Nature's Wild Unicorn

Found via Eliza Frye, this is CalArts' student Noel Belknap's 2007 animation about the wild unicorn. Awesome.

ReDiscover {Kelly Tunstall & Ferris Plock}

The characters in the U2 music video/animation I posted earlier remind me of Kelly Tunstall's wide-eyed girls. I know the big-doe-eyed-girl thing is played over and over again, but there's something truly special about Kelly's girls. I love the way she portrays her characters... so fashionable and so much fun attention is paid to other elements of her paintings, I can't help but have a crush on many. I am lucky enough to have a new painting (in-process image above) from Kelly working its way from San Fran to my tiny home art collection... super yays!!

Kelly and her husband, the talented artist Ferris Plock, have a show, "Sea of Love", opening soon at 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco (Aug. 6 - 29th). I HIGHLY recommend dropping by and being passionately inspired by their lovely, fun and collaborative work.

Tangerine by Kelly Tunstall. 8"H, Mixed Media. Click for larger image. Kokeshi available through JANM Store.

Frost by Ferris Plock. 8"H, Mixed Media. Click for larger image. Kokeshi available through JANM Store.

****Speaking of Animation and Kelly and Ferris' uber talentedness, admire this video they recently made with Jim Dirschenberger:

The Seafarers - Sea of Love from Eighty Four Films on Vimeo.

Animation Fascination cont.

U2 - I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Spotted this on Gallery Nucleus' blog. First time for me to hear the song and I'm not sure I'm lovin' it just yet... but the animation has me listening all the way through and more willing to give it some time. As the years pass it gets harder to love U2 the way I did in high school when I had their albums on cassettes. But there's a favorite now and again and their passion for music and creative vision is contagious.

Stay a little while.

Bryum & Kapok 01: A Memory from Overture on Vimeo.

Bryum & Kapok 02: An Idea from Overture on Vimeo.

Bryum & Kapok 03: A Lilt from Overture on Vimeo.

Good Question: RSS Feeds and Readers

I use Shrook to stay up-to-date on all the blogs/websites I follow. A friend of mine uses Google Reader. There are several other free RSS readers online, but I am not familiar with using them. If you don't know what an RSS feed is, take a look at my very first post and there's a link explaining what it is and how to save your favorite sites.

Above is a screenshot of Shrook in action on my computer. The second column on the left is the name of the website bookmarked, the yellow numbers show how many new posts have been added since I last looked at the site. The middle column shows a written preview of what has been posted, with yellow stars indicating posts I have not clicked on yet. Posts can go away or stay depending on the preferences you set up. You can also mark posts that you want to go back to. The last row shows the written text of a post and any photos (not all sites are set-up to display images in the reader, but the majority do... I definitely pay more attention to the sites that show a picture in my reader). Shrook is very easy to use and the software has regular updates, it doesn't crash like it use to and I love all the options to customize it the way I prefer looking at posts.

Go now and fill your RSS Reader with many time sucking and creative juice flowing sites!

Thank you to "katefeesh" for the question on how I keep up with so many feeds. Now I have her blog to take a look it... this is how the web entangles you :)

Cool Hunting Interview (link at bottom of post)

As of this post I have 338 bookmarked RSS feeds, or in layman terms, a whole lotta sites I try to stay up to date with. I use these sites to distract me from my day, learn how to find cheap deals, see what the latest pattern trend is, see adorably cute animals and read up on friends' activities, etc. etc. Included in this vast pool of sites I look at regularly is Cool Hunting. I was excited to learn at the Kokeshi preview, a writer from the site wanted to post the event and even ask a few questions to yours truly. Here's the damage ;)

Thank you Julie and Cool Hunting!

Discover {Yellena James}

"Morning" Pen and Ink on Paper.

"Eva", 2009. Acrylic on Wood. 7.75" tall. Available at the JANM Store.

I first came across Yellena James' work through a design blog, wish I could name the one but starting several years ago I have been following so many that they all get mixed around in my head, but needless to say it was a really good one! Yellena calls Portland, Oregon home... I've come discover this area is a treasure trove of great talent.

Yellena has work on Etsy, mostly prints with a rare original drawing posted. Her colorful organic shapes make me think of dreamland flowers and meadows.

Yellena's kokeshi for the 2007 Custom Kokeshi show @ Subtext Gallery, San Diego.

Check out her incredible body of work and learn more about this talented artist at www.yellana.com.