Onelargeprawn
If you thought the boligrafo portraits by Juan Francisco Casas were photorealistic, you’ll be astonished at the level of detail in the hyperrealistic paintings by Jason de Graaf.
The Canadian painter creates scenes that look as if they were photographed or computer-generated. Instead, he painstakingly applies acrylic paints to canvas to create the illusion. Have a look at some of his incredible, intricate paintings after the jump.
In her series of 54 “pop reinterpretations”, illustrator Hillary White applies acrylic to canvas and re-imagines classic artworks to include characters from popular films, TV shows, cartoons, and comics.
White paints her reinterpretations in the same style as the old masters would have done and amusingly replaces James Whistler’s mother with a teenage mutant ninja turtle, inserts the hulking Voltron into a Monet, and has Big Bird explaining the musculature of Kermit’s arm to the Muppets in oil painting by Rembrandt.
See some of White’s creative pop culture mashups after the jump.
It is said that human beings are hard-wired to identify the human face from a distance. We only need a few minimal details to make the recognition, and as such we’re predisposed to seeing human faces in everyday objects such as clouds, buildings, and paintings. This phenomenon is termed pareidolia, and you can see it in the paintings of Oleg Shuplyak. The artist from Ukraine cleverly uses people, objects, and landscapes to give his paintings a double meaning. See the hidden faces in a few of Shuplyak’s paintings after the jump.
Believe it or not, Toronto-based artist Amy Shackleton uses no paintbrushes to create her landscape paintings. She uses squeezy bottles to apply different colours of paint to her canvas, and harnesses the power of gravity to control the flow of the paint. She rotates the canvas as she pours the paints and also works on the floor, to pool the thicker enamel paint and shape it into the forms that she requires.
Have a look at some of her brushless paintings and a time-lapse video of her process after the jump.
The French invasion of Russia of 1812 didn’t quite go according to plan. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée of 500,000 were whittled down to a meagre 27,000 in six months and their embarrassed leader beat a hasty retreat to Paris. The Emperor of Russia at the time, Alexander I, was no doubt pleased as punch to have won, and commissioned an Englishman named George Dawe painted 329 portraits of Russian generals who were instrumental in the victory against the French.
The person/people behind Replaceface use Dawe’s portrait paintings in a rather humourous way. They substitute the heads of the Russian military men with those of leading men of another kind — Hollywood actors. The older actors, gentleman such as Alan Rickman, Bill Murray, and Stephen Fry fit the part and look like they could have been generals. Robert Pattinson, on the other hand, looks like a bit of a dick.
Have a gander at some of the celebrity generals after the jump.
Reportedly today marks the beginning of Spring in South Africa. Cape Town clearly didn’t get the memo, and we’re swamped in grey moody clouds. My memory is sketchy at the best of times, but according to @Mallix on Twitter the weather is supposed to be crap this time of year.
Come on now people – everyone knows September/October is our coldest season. Harden the fuck up! #capetown
When one thinks of spring, it conjures up happy images of rebirth… of new plants springing forth… of colourful bikinis. We contemplate the latter in this post through the art of 68-year-old master painter, Hilo Chen. The artist is famous for his photorealistic oil-on-canvas paintings of nudes and flowers, with critics saying the skin tones on his ladies are so “real” you’d want to reach out and touch them. Have a look at some of his beach paintings after the jump. I have covered up the naughty bits but you can click on those images to see the uncensored images.
Whether it be Julius Malema versus common sense or the South African cricket team fighting a losing battle or even the ageless pirates versus ninjas argument (incidentally see here for a collection of ninjas), there have always been epic rivalries. “The struggle is forever. It makes the world turn around.” says awesome illustrator Scott Campbell, whose Tumblr blog is a chronicle of the great confrontations in film history. Have a look at some of his adorable “great showdowns” after the jump.
Student Rory McInnes secretly made a secret addition to his parent’s 1-million pound house. Inspired after watching a documentary on Google Earth, Rory grabbed a tin of white paint, hopped onto the roof of the family home and spent half an hour drawing a 60-foot willy!
The massive phallus went unnoticed for a year until a helicopter pilot spotted it, and hovered so his passenger could take photos. His parents were only made aware when a UK newspaper contacted them for a comment.
Company director Andy, 54, thought it was a wind-up when The Sun contacted him about the painting.
Andy then spoke to all four of his kids demanding answers.
When he phoned Rory — in Brazil as part of his gap year travels — the lad burst out laughing, saying: “Oh, you’ve found it then!”
Rory’s mum Clare, 49, said: “We don’t want any more children, so the idea of sleeping under a giant fertility symbol is rather worrying.”
Read the full story at The Sun.
According to Hogin, “The allegorical canvases of faulty fauna, mutant fruit and brand-loyal monkeys suggest the lavishness and opulent detail of the17th through 19 th century European traditions to which they refer, but these painterly flourishes and delicate details belie subversive cultural critique.”
See more of her work at LittleJohn Contemporary Gallery.
