Seattle, Washington
My good friend, renowned designer Pat Hansen, has just launched a truly unique online gallery featuring works of fine art by accomplished professional graphic designers, illustrators, photographers, architects and interior designers — work created “on the side.” Many designers create outstanding art outside of their day-to-day practice, but few have had a way of exhibiting such works. Most offerings in Portfolio2 Gallery are one-of-a-kind or offered in limited editions, and have not been available until now.
An initial collection of fine art pieces is currently available here, in a range of media including painting, drawings, sculpture, photography, mixed-media, ceramics and various craft techniques. Accomplished professionals in the design industry (initially only in the USA) are invited to participate by exhibiting pieces they have created “outside of their professional career.” Portfolio2 Gallery’s commisson is 25%, and works of art are shipped (shipping price included!) directly from the artist to the buyer (again, only in the USA for now).
Initial response from the design community has been overwhelming. As noted by Chicago designer Greg Samata, “The idea of an online gallery to aggregate designers’ independent work is a brilliant one. It is an opportunity to make an extraordinary body of work available to the general public.”
A few samples are shown below… view the gallery’s current offerings here.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL), an “open access digital library for biodiversity literature and archives,” has for many years been making it easy for people to connect to nature through nature writing and illustration. Its “first stream,” currently at 122,281 images, has been carefully curated, and includes searchable galleries and albums divided by book title or subject, such as “Exotic botany illustrated,” “The Birds of Australia v.1,” and “Bats!” Its “second stream,” consisting of over 2 million images, is a massive grab-bag of photos, illlustrations from nature, advertisements, and imaginative renderings.
This digital library offers potential for chance discovery through “the aimless wandering that often leads to serendipitously sublime experiences.” The image archives “offer expansive views of humanity’s encounter with the natural world, not only through statistics and academic jargon, but through the artistic recording of wonder, scientific curiosity, and deep appreciation.” Many of the images allow “zooming in” to carefully observe details of the artists’ illustrative processes.
Enjoy! (source)
Well, maybe not always…
(original illustration source unknown)
(original source unknown)
Bowen Island, British Columbia
This is a 24 x 36 inch poster created last year by my über-talented friend Marian Bantjes, composed of sand and dirt from around the world. Coexistence is printed on thick, durable, archival Epson Enhanced Matt paper using Epson UltraChrome HDR ink-jet technology.
Copyright © 2016 Marian Bantjes, All rights reserved.
(original image source unknown)
