In this post, some blogs and websites I have discovered and admired, there are so many, its been awhile, I have been preoccupied with this little dude:



...and I have been keeping busy with my school work as well...anyways, onto some inspiring blogs and websites...

brown paper journal. description: A floral designer with a penchant for all things growing, visually inspiring and deliciously tasty. This blog has loads of visual splendours!

scoutie girl: the blog with a penchant for the passionately handmade

STEEP STREET: musings by Kelty (photography, web design, print work, custom art)

Malea Gadoury: such nice nice nice! design and illustration!!

Fuller Edge Photography (Calgary photographer with an edge...rock and roll!!!)

gibbous. description: gibbous is a miniature fashion house of hearts & hands collecting bits & pieces of discarded history. we hunt decrepit victorian clothes & stained silk slips. we harvest the lost trinkets of the city. buttons, coins, keys...we probably have something of yours. I am unsure of the fashion, but the photographs are a splendour to peruse!

maya*made is a fine and crafty blog. I especially like her easy paper flower craft.

Red Velvet Art: living their dream of keeping a shop full of independent art and super cute handmade goods.

great map: any kind of map imaginable!

The funky patterns and bold colours in Christin Ciaccio Briggs' paintings are amazing. I also love the shots of her studio, any glimpse into a artist's studio is a treat!

I love the antique buttons and found items in the Jewellery by Alexandra Hunt

Because we can: we make great things and we make things great...they sure do, wonderfully designed furniture and themed interiors...who doesn't want a nautical-themed work interior?

things magazine: an online journal (my two cents: of some pretty amazing things!!!)

And finally, when you just want to be inspired...by some inspiring cities, especially some guerrilla moss graffiti!

Here are a few of my illustrations from when I was staying up late at night, the wee babe wasn't sleeping through the night yet...they turned out a little wacky (from lack of sleep, I'm sure?!)

I want to share this video by Liron Kroll. It reminds me of my vanitas series. The video was Kroll's final project of her degree in communication arts. The video done entirely using scanned images, and similar themes of femininity found in my series, beautiful!

Here are a couple new photographs, I am experimenting a little more in photoshop to make the images appear more raw. More of my photographs.




I really like the following two artists for their amazing line work...

Jason Thielke




Gabriel Moreno




And just something fun to play around with...Autodesk's Project Dragonfly is a free floor plan software, which is extremely user friendly and fun to design with.

Axel Peemoeller's way-finding-system for the Eureka Tower Carpark while working for Emery Studio.


reactive paint ... flower maker ... all i can do ... save pens, use garamond font ... i spy with my little eye ... bomomo ... their circular life ... send me something ... dafont.com ... scandalous metropolitan ... the world of 100 ... myoats ...

OneWorld TV - Floating Gardens (IRIN) - Climate Change in Bangladesh

Coriandoline: Friendly houses for girls and boys is a community housing project in Italy. The project was developed through a participatory process. The children were asked about their needs and expectations and the architects and designers listened. The website for this project is amazing...especially exploring the neighbourhood and the different buildings, murals, gardens and hiding spots!

We didn't ask them to design solutions and we didn't hand them a pencil so that they could try to be architects. Spontaneity, innocence, naïf - they are simple solutions to complex themes.

Shown below are some of the childrens' illustrations.

Architecture has been suffering a profound crisis of identity in recent years. The only novelties introduced are marginal and do not have a profound effect on projects; they relate to performance and comfort levels. The great revolution that might liven up the years to come will come from new participation of individuals, and will depend on designers' ability to listen. Participation and listening - especially to people who have never been listened to, the future dwellers. People who have been ignored for a very long time can be an unexplored mine of ideas.

Here is an article about Coriandoline in UTNE.

Some Websites and Projects - Participatory Design ...

Institute for Participatory Design

Participle

Human Centered Design Toolkit

Here is an illustration I finished this evening.


I really wish I could have seen the New Amsterdam Village that was featured in New York City last September.


And it is for this reason:

In addition to the New Amsterdam Village, which represents a more "traditional" version of Holland, a demonstration model of a Dutch greenhouse will be showcased. The Netherlands is a world leader in greenhouse innovations and the Dutch have made great strides in energy saving technologies in this industry. In this special greenhouse visitors can familiarize themselves with flowering lilies, greenhouse vegetables, special micro vegetables and a bumblebee colony. Also a model of the electricity producing greenhouse can be found there, as well as an overview of the latest technologies and research in the Dutch glasshouse construction sector -ny400.org

Oiseaux sells beautiful vintage nameplates, like the one found below.


I love the crafty flower creations of Laurie Cinotto. Pictured below are some of her beautiful paper and fabric boutonnières.


I stumbled on Grant Hanna's website. I really like his painting titled Navigator (My Swampland) pictured below.


Land-Rich's mission is to provide beautiful objects that symbolize the quality, functionality, and sustainability of simpler times. Each quarter they will debut a new edition of products. Below is their Tallow Berry Bulb, now a part of Land-Rich's permanent collection.


Some blogs to take a gander at...

Twig & Thistle Stationary and Crafts
Eat Drink Chic Stationary and Crafts
Treasuring Lovely pattern design by Jessica Gonacha Swift
Tinderbox Dublin-based creative network
Green Wedding Shoes Beautiful and colourful photography of fun-themed weddings

Here is a little of what I've been working on lately...

I am trying to make regular digital photographs have a Polaroid quality. Here is a photograph I took at the fair and have been playing around with. Shown below is the before and after.




At the flea market, I picked up some children's books from the 1950's. I always think the illustrations would make great stationary. I made a couple with some of the illustrations I found.




Finally, I am starting to teach myself patterns, more to come, these are just a few I made this evening.

Here are some of my most recent creations, paintings and bracelets...







Visit my shop to see more of my creations...

Happy Holidays!!!



Have extra socks? Why not make them into sock toys...here is a link to patterns and ideas for sock toys... Scrappy! How to make sock toys, 1958

Just sharing some artists and crafters that I have admired over the past little while...

For starters, Yellow Owl Workshop makes these wonderful postcards, found below, among many other things such as cards, ceramics, stamp sets and paintings.



I love French artist Maissa Toulet's work. She makes these cabinets of curiosities inside of glass boxes. All collected and found objects are matched together to tell a different story in each cabinet. Found below are two of her works: Echographie and Les Végétaux. They remind me of old botany displays, catalogues and encyclopedias.





Studio Mela makes the cutest prints. Found below is So Very Happy V3.




Julie Chen is an artist and book maker. Her books are intricately detailed. Her books unfold or span open in a meaningful manner to reveal layer upon layer of changing imagery and text. Her Ode To A Grand Staircase is pictured below.



I love Amy Victoria Wakefield's photography, especially her portraiture made to look like old fashioned photographed postcards, like the one pictured below.



Finally, I love how Paige Smith repurposes tea cups and saucers into jewelry holders, so elegantly. One of her creations is found below.

I like this landscaping, found on Canada Blooms.


I first discovered designer Jeff Leatham a couple years ago when he was resident florist for Hotel George V in Paris prior to staring in his own show flowers: uncut.


Watch this video of him and his floral designs at the Hotel George V.

Could this be a glimpse of what could be in our city's future? We're looking forward to visiting PF1 (Public Farm 1 is the official name for the installation), and seeing how the project works when it's in an actual space with actual people and yielding actual vegetables. In other areas of the world vertical or step farming happens in the countrysides where terrain or flat space constraints (mountains) have necessitated this way of growing. These projects begin to show us how we can farm within the landscape constraints of major cities. More and more, people are talking about the need to better utilize our natural resources. These designs attempt to do that as well as bring city people closer to food sources.

matt at apartmenttherapy dot com

WORKac is the architectural firm responsible for the design, inspired by urban vertical gardening concepts. Public Farm 1’s intent is to educate thousands of visitors on sustainable urban farming through the unique medium of contemporary architecture.






The unveiling of Public Farm 1 by WORKac, the winner of MOMA/PS1's annual architectural design competition, took place in June 2008 in PS1's courtyard.

You can view the evolution of construction and planting of the actual Public Farm 1 on the PublicFarm1 website.




And just a few links...

Christien Meindertsma's Urchin Pouf



Canadian Photojournalism...

Jonetsu Photography

Davina + Daniel