Art for Change

Several different groups are out there offering their support for the various candidates. Here are some examples from The Art of Obama blog.

Here is a really interesting sculpture by mmike. “Tension - A portrait of Barack Obama - 10-23-2008 - 2′x2′x9′ - 1000 feet of steel high tension wire, black enamel and poplar base.” See the rest of his work at mmike.com

Another one by Derek Chatwood. This one utilizes a larger pallet and some very strong text placement. By itself, it is a great piece of art - yet, it becomes even better when you realize that it is only half of the whole image.

The design is fresh and catchy. It also seems to come in t-shirt form only. In fact, an entire site ObamaTee.com has been custom made just to sell this shirt. Looks like they are donating $1 to the campaign for each shirt sold. It’s not much, but it is a cool shirt nontheless: “Red, White,And Awesome”.

Reader Allison sent us a link to this rockin AC/DC themed poster by Jamey Erickson. The poster is in the Poster Offensive’s photostream. Check out the set or PO’s website for lots of other great political work. This is just a section of the poster.

Just received this message from an artist named Lichiban that we are happy to post: “I’m a Brooklyn-based visual artist from Hungary, and have been very much involved in supporting the Obama movement over here in BK through means that I could. I’m not a citizen so I can’t vote but I’ve been doing various fundraisers and Obama artwork to further the cause.”

Over the past few months we have been encouraging you to send in your art. The other day we received the following: “Greetings Obama Team, I am an artist trying to donate my talent to the campaign to help raise money. I really would like to become part of the ARTIST FOR OBAMA team. I created this painting for that purpose. Thanks, Andre Harris” “After meeting with a local campaign organizer (GA), I created an online store and if anyone is interested in the print here is the link: CafePress. The campaign organizer loved it and it is now hanging on the campaign door :)”

Check out these amazing vector posters on a site called “The People We’ve Been Waiting For” at nice long, but appropriately named thepeoplewevebeenwaitingfor.wordpress.com. The posters are 11×17″ and completely free to download and print.

Design/ers for Obama was created when Design Observer essentially asked the question, “how can graphic designers best support Barack Obama?” “Many artists including Shepard Fairey have already proven that poster art is not a dead medium in the United States and have also shown how much of an impact a single poster can have. It is in this spirit Design/ers for Obama was created… Design/ers for Obama is a community for Obama supporters, whether visually inclined or not, to aggregate and rate Obama poster art that is available for download in a variety of sizes that can be easily printed by any and everyone. At such a turbulent (yet exciting) time in our nation’s history, collaboration has never been more important.”

On the site you can upload, search and score a growing collection of Obama posters. Seems like a great resource for people who like the Art of Obama. You can bet that you will be seeing some of the posters featured here.

So here's a few highlights from Design for Obama:

Go up by gausa

Fields of Hope by felixsockwell

Baaaaa-Rock! by BasicShift

Change For a New Day by Rogaziano

This last one is by far, my favorite!

Wonderglen

From Pop Candy:
Wonderglen: It's like 'The Office' goes to Hollywood

I just spent some time in Wonderglen, and I'm not sure I want to leave.

This website is hilarious, weird and unlike anything I've seen -- the easiest way to describe it is it's a site for a fake TV production company. Once you start clicking, you'll find tons of stuff to explore, from videos to company memos to a message board.

There are even fake websites connected to Wonderglen; for instance, the gang likes to gather at Brennigan's Hole after a long day at the office. ("We are the only Valley pub/bar with its own coin-operated shower!")

Some highlights include a funny "bio-video" featuring James Franco. In it, Franco references Airwolf, pretends to be on a roller coaster and hypes the fake film ManWorld. And in this "brainstorming session" posted today, the staff reveals their Halloween costume ideas. Poor Sarah can't decide whether to go as Dora the Explorer or a "slutty baker."

Head to Wonderglen's main page and start poking around. Some Craigslist users may recall seeing fake ads for the company several weeks ago.

I just bopped in there, and like poking around some in a sort of voyeuresque way. ;)
PS - It takes a second for the main page to load (maybe traffic issues)

Name in Pics

This site allows you to write anything you want - with Flickr-hosted photographs of letters, in random style. If you don't like how a certain letter came out, just click on it and a new pic will load.

Music ...Television?!

MTV Music has uploaded every music video in history! Enjoy.

Dali & Disney!

The other day I found this great link to the fabled Disney/Dali cartoon that was to appear in the remastered Fantasia 2006, but which never surfaced.

Walt Disney found an unexpected artistic soul mate in Salvador Dali, who he may have met as early as 1937. “We have to keep breaking new trails,” Disney said at the time. “Ordinarily good story ideas don’t come easily and have to be fought for. Dali is communicative. He bubbles with ideas.”

At a dinner party held by movie mogul Jack Warner in 1945, the concept of collaboration between Disney and Dali began to evolve. Disney had been compiling short features for theatrical release. “Destino” was the name of a Mexican ballad that Disney had envisioned as a vehicle for a musical short film project. Dali was attracted to Destino’s title and the concept of destiny attracting two lovers. In late 1946, Dali began arriving at the Disney Studio every morning at eight-thirty and working until five at night. Twenty seconds of film, several paintings, various pen-and-ink drawings and many storyboards came out of this eight month period during which Dali was an employee of Walt Disney Studios. He hinted in his own newsletter, Dali News, that the collaborative film effort would “offer to the world the first vision of ‘psychological relief’.”

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Dali at work on one of the numerous
images used as a basis for Destino

Destino is a six-minute film set to a Spanish song, devoid of dialogue and without a linear story line. It follows a dark-eyed ballerina on a journey among strange objects through a desert landscape in a dreamlike atmosphere. It is a love story as only Dali could envision it, complete with images of ballerinas, baseball players, melting clocks, tuxedo-clad eyeballs, ants that turn into bicyclists, and two giant heads carried on the backs of the Fates (represented as giant turtles.) The project was a collaboration between American animator Walt Disney and Spanish painter Salvador Dalí, and features music written by Mexican songwriter Armando Dominguez.

Salvador Dali at work at the Walt Disney Studio, circa 1946.

A Dali oil painting produced for Destino was later incorporated within the completed short.

Destino (the Spanish, Portuguese and Italian word for "destiny") was storyboarded by Disney studio artist John Hench and artist Salvador Dalí for eight months in late 1945 and 1946. Hench compiled a short animation test of about 18 seconds in the hopes of rekindling Disney's interest in the project, but the production was no longer deemed financially viable and put on indefinite hiatus.

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Concept pieces for Destino by Dali

Finished oil painting used for the film

Twenty two paintings and 135 story sketches into the project, Dali was asked to abandon Destino as a result of post-World War II changes and other studio commitments. It lay dormant for 57 years. In 1999, Walt Disney's nephew Roy Edward Disney, while working on Fantasia 2000, unearthed the dormant project and decided to bring it back to life. Roy instructed producer Baker Bloodworth and director Dominique Monfery to complete Dali’s short. They did so with the assistance of John Hench, (with a little help from the journals of Dalí's wife Gala Dalí) who along with Bob Cormack assisted Dali on the original project. The finished film unites Dali’s surrealist vocabulary to animation and includes five of Dali’s original paintings. The 18 second original footage that is included in the finished product is the segment with the two tortoises.

Another Dali oil painting to which animation of a baseball player and baseball were later added.

Though the faces are distorted, they resemble the image below.

I'm not sure if this is an actual Dali, as some of the elements do not resemble his style.

From the January 20, 2008 press release: Destino began in 1946 as a collaboration between Walt Disney and the famed surrealist painter Salvador Dali. A first-hand example of Disney's interest in avant garde and experimental work in animation, Destino was to be awash with Dali's iconic melting clocks, marching ants and floating eyeballs. However, Destino was not completed at that time. In 2003 it was rediscovered by Walt’s nephew, Roy E. Disney, who took on the challenge of bringing the creation of these two great artists to fruition. In addition to the completed Destino, this exciting addition to the Walt Disney Treasures line also includes an all-new feature-length documentary that examines the surprising partnership between Dali and Disney plus two new featurettes; "The Disney That Almost Was," an examination of the studio's unfinished projects; and "Encounters with Walt," which addresses the surprisingly diverse group of celebrities and artists who were attracted to Walt Disney's early work.

A finished conceptual oil painting done by Dali as inspiration for his Disney short Destino.

The Dali painting as it appears in the film -- with some digital elements used to extend the perimeter of his painting and with an animated figure and two prop elements.

A June 2008 press release for the Walt Disney Treasures line revealed Destino is now being excluded from a 2008 "Treasures" release. According to "Treasures" host Leonard Maltin, the film is still likely to see an eventual DVD release, yet not necessarily within the "Treasures" moniker. An August 2008 Disney press release stated Destino is now due for a 2010 DVD release and "will be available to own for the first time along with an all-new feature-length documentary that examines the surprising partnership between Dali and Disney."

Full version of Destino. The video's quality is not that great but the images are still beautiful.




Sources: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5

Sand Art!

Found this neat-o little site from PopCandy.
If you have some free time today, you can make a sand portrait.
Here's my little lame attempt. Sorry I ended up getting my workload just as I started getting the hang of it. ;)
And here are some interesting pieces from their gallery page.
This one has a Van Gogh-esque style to it.
Some one has a lot of time on their hands!
This is one of my favorites

Boredom Game!

DISTOPIX

The object seems pretty simple. Just avoid getting hit!
But that proves harder than it looks, when the game board starts moving.
and tilting and resizing!
Mental_Floss suggested this game:
The game Distopix is supposed to challenge your concentration and reaction time. I had fun playing it, but it kept running away from me!

Holiday Themed Illusions

I found these images on one of my frequent searches. Here's some great skull illusions that are only evident if you look at the image from far away, or if it's compressed into a smaller size. To make it easy, I've compressed them. I think they're pretty cool!

Day of the Dead

Wotherspoon - Gossip

Amour de Pierrot

Gilbert - Vanity

This image was later translated into a photograph that was used for the Def Leppard album cover:
Def Leppard - Retro Active

Philippe Halsman - Salvador Dali In Voluptate Mors

Interesting enough, the Dali photo above was used in the movie poster for Silence of the Lambs.

The photo itself was inspired by surrealist Dali’s gouache Female Bodies as a Skull painting. Dali later translated the same idea into his own live sculptures.

Dali - Female Bodies as a Skull