These feel like a dream… or maybe a beautiful nightmare. This monochrome meets neon work is by UK based artist Layla Holzer. She describes herself as a storyteller, and by the look of these stunning narrative pieces, I’d have to completely agree.

Here we are, project number 8 of 12! {If you missed the other projects, no problem, you can catch up right here.} This project is from American artist Sidney Pink. The idea this month is to set some rules and then play within them… in 30 minutes or less! Ready?

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#creativeunblock // august // by sidney pink, pg.91

There are so many things that fascinate me about Australian artist CJ Hendry. First, her insane ink drawings obviously, but… I think I might be even more obsessed with the images of her working! So fascinating to see her process in perfect black and white. But wait there’s more. I absolutely love her story… a few years ago she dropped out of an architecture degree to follow her passion. Good move.

“After having left school I enrolled in architecture and immersed myself in a world of lines, rendering, and architectural history,” Hendry said. “It was a completely captivating degree and I spent hour upon hour dissecting oversize black and white scale plans. All my assignments were hand drawn with a pen and ruler as I couldn’t figure out how to navigate CAD and Revit… [so she decided to take a year off]… I made a deal with myself – if I didn’t sell anything in 365 days I would re-enroll in university and go back to what I was doing. Luckily, after a couple of months I got my first major sale and there was no way I would ever set foot in a university campus again.” {via Mashable}

Ah-mazing. Ok, and there’s one more thing. She doesn’t seem to have a portfolio site. She posts all of her work via her Instagram account. Very smart. I’m not sure why she decided to do it that way, but it’s a great idea for any of you that want to share your work with the world but can’t afford {or can’t figure out how} to set up a full website. Final work, shots in progress… an amazing way to share your work… for FREE!

Tiger plates, pirate bowls, and what might possibly be the best cat urn in the entire world. This is the whimsicle work of Canadian ceramicist Mariko Paterson. I love this description, that I found on her site, of her studio and her process:

“So, this is the thing. We are a little operation and my wiener dogs,
as much as I would like for them to help in the studio…well, they are useless.

Each piece is handmade either on the wheel or by sheer force of my hands.
They are then decorated to death and fired up to four, count ’em, four times.
I wish I could work faster, but alas, I am a slow, but steady little machine.”

Love! I have two wiener dogs too… also useless {but cute}. Some of her work is available in her shop, or you can follow her on Instagram to see her latest pieces. ps. Thanks to Bella for sending me a link to Mariko’s work!

Amazing things will happen… yes they will! Today’s episode is an interview with Philadelphia based artist, illustrator, hand-lettering master, Mary Kate McDevitt. We talk about the best letters to draw, quotes from Ned Flanders, and we even have a little hand-lettering assignment for all of us at the end! You can listen right up there, under all of the amazingness, or you can subscribe on iTunes. Here is what we talked about, in the order that we talked about it. First of all, her hilarious, sweet and super fantastic 100 day project:

Love! And there are plenty more where these came from… she’s now on day 66 so there are a whole lot of people and pets in her instagram feed! Next, onto client work. Commissioned work is how Mary Kate spends most of her days. This is just a tiny little snippet {so much more on her site}:

I need that shirt. She does book covers, magazine covers, ads, you name it… all by hand. No computers, no fonts. So good. She also does a lot of personal work. These are two of the pieces that we were talking about… being a huge fan of reruns, she gets a lot of her favorite quotes from old TV shows, like News Radio and The Simpsons:

Ah, Ned. So wise. And finally the last thing we talked about was the letter l. Lovely little letter ‘L’, and so we decided to put out a creative challenge out for all of us… this is the hashtag you’ll need: #handletterlullaby

Thanks to Mary Kate for taking a break from unpacking her new studio, to Saatchi Art for supporting this episode, and to all of you for listening… the next episode will be up next Saturday!

I could literally spend hours looking through the Instagram feed of Seattle based artist Cheyenne Randall… ok, I just did. I cannot get enough! He adds the most beautifully hand-drawn tattoos to some of pop culture’s favorite icons… from Twiggy to Marilyn to Elvis. I was going to stop there, but I’m a child of the 80’s so clearly I also had to include these:

Yes. Oh, yes.

{You can buy his work as prints, originals, and apparel right here.}

Oh, Monday morning. I want to jump back into my bed for one more quick little bit of sleep… just long enough to have a colorful, beautiful, and totally wacky dream that resembles these mixed media pieces by Swedish born, London based artist/illustrator Monika Forsberg (aka Walkyland) … I want to make friends with little birds wearing shoes!

{via Lisa Congdon … you can find a really wonderful interview with Monika on Lisa’s site.}

Graphite and watercolor. Oh, and paper. That’s it. These mixed media drawings are the gorgeous work of Colombian artist Johan Barrios. Perfectly drawn portraits, on washy/loose fields of paint… I’d like to write more, but instead I’m just going to stare at these in awe. {Drawings!?}

I wrote about Peruvian artist Ana Teresa Barboza in 2013, and today I came across her series titled “Weaving the Moment”… obviously I had to write again. I have a major weakness for work that blurs the line between fine art and craft, and this my friends is a perfect example of that blurry line! I can’t get enough of the tangled embroidered roots dangling from the bottom of her canvases, and that crocheted water spilling from it’s wooden tap… oh my… so, so good!

*installation photos taken by Edi Hirose at Wu Galeria

These are mini portraits … and I mean mini : 4cm x 5.5cm … by Dutch artist Elvira Johanna Duives. Are they paintings? Nope. She told me that, “for the drawing of the face, clothes and hairdo I use fat juicy Copic markers, and for the details in the face I use color pencil.” Love. Their style and size are inspired by vintage passport photos, but those crazy amazing colors… they must be inspired by CANDY! ♥

ps. She puts up a “portrait of the week” every Monday on Facebook and Instagram… oh, and she also does commissions. Just sayin’.