Yep… actual size. Seriously. Edinburgh based artist Paul Chiappe creates these teeny-tiny, itsy-bitsy, beautiful little pencil drawings based on found vintage photographs. The drawing talent alone is amazing, but then to do it at such an insanely small scale?! love ♥

{via Junkculture}

I wrote about Brooklyn based artist Langdon Graves almost exactly one year ago. I came across some of her work {graphite drawings on mylar} that I hadn’t seen before, and I could not stop myself from writing again. Thick glasses, side pony-tails, and bunny-handed girls… oh yes, I’m still completely smitten ♥

I wrote about San Francisco based artist Lisa Solomon and her domestic scenes series in 2009. That series was all about beds and chairs… and I happen to love both as subject matter! Well, it turns out that I also have a thing for “toxins”, “viruses” and internal organs of the “body”… created, of course, with delicate, embroidered doilies. The body series is meant to “represent the 4 things you need to make art: your lungs, heart, brain, and guts.” Love, love, love that! And, her intention with the toxin and virus work is “to turn something ugly and horrible into something beautiful.” Umm… Check! 

ps. Here’s what she used to create these pieces… and yes, I’m jealous of this list: acrylic, ink, colored pencil, graphite, felt, glasshead pins, embroidery on duralar.

Ok, here’s the thing about me… I love portraits. Painted, drawn, photographed, embroidered, whatever… I love portraits. So, imagine my delight when I came upon the work of LA based artist Steve Kim. These pieces are clearly from two different bodies of work, but you guessed it, I could not decide which one made me more jealous. Rich oil paint, with a lovely lack of detail? Or, delicate, blue, barely-there colored pencil on paper?

Hm… nope. I still can’t decide.

{via Booooooom}

I would love to spend the afternoon with American artist Kirstin Lamb so we could talk beauty queens, pastries, and raw meat. Apparently she “became obsessed with classical still life and notions of stacking and heaping during her final year of graduate study in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2005.” But I want to know why she’s stacking the things she’s stacking! Yep, I have a lot of questions about these beautifully bizarre gouache drawings. First question… where can I get one?! Oh, and look at that, the answer is right down there:

{I found Kirstin’s work [for sale!] on the always amazing Little Paper Planes.}

Whoa. I lost my breath when I saw this work. The beauty, and stunning simplicity, of blue ballpoint pen on canvas… really, really, really big canvas! Korean born, Brooklyn based artist Il Lee started working like this over 30 years ago, and still continues today… now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m suddenly inspired to run out and pick up a few pens. Blue ones.

{Thanks to David Garber for sending me a link to Anthology, who recently featured Il’s work.}

I have a crush. Well, I have quite a few actually… so many, in fact, that I’ve turned them into a new series of guest posts, that start today, on the always lovely sfgirlbybay. The series is called girl crush. Can you guess why? Yep, the posts will feature amazing women artists that I have huge art crushes on! Here’s why I chose to do this…

When I was in university, I minored in Art History. As a young female artist, I wanted to know why there weren’t more women in my textbooks… surely they existed?! And it wasn’t just the Renaissance and Rococo periods that were lacking – I have a Pop Art book filled with artists that I love, but there is not one woman in it. Doesn’t that seem kinda crazy? Yes, yes it does. Luckily, contemporary art seems to be balancing things out a little more… I know that more than half of my posts feature women. Granted, I’m jealous of work regardless of the artist’s gender, but as a woman artist myself, I absolutely love to see, and celebrate, the successes of inspiring, crush-worthy “girls”… hence the catchy title of this series! Sigh… I have so many crushes, on so many artists, that these posts just might go on forever! So, now that I’m wearing my heart on my sleeve, you can tell me… who do you ♥?

{textbook worthy images by: 1. Tina Berning 2. Martha Rich 3. Maia Flore 4. Laura McKellar 5. Beth Hoeckle 6. Margaret Kilgallen ♥♥♥}

To say that California based writer Emily Goligoski is an inspiring woman is a drastic understatement. This past spring I sent her an email just to say hello, and to ask what she was up to. Here’s a bullet point list of her response:

“Continuing to write my blog TheSanFranista; a few writing and video projects with entrepreneurial friends at ecofabulous and Women 2.0; And in July… heading to Nairobi with the Africa Yoga Project, a group that trains yoga instructors to find work in their local communities. I’ve loved teaching flow-based yoga in SF this year, and I feel fortunate to be going to Kenya for seva (“service”) work that includes building a community center where new teachers can lead classes.” Umm… yeah, she’s a rock star! And who inspires a rock star? Well, read on:

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I am jealous of Wendy MacNaughton.

I am jealous of Wendy MacNaughton, and not just because she uses pen and color so well, but because she is more incredibly perceptive. Her phrasing and observations about people–and our own psyches–makes her work feel familiar and positively pleasurable. What began as a daily routine of sketching fellow commuters in the Bay Area has launched into a more-than-full-time career of commissions, installations and other lovely “things” (as you’ll see if you carve out time to explore the work on her site; having been there more times than you might think possible, I promise that your time clicking will be worthwhile). San Francisco has been the lucky benefactor of illustrations about local outdoor swimmers, library goers, winemakers, cartographers, and other groups that inspire MacNaughton, and I’m hopeful for many more.

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Thanks so much Emily!

A list of reasons to be jealous of Montreal based artist Kirsten McCrea, by The Jealous Curator:

A little self-conscious lucha man, & Kim in his shades, & an insanely ornate deer head {that would make gorgeous/painful tattoo}, & a jaunty jockey at a rodeo. Oh, & she also runs Papirmasse, “an affordable art subscription that delivers a print with art on the front, and writing on the back to your mailbox every month for the incredible price of only $5 a month.” …What?! Yep, it’s true.

“Love me two times”… no problem! First, I’ll love this series as it was intended… bright, bold, and beautiful gouache, ink, pen & vinyl on paper. However, for the second time, I’d like Australian artist Kirra Jamison to come over to my house and paint one of these pieces as a bright, bold, and beautiful gouache, ink, pen & vinyl mural on my wall! Yep, I would love that… two times.