Bold, colorful, graphic paintings that literally pop off the wall! These are the painted wood pieces of New York based Korean artist Zin Helena Song… love! And speaking of love, scroll back up a tiny bit to see the two pieces that she’s added colored light to! Sigh. Stunning.

{via Design Milk … and there’s a great interview with her there too!}

AND THE WINNER IS…. Denise Davis!!! Congratulations, Denise! I’ll email you shortly to get your address : )

ps. soooo many of you that entered asked how to buy it if you didn’t win… just click right here to buy one [scroll down on their site a tiny bit & you’ll see a blue ORDER button on the left]. Thanks to everyone that entered, and don’t worry, I’ve got yet another giveaway coming up later this week for a new special little treat!

A DIY, screenprinted & diecut by hand, pinhole camera made of recycled card… that works! So cool!!! This is VIDDY. So designy, so creative… it’s a little box of creative potential! I love it, and I love it’s back story too. There’s more to it than this, but here’s the gist… UK based artist/designer Kelly Angood made her very first pinhole camera while in University back in 2010, but it was a one-off. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, and a few refinements {wow, I really cut that story short} VIDDY was born! And guess what… Kelly and her very cool company, The Pop-Up Pinhole Co. want you to have one! YES! Leave a comment below to enter and I’ll draw one name on Monday Dec 1 at noon PST. Oh, and if that wasn’t exciting enough, the winner gets to pick the color of their choice… green, black, blue or red! (ps. if you can’t wait for the giveaway, you can also order one right here)

ps. Here’s a look at what VIDDY can do…

So good! {Um, can I enter this giveaway!?}

Simple. Quiet. Gorgeous. This is the work of UK based collage artist Lucy Driscoll… also known as my partner in the Collage Scrap Exchange! I wrote about this fantastic project a few weeks ago. I signed up {along with just over 1000 other people!}, and was paired with a complete stranger from the UK named Lucy. Um, how thrilled was I when I googled her!? Not only did I have an amazing partner for this creative project, I also had today’s post! I’ll let you know what we both end up making… I just packed up an envelope full of weird stuff for her, and she’s doing the same for me. Oh, yes, this is gonna be FUN!

Yesterday I featured a molecular biologist turned painter… and today I give you mixed media on handmade Abaca paper by New York based artist Karen Margolis:

After receiving her BS in Psychology from Colorado State University, Margolis continued her research in Neural Psychology while studying portraiture at the Art Student’s League.  She furthered her studies in art at Parsons School of Design and the School of Visual Arts.  During a Microscopy course at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, through the New York Microscopical Society, Margolis was inspired to diverge from her investigations of figurative art to create work exploring the universality of macro/micro patterns.

Ah, yes. That explains it.

Claerwen James is a British artist… who originally trained to be a molecular biologist at Oxford. Seriously. However, she made a slight detour in her career path, and now the art world gets to have her! Paintings, monotype prints, and lots of very serious little girls. I have a very weak spot for portraits and these are no exception. Their detailed faces, and flat-patterned dresses? L.O.V.E.

These are the original mixed media works of Naomi Vona. She’s an Italian artist living in Dublin, and I had the great pleasure of meeting her when I was there a few weeks ago. We had a few minutes to talk, and I asked her about these pieces. She buys vintage photographs from people all over the world… sometimes just one tiny photograph, sometimes a whole package… and then she gets to work! She draws, paints and collages right on top these little pieces of personal history. I’d be scared of “making a mistake”, but not Naomi! Her portfolio has hundreds of these creative interventions. The fancy masks are my favorite {can you tell?!}… they add even more mystery to these already mysterious images.

Oh. The work of LA based artist Brooks Salzwedel. I wrote about him a year ago, and you guys went crazy… rightly so! His work is layered, and magical, and oh so stunning. When I was putting together my list of “must-have” artists for the Jealous Curator Collection on Sebastian Foster, I just knew that I had to do something with Brooks! Luckily he said yes, and voila, the newest addition to the collection! It’s titled “Purple Blue Mountain”, and it is officially on my Christmas list. Let’s take a closer look at all of this layery-goodness {aka resin, graphite, tape, inkjet}, shall we?

Sigh. So, so good. I sure hope Santa heard that whole “Christmas list” thing.

Limited edition of 60 // 11″x14″ // Archival giclee prints on cotton rag paper // $40…
Visit my collection, and get one before they’re gone!

Whoa. These are glass wall panel installations by UK based artist Chris Wood. She says that her work is about expressing the “magic of light”. Um… nailed it! She uses dichroic glass, and in case you’ve never heard of dichroic glass, here you go:

“Dichroic (meaning two colour) is an optical coating that selectively reflects certain wavelengths  of light and allows the remaining wavelengths to transmit through. Developed in the late fifties by NASA to protect against the potentially harmful effects of direct sunlight and cosmic radiation, dichroic glass, with its striking visual qualities, has been used in a variety of scientific and industrial applications. The material shifts from being reflective like a golden mirror to vibrantly coloured or almost transparent, depending upon the viewpoint and angle of light. It is a material that very eloquently expresses the magic of the phenomenon of light.”

Oh yeah… I totally knew that.

{via Colossal}

GIVEAWAY WINNER: Congratulations to Melanie Boucher! You are the winner of both of these prints (I’ll be in touch to get your address). Thanks to everyone that entered, and don’t worry… there are A LOT more giveaways coming up in the next few weeks!

……………………………

Confession: When it’s 1am and I don’t have a post for the next day, Saatchi Art is where I go every single time {I have a major weakness for their “portraits” section}. Anywho, I’ve written about a lot of their artists over the past few years and so last week they very sweetly, and totally unnecessarily, gave me a gift card to buy whatever I wanted from their gorgeous site. Um, okay! But wait, I wanted to make sure I shared the love, so here’s what I decided to do… instead of buying one original, I chose two beautiful prints… a set of two, in fact. Do you see where this is going? Yep, I’m going to hang these beauties on my living room wall, and I’m going to give the matching set to one of you! YAY! After hours of deliberation {literally}, this is what I chose:

Sigh. Gorgeous. Two prints by American painter Erin Fitzpatrick. I wrote about her last April and so many of you went crazy for this fabulous portrait, titled “Lane”, so I bought it… twice! It’s 18″x24″, but there was still money left and I felt like this fabulous lady needed a 14″x14″ companion, so I added this leaf study, also from Erin’s portfolio {handy tool on Saatchi to give a sense of scale, while showing us exactly how they’ll look in our perfect/clean living rooms!}. I cannot tell you how excited I am about this little duo… I love them so, so much! If you love them too, and want a chance to win these two prints {valued at over $200}, leave a comment below and I’ll draw one name on Friday November 21st at noon PST. Good luck! {and thank you so much, Saatchi – that was realllllly fun!}

Ok, this was hard. I love absolutely everything that I’ve got stocked in my online gallery, but I can’t put everything in the gift guide… it might break the internet! There are no warm woolen mittens or whiskers on kittens, but these are a few of my favorite things {cue Julie Andrews}. Huge abstract prints, delicate watercolors, and vintage cars for your walls… books, planters, and trays for your studio! Happy holiday shopping – I hope you find something you love:

{Walls: 1. Lola Donoghue, 30″x40″, $200 // 2. Lisa Golightly, both 11″x11″, $35 // 3. Nathalie Cusson, 22″x18″, $105  // 4. Kelly Ventura, both 11″x14″, $42  // 5. Kiana Mosley, 11″x14″, $65  or  18″x24″, $125}

{Studio: 1. Traci Yau, 2″ concrete diamonds, $9 // 2. Alicia Zwicewicz, cat planter, $50  // 3. Sea & Asters, 2.5″ wood planter, $25 // 4. Stacy Altiery, 6″x6″ gold foil tray, $40  // 5. Creative Block, $25 & Collage, $25 }