Graphite - Lead Pencils made into Complex Sculptures

Artist Jarek Lenski manages to create intricate and detailed mini sculptures using the Graphite or Lead out of pencils.  Some of the miniatures, seem to be constructed by a single piece of graphite, others by sculpting components and putting them together.  Apart from a Facebook page, that contains all of his work, we have not been able to find any more information about this talented sculptor.  You have to be gifted with amazing dexterity and patience to be able to complete these delicate sculptures.  Below we have included the tools Lenski uses to carve these little marvels.  If you have any more information about him, please let us know and we will add it.

Digital Art deep in Mythology and Fantasy

Ukrainian Digital Artist Alexander Fedosov creates beautiful figures out of what are sometimes dark subjects and titles.  Fedosov incorporates a lot of fluid lines making these portraits much more than if they were drawn as simple faces.  Beautifully original art, wonderful contrasting images with some very colourful and bright, whilst the other, darker with more muted colours, really help set these portraits.

Paintings or Sculptures in Portrait Collage

American Artist Jason Mecier has had an interest in arts since a young age, using all sorts of materials to construct his paintings / sculptures.  He came up with the idea of asking celebrities for their unwanted items, in exchange for a painting.  It soon caught on and as you can see below, he was very successful.  We have put together a group of celebrities from the past and the present with a video where, Mecier tells us more about his story and his work.  He works with all sorts of materials for his art, this is how he classifies them: Beans, Candy, Food, Junk, Yarn and Miscellaneous.  Mecier says that his artwork can take from 50 hours for the simpler ones to 2 months of solid work for the more complex.

Face Painting Artist Morphs like a Chameleon Shapeshifter

Face transformations using just paint.

Hyper-Realistic Drawings of Everyday Life

Italian Artist Francesco Altomare had an interest in art since he was very young.  After qualifying as a surveyor, he realised that he had made a mistake and reverted to his original love of art.  As a self taught artist, he gravitated towards hyper-Realism, that he found, pushes you to increase the amount of details, from drawings to drawing, noticing and incorporating them in your art, becoming totally absorbing.  He blends into his drawings, powerful feelings such as anger, frustration but also joy and love, that give us a view of the real world and not the stylised one, characteristic of many forms of art.  The videos below show you more of Altomare technique, we hope you can get some helpful hints from it.

Amazing Expressions in Scratchboard Animal Portraits

Melissa Helene describes herself as a Scratchboard & Graphite Artist, Photographer, Wildlife and Nature Enthusiast.  We also use her words to describe how the Scratchboard works: "Scratchboard is a subtractive medium that uses a variety of abrasive tools to scratch away the outer black layer of the board to reveal the white layer beneath.  Scratches are placed in layers to obtain the desired values of gray and white."  Helene really manages to capture the minute details, that allow her to portray perfectly, the expressions of the animals she is depicting.  You know when you are looking at a portrait if the artists has not been able to capture it and these are perfect.  Enjoy...

Ships and Maritime Surreal Paintings

Talented Surreal Artist Jürgen Geier has had an interest and a love for art, Ships and Maritime in general, since a young age.  What better way to combine them, that through Art?  After having worked as a gilder for many years, he decided to dedicate himself  full time, to his true passion, creating beautiful paintings full of symbolism.  Like in the best surreal art, it is like looking through a porthole into another world, but not everyone that gazes through it, will see the same thing...  

Selfies made into Animé Drawings

Artist and Animator Robert DeJesus takes people's selfies and then gives them the animé treatment, coming up with some funny and cute results.  You can send him, your pictures and have your own commissioned drawing.  Below we have included some videos, so that you can see how, DeJesus goes about drawing reference images.

Progressive Architecture using Container Buildings

Container Building, "Condominio P" (Condominium - Apartment Block) is the brainchild of Italian Architects C+C04 Studio.  They sought a site in Cagliari (Southern Italy) surrounded by mostly buildings erected in the 1930-50s that went through a kind of modernisation during the 1990s, where dull was the colour of choice and bland was the design brief.  With this project C+C04 Studio aspired to make the building, therefore the surrounding area, colourful, light airy and individual.  Every apartment has a different floor pan with the apartment number painted on the outside amongst the colourful facade.  The Architects are hoping that this project will spark a light, that will lead to a creative change in the re-design of the area.  The Floor Plans are at the bottom of the post.     

Paintings using Flower Petals

Lim Zhi Wei aka (Limzy) is a Malaysian Artist working out of Singapore.  After work there was not much time left for big complex paintings, so she used things she found around to incorporate in her art.  She used things like: food, flowers, pencils, cotton, stamps, thread, and much more.  In this post we have chosen to focus on her flower paintings.   It is interesting and very subtle, the way the painting portion is very light, to match the flowers she is using, so that the flower themselves, do not stand out, apart from the composition.

There is more Art created with petals on DesignStack, like: High Fashion Drawn with Petals and Flower Petal Birds.

Black and White Long Exposure Photographs

Commercial & Fine Art Photographer Jamal Alias based in Singapore, takes amazingly serene black and white long exposure photographs.  He also takes colour photos but we are going to concentrate on his B&W ones in this post.  The misty look water assumes when it is subjected to long exposures photos, gives it a calming dreamlike feeling that helps the viewer sit back and relax, enjoying the photographic scenery.
If you like this post have a look at "The Sound of Silence in Black and White Photographs".

Photo Realistic Drawings from a Novice Artist

Self-taught Artist Rajacenna from the Netherlands, who says in her Bio, that she started drawings two years ago and this art form has become a real passion for her now.  Rajacenna finds that her drawings allow her to escape her everyday problems, putting her her focus on her work allows her to quieten all the rest that is going on around her.  All of her drawings are done using B-3B-9B pencils for the black and white and coloured pencils of various makes, when it comes to the coloured drawings.  As she becomes more proficient it is taking longer and longer to draw all of the subtle details that go into a photo realistic drawings, which can take up to 40 hours to complete.  The videos below include WIPs(work in progress) and sped-up live drawings.

Game of Thrones Drawings and Detailed Illustrations

Freelance Artist. Drawing and Tattoo Artist "Spider Money" really exercises her creative imagination in the varied techniques with which she creates her Art.  In the videos below we have shown the Dot-Drawing Technique, where the artist creates tones and shadows by using many, many, many tiny dots.  As well as the Game of Throne drawings there are others, including examples of graphic design in the Typography Drawing.

Upcycle PCB Sculptures from used Electronics

Cuban Artist Steven Rodrig has been interested in creating art with unconventional materials since he was very young.  While repairing computers and other electronic equipment, he found a natural progression for his art.  He took PCBs (Printed Circuit Boards) that reached the end of their lives, and Upcycled them, to give them a fresh and new sculptural life.  If you want another example of Electronic Recycling just click on this link: Recycled Re-Purposed Furniture Sculptures and look at the bottom of that post.

Archizoo Connection Between Architecture and Animals

Architect and Graphic Designer Federico Babina makes an association that has been made rarely and only on a small basis, Archizoo is a connection between buildings and animals on a larger scale.  He has taken buildings from all over the world and came up with these stylised animals inspired by famous buildings.  On his site he does not make reference to the building's name and just the Surname of the architect, we hope that we have identified them correctly.  Please let us know if there are any mistakes.

Dream or Nightmare in Surreal Paintings

Japanese Artist Naoto Hattori now living in the United States, says this about his work "My vision is like a dream, whether it's a sweet dream, a nightmare, or just a trippy dream. I try to see what's really going on in my mind, and that's a practice to increase my awareness in stream-of-consciousness creativity. I try not to label or think about what is supposed to be, just take it in as it is and paint whatever I see in my mind with no compromise. That way, I create my own vision."  Enjoy Hattori's magnificently surreal, dream inspiring, Artwork.

From Face Off to Intricate Body Painting

Body Painter and FX Artist Nix Herrera came to prominence when he entered the television Show Face Off (an amazing show, in which special effects artists compete against each other).  Today we are showing just a bit of the art that Herrera has created, using his models as his canvases, to create fantastically diverse art.  Enjoy...

Emotions and Character Drawings in Everyday Faces

Normal expressions not stylised or posed, this is the subject Paul Cadden seems to gravitate towards. Even though he uses photographs as a starting point and he keeps his portraits a photo like as possible, he always likes to add to the original image.  It is refreshing to see, at times, the people and faces that normally would not make covers of magazines except to put forward a sad or tragic story.  He shows us that we don't have to be scared of what are considered less than perfect features, which from an artistic point of view carries a lot more character.

GoT - Game of Thrones Digital Paintings

With the 5th series of Game of Thrones coming out on April the 12th 2015 Ania Mitura gives us a wonderful renditions of the characters, Old and New, in these beautiful Digital representations.  There are some Heroes and some Villains, with some noticeable absences, some still alive and some of them, dead.  Who do you love in this line up and who do you love to dislike?  Let us know in the comment section below.  Enjoy the new series...

Vintage Looking Beer and Water Paintings

All the best artist start with a simpler medium and then with experience and time, progress to more difficult and complex ones. Karen Eland is a bit different in her choices, as she started with coffee and then moved on to painting with beer.  We have included below a video where Eland tells us a bit more about her history and her technique.  The paintings are painted only using water and beer, at various states of dehydration, the less water content, the thicker and darker it becomes.  Using water to dilute it, she can get many different shades of brown giving her paintings depth and that beautiful old / vintage sepia look.

Surreal Artificial Reef Photography

Austrian Photographer and Photo Manipulator Andreas Franke marries old sunken ships with models in costumes, to create lovely surreal images.  Today we are covering two of his projects, the SS Stavronikita (devastated by fire 20 years ago) and the USS Mohawk, a historic WWII warship.  Both ships have been used as artificial reefs for decades, that only divers and the fish were able to enjoy, now all this has changed.  The photos taken on the SS Stavronikita feature models dressed from the Rococo Period (18th century artistic movement born in Paris, France).  On the the USS Mohawk the scene is a more modern one, taking costumes from the 20th century.   Images of the models, are then expertly superimposed on the images of the ship.  When the project was completed, images of the finished work were encased in Steel-Framed Plexiglas and left on the ships as a record.

Confronting our Lives in Miniature Sculptures

Frank Kunert is a Model Maker and a Photographer who does not use Photoshop to enhance his pictures.  Kunert is deliberate in his desire not to make his models and therefore his pictures, too polished and precise.  There is a lot hidden in these little snapshots, representing reality, sometimes humorous or satiric and sometimes the absurdity of the problems we live through in our daily lives.  You have to pay special attention, to see what hides in plain site  (look at the balconies...)

How to Spray Paint Stencil Portraits

Kaleb Higgins is a talented street artist that shows us how to stencil portraits or buildings.  By looking at the videos below, you can see how he divides the features of the face on different stencils, the same way, when he starts painting the Los Angeles Theatre Stencil, he puts details, background, shadows on different stencil.  There should be enough there to pick up the basics to this art form.  Enjoy trying it out...

Surreal Drawings from Popular Culture

British Freelance Illustrator Luke Tobias has completely different way of drawing characters from famous movies like Star Wars, comic book heroes like Batman or Spider-Man, Stories like Alice in Wonderland, video games like Super Mario and Music bands like Daft Punk.  The clothes are mismatched in some cases you have Victorian clothes and sneakers.  As well as all of this, the beauty of these drawings, lies in the way he mixes and matches the different characters in a very surreal style composition, where one images contains many different references that will not all be picked up at first glance, you really have to explore them.  Enjoy your travels through Tobias' art and see if you can spot all of the references.

Brain Twisting Gravity Defying Illusions

Magnificent little cardboard models that seem to allow them defy gravity and more over the laws of physics. Dr. of Engineering Sugihara Kokichi takes the often viewed 2D drawings of M.C. Escher or later interpretations and gives them his own twist, in these brilliant 3D brain melting models.  The beauty of the videos below is that Sugihara shows us the trick, but even when we see it, our brain has difficulty interpreting what the eyes see.  You know the saying "Don't believe everything you hear" should we now start saying, "Don't believe everything you see?"...

Detailed Moleskine Doodles Illustrations and Drawings

24 year old Philippines-based illustrator Kerby Rosanes is an artist we have followed for a long time, below we have included the links to the other posts, covering his work on DesignStack.  One thing we were impressed with from the beginning is his attention to detail and the complexity of his Moleskine Doodles.  We suggest you enlarge the images below so that you don't miss anything (just press the images to enlarge it, not the one above).  He has recently left his job as a graphic designer to pursue a self-employed carer, where he gets to decide the direction his work will follow.

Illustrations of Modern Egyptian Hieroglyphs

Russian Based Artist and Illustrator Anton Batov gives us a possible insite into Egyptian Hieroglyphics and how they would possibly look like if they were carved and painted today.  Modern trends like, the desire for luxury, that in some way, were the same at that time, except that now they are more accessible to the masses (but in no way universal).  Another theme that is recurrent in the old and the new symbols, is the prominence of fighting and arms.  Hieroglyphics date thousands of years back and it is amazing to see that, technology aside, our likes, our desires and wants have not changed that much in all this time.  

Surreal Photographs with Underwater Shots

American Photographer Jenna Martin started on a very different path in life, after having completed a Masters in Psychiatric Rehabilitation, she decided to dedicate her talent and passion to her love for photography.  It isn't just about the quality of the pictures she takes, but the subject matter, this choice is what puts good photographers head and shoulders above the rest.  Amongst her surreal work we have included some of her under water photographs as well.  Enjoy...

Unusual Miniature Animal Pets Photography

German media designer and photographer Bettina Güber photographs these playful scenes of miniature animals, interacting with items all around the house.  Can you see yourself having one of these miniatures, would you want one? Can imagine, even at such a small size, the amount of trouble they could cause?

Art of the Bubble Performance Master

Taiwanese artist Su Chung Tai and his Be Fantasy Show bubble performance art, has become much more than just a demonstration of what he can do  with some soapy bubbles.  It has become a stage performance that has broken world records, he has further enriched it, by including other performers to make a larger theatrical show.  To promote their act they tailor-make it for different audiences like: corporate events, parties, concerts and street performances,  We have included 3 videos for you to see just how brilliant Su really is.  Some are in Chinese but the images are what will keep you entertained.