Daytrotter Website

I thought I'd share with everyone a site that I love for music. www.Daytrotter.com.
Daytrotter gets great musical artists, gets them to record some of their songs, and then shares it with viewers via free downloads and radio. As Daytrotter states:
"We are going to contribute to the musical landscape, not just toss it around like a used book or a stolen pick-up line. We’re going to give you something that you truly have never heard. We are not giving you songs from someone you love’s record album, thereby stealing from someone you love. We’re giving you exclusive, re-worked, alternate versions of old songs and unreleased tracks by some of your favorite bands and by a lot of your next favorite bands."
Their site is easily navigated, provides great write-ups on bands and musicians, as well everything is illustrated portrait-style in a loose ink and marker/paint form by artist Ryan Flynn (examples are shown above).

Julie Murphy-Artist, illustrator

I came accross the website of an artist named Julie Murphy.
She has a lot of illustrations that look like a peak into her sketchbook. I enjoy some of the qualities in her her work-the strange animal drawings, human/animal morphs, and the colour and ink layers. I appreciate when things aren't precise, but they still work that way. I especially like the one title "Lello." The images are so strange, there is a lot hidden inside of this piece, and if you look closely, you realize that it was drawn on a subject divider.
http://www.juliemurphy.info/ Screen shots were taken from her site.

Henrique Oliveira-Artist

I came accross these photos of an artist named Henrique Oliveira. His work is stunning. He is a Brazilian artist who takes discarded, decaying fences that are commonplace in Sao Paulo, and puts them together in the form of abstract, three dimentional works. Apparently the colours found in his peices are original colours with how he found the wood. They remind me slightly of some kind of combination of Richard Serra and John Chamberlain in the sense that his work is monumental in size, colourful, abstract and made of materials that were once something else. A much more natural form than either of those two artists, and clearly very different and distinct from them, but somehow they come to mind when looking at pictures of his work.
This site link to Totonko: filtro de diseno is in Spanish(but there is an English "swtich") and the pictures are arranged well, which is where I stole the above images from.
http://totonko.com/2009/03/tapumes-henrique-oliveira/comment-page-1/#comment-6302
Also here is Oliveira's webpage:
http://www.henriqueoliveira.com/tridimensionais.html
He also paints, but in my opinion, his three dimentional work is far greater than his paintings.
I wish I could see it in person!

Jodi Hoover- Artist/Ilustrator

I found this site for an artist/illustrator named Jodi Hoover. She doesn't have an enormous amount of pictures of her work posted, but what is posted has really lovely qualities, characters and colours. Here are a couple of screen shots from her site which I also quite like the look of. The layout itself is very straight forward. It is very accessible with no need at all to scroll down (which is especially nice, given my small macbook screen size.)
http://www.jodihoover.com/
and she is also on etsy(but when I went to her shop, she was all sold out...)
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5376389

I like to make Silly things.

I enjoy drawing, then cutting and pasting the drawings down.
This is how I normally photograph my work-outside on my front step, because the lighting is always good out there. And each time as I'm photographing it, I think to myself that there must be a better or more normal way of taking pictures of these things, but somehow this seems to work for me.
Check my etsy shop for closeups, without bricks and weeds.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=28265961

Share Some Candy

I decided I need to start looking at other art blogs, so that I can be inspired, and maybe actually be a part of the larger blogging community. The nice thing about searching for blogs is that they are EVERYWHERE! I don't have to look very far to find a blog that has something that interests me.
Today's search has brought me to a site called Share some Candy. I have included some screen shots of the home page. The site is filled with images and low amounts of text, which is nice because you can just scroll down, look at images, and not worry about reading anything when all you want to do is look at art. It is fairly low on clutter, which also makes it easy to look at. It is a site maintained by several contributors, and is broken down into a great span of art, design, illustration, graffiti, logos, objects, packaging, photography, sculpture, video, typograpy, furniture, and architecture. The sculpture section in particular made me excited.
http://www.sharesomecandy.com/sculpture/index.html

Insomnia

Despite having a lovely eventful day, when I got home yesterday I couldn't fall alseep. It seems that since my job contract ended a few weeks ago I am prone to slight insomnia, which is unusual for me. I have been telling myself that if I'm going to be awake anyways, I should just be making art, so that at least if I'm awake, I'll still be productive. I'll see how that goes for me. Sometimes when I was working I would just wish that I didn't have a job so that I could stay up making art till four in the morning if I wanted to. And now I can.

Art/Craft/Vintage/Homemade Goods!

The Winnipeg Etsy Street Team is hosting an Etsy Goods sale!

Where: The Costume Museum of Canada. Located at 109 Pacific Ave, in Winnipeg.
When: Wednesday, July 15th. 6-8 PM.

Come check it out, there are some awesome sellers/crafters/artists(myself included)...

Folksters

I attended the Winnipeg Folk Festival this past weekend. Five days filled with music, outdoor venues, and a whole lot of people. I thought I would actually be visually inspired more than I was, but I did come away with a host of new music that I need to purchase to make art to. The alien creature in my drawing above was on stage at one point playing the drums and violin. He was a part of a group called From the Moon. Other great musicians to check out include The Bahamas, Patrick Watson, Socalled, and Joel Fafard to name just a few.

Don Nace's Drawn Out

I ordered the book "Drawn Out" by Don Nace, which arrived recently. I am intrigued, find his drawings alluring, and decidedly this was an excellent art book purchase. It reads as a form of a visual journal: black and white drawings document Don Nace's life-his struggles, joys, and perceptions. I find it glaringly and shockingly honest throughout many parts of the book. His style is strongly gesture-based, with lines and scribbles that make up the figures and relationships. Nearly each picture is narrated with a caption letting the viewer in on the events in the drawings. The majority of Don Nace's drawings were done on the subway train during his daily commute, which explains some of the abruptness of the drawing style. I first discovered Don Nace when doing a search for Art-a-day artists; artists who create something new every day. Don Nace is one of those artists who maintains a webpage with a new daily drawing. His site and his unique drawing style urged me to order his book. For his work check out: http://www.drawingoftheday.com/