Yes, that’s right, you’re looking at broken spiderwebs that have been lovingly, and very carefully, mended by an insanely talented/successful American artist named Nina Katchadourian. Now, after all of the hard work and love that went into The Mended Spiderweb Series, do you think those spiders even appreciated the help? Nope. Each morning she would find her starched {and occasionally glued} red threads lying on the ground, and a perfectly intact web that had been repaired during the night by an ungrateful spider. Luckily, that didn’t slow her down. She collected, and framed, the ‘rejected patch’, hanging it beside the photo of her efforts.

{If you’re interested in mending the webs of unappreciative spiders, Nina has created a special ‘Do-it-Yourself Spiderweb Repair Kit’… see image above.}

Cubism? Well, kinda. These paintings by Antwerp based artist/illustrator Johan Theeuwes are very appropriately titled Block Stories. They are 40 x 40 cm blocks that are painted on every side, so at any particular moment you can change the order, side, positioning etc to create a whole new piece of art… and an entirely new narrative for that matter. I know I’ve said this before but, damn, I wish I thought of this.

{via Booooooom}

On first glance you might think, ‘Oh yes, an impressionistic painting of a bunch of flowers. Nice.’ Boy would you be wrong… twice.

Firstly this is not a painting, but a mixed media piece… to the extreme. Here’s the laundry list of everything that went into this installation: Color-Aid paper, 90 lb. Arches HP watercolor paper, Fabriano SP watercolor paper, Hahnemuhle photo ink jet paper, black sandpaper, silver paper, felt, screenprint, gouache, watercolor, sequins, Swarovski crystal beads, seed beads, dressmakers pins, and hat pins. Phew.

Secondly, the ‘bunch of flowers’, that have been so intricately created by the above mentioned media, are actually blooms on a tree above the site where a devastating explosion took place in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The tragedy occurred on December 6, 1917, which gives this piece it’s title. As a matter of fact, every installation in this series by Canadian artist Michelle Forsyth features something in nature that is currently alive and thriving at the scene of a horrific event in Canadian history. A pretty far cry from a lovely impressionistic painting of a bunch of flowers, wouldn’t you say?

I love these hilarious and simple watercolors by Gavin Bunny… I mean Gavin Bunner. He has a huge series of these paintings, most of which do not feature bunnies, but these were my favourites and what with his last name being ‘Bunner’, I kind of couldn’t control myself. Anywho, he refers to this amazing body of work as Hatercolors, but you’ll have to visit his blog to find out why.

{FYI: There are a couple of these Hatercolors available for purchase on Little Paper Planes.}

Ok, that’s it… this summer I’m going to learn how to surf, and maybe even become a vegetarian while I’m at it. These very cool collages are only one of the many fantastic things that you can find on Margarida Girão’s website. She is an artist/illustrator/web designer from Lisbon Portugal, and the only person who has ever made me consider giving up meat. Oh who am I kidding, that will never happen… but I do want to surf.

Oh sure, I’ve made a paper plane before. Ok, so maybe it wasn’t quite as detailed as that little yellow one… or as complex as those trees, waterfall, sailboats, houses and stunning, snow-capped mountain range complete with tiny red flags! The Fedrigoni Mountains, is a paper installation by Hattie Newman produced for Fedrigoni {an Italian paper company} in collaboration with Alex Ostrowski. Here’s Hattie’s description:

‘[This project was] inspired by the snow-capped Dolomites surrounding Fedrigoni’s hometown of Verona. Twelve intrepid illustrators were invited to visualize an imaginary exploration of the paper slopes, resulting in an exhibition of their discoveries.’

The hills are alive with the sound of… martians? I have never been a huge fan of Sci-Fi, but come on, these are amazing! They are from a series, by Italian illustrator Franco Brambilla, called Invading the Vintage. Hilarious, and very well executed, Franco has made it possible for a bunch of cute little aliens to take over some very out-dated postcards, and I could not be more jealous. I’m even considering watching a Sci-Fi movie or two… of course, I’m hoping for a slight Sound of Music-ness to them.

{Thanks to Kathleen from jeremyandkathleen.blogspot.com for sending this work my way. You were right, I love it!}

I really, really, really want the first painting in this post. I’d frame her lovingly in a beautiful, ornate, vintage gold frame…. ahh. Anyway, choosing a few favourites from the portfolio of American painter Elizabeth Bauman was quite a task. And then I found her sketchbook on Flickr and it got even harder to decide what to show… so I’ve shown a bit of both. The muted colour choices are lovely, and the facial expressions make you wonder what her subjects are thinking. I’m pretty sure the woman in the first painting is thinking that she’d really, really, really like to be hanging up on my living room wall in a beautiful, ornate, vintage gold frame.

{Thanks to Cathy at Habit of Art, another gem from Portland Oregon, for reminding me about Elizabeth’s work.}

I love these images by American photographer Jason DeMarte. They are all from his series titled, Utopic, a commentary on the relationship between consumerism {represented by the dots*}, and nature {represented by, well, the nature}. I imagined him traveling the world, roaming the countryside, scaling mountains, and then quietly sneaking up on animals in their natural environment… until I realized that those ideal, utopian environments are actually photographs taken at a natural history museum. Now I just have to figure out how he was able to get that mountain goat to stare directly at that hot pink dot. What are the chances?!

* The dot for me represents that desire in its simplest symbolic form, a placeholder for whatever it may be that one feels he needs to be happy.   ~ Jason DeMarte

When April rolls around you really only have two clear choices… you can file your taxes like a responsible member of society, or you can make stunning, organic, amoeba-like paper sculptures like artist Nava Lubelski. Yes, that’s right folks, these pieces, from her Tax Files series, are made up entirely of deposit slips, pay stubs, receipts and tax forms. Hey IRS, if you’re listening, I absolutely think you should commission Nava to create one of these sculptures for every single office you have!