I only recently became interested in the work of Andrew Wyeth, and now I can’t seem to get enough of it!

Daydream (1980) by Andrew Wyeth

I really like the images of Helga Testorf that Andrew Wyeth painted, especially the one above; Daydream.

Posted on ZEITGEIST

ZOQY ~ Zeitgeist Opinion Questions Yatter

Patrick Roger, the Paris confectioner who built his own Berlin Wall made of chocolate, has knocked it down.
The chocolate wall reportedly weighed over a ton.

What a crazy mixed-up world we live in.
I hope the chocolate didn’t go to waste.

Posted on Zeitgeist

The Wine Connoisseur

A confectioner in Paris, France has built a chocolate replica of the Berlin Wall to mark the 20th anniversary of its fall.

Posted on ZEITGEIST

A visitor is photographed as he photographs a restored mural which shows a Trabant car breaking through the Berlin wall, Germany. This artwork, along with other pieces of art, can be seen at the still-standing 1.3metre long portion of the Berlin Wall known as the East Side Gallery.

Posted on ZEITGEIST

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

An artist nicknamed Flychelangelo creates drawings using dead insects.
Flychelangelo positions the body of dead insects, including flies, and then draws on arms and legs using a pencil to transform them into stick figures which he arranges in different amusing poses.

No flies were hurt in the making of Flychelangelo’s art!

I don’t like flies, they are horrible dirty little things, but I do like these pictures. Very simple and very amusing.

Posted on Zeitgeist

Life in France

I really like these small face masks, they are very creative. They are made, using the standard four-inch toilet paper roll tubes, by French artist Junior Fritz Jacquet http://www.juniorfritzjacquet.com
He describes himself as a creator and sculptor in paper.
After moulding his paper creations he mounts them on to steel stands before selling them.

Junior Fritz Jacquet, 30, said his interest in paper art started with school origami classes, and that he now gets his inspiration from the unique characteristics of card.
He said, “I first concentrate on the construction of the eyes, then the nose, then the mouth, and then the entire expression.
“I am trying to create funny and jovial expressions and will keep working on my technique because there is no limit to experimentation.
“I started to get interested in origami techniques when I was 14. At school the teacher gave us origami models to build ourselves.
“My connection with origami was immediate and I quickly understood that you could take it a long way from a single sheet of paper.
“I have perfected my technique since then. I work with every sort of paper and believe every type has its own personality.
“In the end, every mask is unique.”

Monsieur Jacquet says he is influenced by the bronze figures of Swiss surrealist sculptor Alberto Giacometti, and also the clay figures of Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow.

Masks made from loo roll paper tubes are not Monsieur Jacquet’s only work, he also creates fun folded card figurines, and illuminated paper sculptures.
He said, “Paper is surprising in its fragility but also complex in its texture, elasticity, capacity to absorb light and its memory of being folded or crumpled.
“It is also an immediate material. That’s to say, unlike earth or metal or wood it does not need treating or time to dry.
“I treat paper like a living material. It has a memory in that it holds or forgets folds or the pressure of a finger.
“It also contains a resin which changes with time by interacting with humidity, light and colour.”

Junior Fritz Jacquet’s loo roll card, steel mounted masks, sell at €60 each and must be ordered in a minimum batch of five.

Life in France

Amazing interactive 360 degree panoramic view of the entire night sky has been unveiled online today.
A new 800-million-pixel panorama of the entire sky was constructed from 1,200 photos by snapped by astronomers at the European Southern Observatory from viewing sites in Chile.
Stargazers can explore and experience the Universe as it is seen with the unaided eye from the darkest and best viewing locations in the world.
The image of the celestial sphere is the first of three high-resolution images featured in the GigaGalaxy Zoom project from ESO.
The project seeks to link the sky we can all see with the deep, ‘hidden’ cosmos that astronomers study daily.
It features include a web tool that allows users to delve into our Milky Way. Users are also able to learn about features including multi-coloured nebulae, and exploding stars, all at the click of a button.
The projection places the viewer in front of our Galaxy with the Galactic Plane running horizontally through the image, so it’s almost as if we were viewing the Milky Way from the outside.
From this vantage point, the general components of our spiral galaxy come clearly into view, including its disc, marbled with both dark and glowing nebulae, which harbours bright, young stars, as well as the Galaxy’s central bulge and its satellite galaxies.
The production of this image is the result of a collaboration between ESO, the French writer and astrophotographer Serge Brunier, and his fellow Frenchman Frédéric Tapissier.
Serge Brunier spent several weeks capturing the sky, during the period between August 2008 and February 2009, mostly from ESO observatories at La Silla and Paranal in Chile.
To cover the full Milky Way, Serge Brunier also made a week-long trip to La Palma, one of the Canary Islands, to photograph the northern skies. The image, now available on GigaGalaxy Zoom, is composed of almost 300 fields each individually captured by Brunier four times, adding up to almost 1,200 photos that encompass the entire night sky.
Serge Brunier said, “I wanted to show a sky that everyone can relate to, with its constellations, its thousands of stars, with names familiar since childhood, its myths shared by all civilisations since Homo became Sapiens.
“The image was therefore made as man sees it, with a regular digital camera under the dark skies in the Atacama Desert and on La Palma.”
The creators of the GigaGalaxy Zoom project hope that these latest efforts in bringing the night sky as observed under the best conditions on the planet to stargazers everywhere will inspire awe for the beautiful, immense Universe that we live in.
Henri Boffin said, “The vision of the IYA2009 is to help people rediscover their place in the Universe through the day, and night-time sky, and this is exactly what the GigaGalaxy Zoom project is all about.”
The second dramatic GigaGalaxy Zoom image will be revealed next week, on 21 September 2009.

800 Megapixel Panorama of Milky Way

This photo is too small to really show the amazing image in any great detail, but it is pretty impressive. The video gives a much clearer example of the images Serge Brunier and Frédéric Tapissier captured.
I love it - it’s so beautiful, breathtaking.

Life in France

Bill Guffey, a keen artist, says he can’t go globetrotting so he uses Google Street View to find inspiration for his paintings.
Bill Guffey has ‘virtually’ travelled round the world without leaving his studio in Kentucky, USA.
Bill, 45, said, “Family and holding down a job means my travelling days are numbered. But Street View changed everything for me.”

Amsterdam canal scene

Taxi on 8th Avenue Manhattan ~ Tram in Portugal

Lemon tree, Auvers, France

I guess Bill Guffey is one person who won’t be complaining about Google Street View invading privacy!

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

Liu Bolin is an artist known as the ‘invisible man’ because he paints himself so that he can barely be seen against the backgrounds of his surroundings as he ‘disappears’.
Beijing-based Liu Bolin is due to exhibit his photographs at the YU Gallery in Paris, France in October 2009.
Liu, 36, reportedly spends up to ten hours making sure that every single tiny detail on is entire body is perfectly matched to blend in with the location of his photographs.
Unfortunately Liu Bolin experienced resistance from the government in his own country, and in 2005 his Beijing studio was forcibly shut down because of the political nature of his work.

Liu Bolin is clearly a very patient and talented artist. I can’t decide which image is my favourite, they are all pretty impressive.

LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE

Radiologist Dr Kai-hung Fung created these beautiful images of human body-parts using a CT scanner.

This amazing image is of the back of a human nose

Dr Fung merged science with art resulting in these stunning images which show in amazing detail how the human body is designed.
Dr Fung, 56, works at the Pamela Youde Nethersole Easter Hospital in Hong Kong. He used 3D computed tomography (CT) scans to map various organs in the body of his patients.
The data was then fed into a computer where Dr Fung added colour to the images in a process he invented calls the ‘rainbow technique’. Apart from that he doesn’t make any other alterations as he prefers the pictures to be a true representation of what the body parts really look like.

This image is the curve in the ear

This image shows the vocal cords

Speaking about his artworks Dr Kai-hung Fung said, “The pictures I create are generated directly from the medical 3D workstation, representing what I see on it. I do not use software such as Adobe Photoshop to further change the image.
“My aim is to preserve the direct relationship between the data and the artwork.
“It is a true integration of art, science and technology and can be studied both scientifically and enjoyed as a visual art.
“The imagery is packed with information. Each line or point represents specific anatomical structures in the body in normal or diseased state. It creates an unusual perspective.”

This image is of rotting teeth

This image show the inside of a heart

Dr Kai-hung Fung’s works show in great graphic detail the inside of the human heart, the back of the nose, the vocal cords, and even rotting teeth.
Since Dr Fung started scanning body-parts and making them in to art, his work has been exhibited in art galleries round the world.
Proceeds from the sale of Dr Fung’s art works are donated to charity.

The image is of the lungs

I’ve always thought that the human body is an amazingly beautiful design, and I love these images, they are truly spectacular.

Life in France