from January 19 to January 31, 2005″ in a project, turned book, titled “The Every Piece Of Art in The Museum Of Modern Art Book” …and then he did it again in 2012. Here’s a little sampling:

Phewf. So amazing. I feel tired and inspired all at the same time… just like a long day at the MoMA!

Oh boy. I love these simple illustrations by LA based artist/illustrator Geoff McFetridge. All of these drawings were part of a project he did for Nike, called Nike Dunks. This is just one project from his very full portfolio. He has an amazing roster of corporate clients {MTV, Pepsi, Gap, Vans etc.}, and a very long list of gallery shows for his personal work… and so I reiterate ~ oh boy.

Awwww! These illustrations by Japanese artist Aiko Fukawa are just the sweetest. Come on… that squirrel in his little rainbow shirt? Crazy cute! Those garlands are fantastic too, and do not get me started on that drum playing donkey.

I’m off to Portland for GIRL CRUSH with Lisa Golightly, and I’ll be back with a full report early next week! Happy weekend : )

{via the art cake}

I have a major thing for magnolias. They are all over my neighborhood, and every spring I am overjoyed to see them bloom… speaking of joy, I am kind of in love with this work by Maine based artist Kari Herer. Pink magnolia petals helping black ink beetles take flight… yep, pure joy.

{via Honestly WTF}