Ai Weiwei: Unilever Series - Sunflower seeds

I recently visited the Tate Modern on my trip back home, I wasn't really fussed about going as not much changes there from time to time, but it's free and its a nice way to spend part of the day, it's a nice place, a nice gallery. What I hadn't thought of seeing was Ai Weiwei's amazing Sunflower seeds! I had seen it on the news, but thought that it would not be there still, I'm glad it was.

You walk into the main space and you see a blanket covering the floor, a blanket of hand painted porcelain sunflower seed. It is a humbling experience and quite hard to fathom the actual number of them spread out on the floor or the amount of time it took 1,700 Chinese workers to create. The scale of it is amazing, I was sad that they stopped people from walking across them as Ai Weiwei had originally intended (health and safety reasons) but still it was an experience.

The work looks at mass production, of the Chinese economy which churns out hundred and thousands of goods. It makes you wonder if they are necessary, question the very nature of a society which can produce endless amounts of goods. This is mirrored in the way in which Ai Weiwei employed people to create the millions of seeds, all created with painstaking detail. It is definitely something to see and something which will stay with me for a very long time.

(I did take photos, but they aren't as good as the ones off the Tate website!)

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unileverseries2010/

Blu

Blu is a street artist who creates amazing pieces of art, they tend to be large and intricately detailed. These are two images from his online sketchbooks, they are the types of things he paints on walls, they are often weird but I really like the level of detail displayed and the messages in the work. His street art has relevance to the places it is painted, often reflecting the urban or industrial environment. This can also be seen in his sketches and ideas, some of them are really thought provoking. His style on a pad is sketchy and pretty much consists of line drawings, a style similar to Tom Gauld's.

http://www.blublu.org/sito/updates/updates.htm

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU

This is a video done on street walls by the artist Blu. I saw this on the internet years ago but completely forgot about it, I saw it again in a street art book in the library. It is a really amazing thing to watch, the amount of time and paint it must have taken would have been quite the undertaking.

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

http://www.blublu.org/sito/video/muto.htm 

25 Examples of Illustration and Hand Drawn Elements in Web Design

I found  this article as I do with most of the ones I come across, randomly. It seems to work, I'm gonna go with it. It is a collection of illustrative websites that are really nice and cool to use, they are all very visual. My favourite being the bottle one, (Jan Ploch) as the liquid drains and refills as you scroll up and down, very clever!

 The Threepenny Editor

http://www.threepennyeditor.com/

 Analogue

http://www.madebyanalogue.co.uk/ 

Jan Ploch

http://janploch.de/

http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/25-examples-of-illustration-and-hand-drawn-elements-in-web-design

Lego film posters

These posters are all a clever spin on this summers blockbusters, mirroring the layout and style of the original posters but using Lego! They are really clever illustrations, the Lego figures are all in proportion and look just like their human counterparts! I like the style of illustration and the way they have been manipulated, a great distinctive visual style. You really can't go wrong with Lego, everyone thinks its cool.

http://www.nextmovie.com/blog/2011-summer-movies-in-lego-form/

http://oldredjalopy.com/ 

Erik Månsson

This image intrigues me as it reminds me of Remed's characters and shapes, he uses patterns and very clean lines with lots of rounded edges and curves. This added to the style of the skull against the blackness of the head and shoulders is very similar to Remed's. I really like the contrasts of the black, white and yellow, and the way that they over lap in creating a very symmetrical foreground. What I dislike are the shapes in the background, they seem out of place, they use gradient tones to create a sense of shape and add depth where in my opinion is not needed. Overall I like the image, I like the clean lines and curves of the shapes.

http://www.flickr.com/people/erimansson/

Josh Holland

I am largely unsure about this illustration, it stood out and I like the artists style but there something which does not sit right when I look at it, and I am unable to pin point what that is. What I do like about  the style is the neon colours of the blobs and the way in which they are somewhat translucent. I like the use of line and the way in which the artist uses outlines to make the shapes in the foreground standout from the shades of the background. This gives the illustration depth and is a really good technique and the main reason I like it. I like the artists style, the boldness, the rounded edges, it all seems very substantial and solid. 

http://art.josholland.com/