On of the things I love about Squidmar Miniatures is that Emil is always trying unique, unusual, and just plain kooky stuff to make his miniature painting channel more entertaining and fun. Chalk this one up to kooky.

In it, he paints the bust of a medieval knight while dressed in a set of 14th century armor. Given the weight and the heat, he's exhausted even before he starts painting and it's not long before he starts removing the helmet, the gauntlets...

Some of the YouTube comments are great:

"Now to take it to the next level: Painting a dragon, as a dragon."

"When you realize the bust of the knight has no arms."

"You should make a series called 'painting an X dressed as an X.' That would be cool."

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Julian Baumgartner has been sharing wonderful videos of his amazing art restorations, including one of his most ambitious projects ever, the restoration of a copy of Guido Reni's masterpiece L'Aurora. Spend an hour watching a master of his craft transform this work. Read the rest

“I painted a happy little scene from Animal Crossing. Doomguy is there too!”

This video is from Two Ruru Paints, IMGURian @tworuru's YouTube show in which he paints landscapes and scenes from video games and pop culture. Read the rest

In 1962, Andy Warhol exhibited his famous Campbell's Soup Cans paintings for the first time and cemented his place as a Pop Art powerhouse. Previously, Warhol had bridged his commercial and fine art efforts with paintings based on comic strips and advertisements, but he (rightly) felt that style had already been done by Lichtenstein and others. So why soup cans? Smithsonian has the story in an excerpt from Blake Gopnik's new book Warhol. From Smithsonian:

Warhol’s final breakthrough into ’60s Pop came through an accidental inspiration from a minor dealer on the New York scene named Muriel Latow. She was a flamboyant decorator, three years younger than Warhol, and had hopes of becoming a serious art dealer. Latow has gone down in history as Pop Art’s most important, if accidental, muse. As the story is told—in one of its many, mostly incompatible versions—Latow went to a dinner at Warhol’s house in the fall of ’61 to console him for having been one-upped by Oldenburg and Lichtenstein and others. “The cartoon paintings...it’s too late,” Warhol is supposed to have said. “I’ve got to do something that really will have a lot of impact, that will be different enough from Lichtenstein.” He begged his guests for ideas, and Latow came up with one, but wouldn’t deliver until Warhol handed over a check for $50. “You’ve got to find something that’s recognizable to almost everybody,” she said. “Something you see every day that everybody would recognize. Something like a can of Campbell’s Soup.”

Over one week, this $500,000, Naples, Florida home belonging to Jeffrey Leibman, 40, was transformed from boring beige to a wild, multicolored dream house. The grounds and trees have also been, er, brightened up. I think it has great curb appeal! From ABC7News (video below):

A Naples homeowners association said it's actually suing the man they believe trashed this house.

Right now, management said Leibman is no longer living in the home, and court records show he's due in court this weekend for drug charges.

(Thanks to our Florida bureau chief, Charles Pescovitz!)

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One of my favorite new gaming miniature painting channels is Emil Nyström's Age of Squidmar. In just six months of making videos, Emil has already established himself as a content creator to watch. Not only is he a talented miniature painter and painting teacher, he also chooses fun themes for his channel that go beyond things like painting weapons with non-metallic paint, using a wet palette, and model basing (all of which he's covered).

In the above video, Emil ventures onto the online marketplace Fiverr, finds some miniature painters there, and requests that they paint a single Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine. To make the challenge more interesting, he kept his identity secret and sent them a reference model from Golden Demon painter, Antonio Peña, and asked them to paint a Primaris Intercessor in Imperial Fists colors, one of the most difficult Space Marine color schemes in the 40K universe.

He got quotes in response that ranged from $10 ($25 with shipping) to $110. After several painters bailed, he went beyond the confines of Fiverr and commissioned two pro painters, asking for a $40 paint job from one and a $100 job from the other. He ended up commissioning six painters.

The results across the board were pretty decent. Even the $10 jobs were very respectable tabletop quality. The most impressive for the money ($40) was the model seen above. They even painted a display on the Auspex (Space Marine handheld scanner). This painter also did a two-part video of him painting the model. Read the rest

During the 1950s, surrealist and ethologist Desmond Morris mentored Congo, a chimpanzee, in the great ape's artistic pursuits. Congo painted more than 400 works that were purchased by the likes of Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. And now Morris is selling his collection of 55 of Congo's paintings at London's Mayor Gallery. He's keeping just one of them. The paintings -- which will be priced around £1,500 – £6,000 -- will first be on exhibit from December 3-19. From It's Nice That:

Morris worked with a number of apes in his research but explains that none matched Congo’s apparent artistic instinct. “No other apes were controlling the mark making and varying the patterns as he was,” Morris says. “I originally picked Congo out as one of the more boisterous at the zoo and felt that his strong personality would respond well to to focused periods of working together..."

Morris commented on his decision to sell all but one of his favourite paintings from the time, saying “I am holding onto the serious, scientific research notes that I made during my years working with Congo, but, at 91 years old, I now would rather that the paintings and drawings be made available to other collectors, to whom I hope they will bring as much pleasure as they have to me.”

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Mindbending work by Portugal-based graffiti artist Rodrigo Miguel Sepúlveda Nunes, aka Vile. See more at his Instagram feed, vile_graffiti.

(via Kottke)

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A post shared by ?VILE? (@vile_graffiti) on Aug 15, 2019 at 9:59am PDT

You know what's better than a smartwatch? Literally everything else. But especially: the centuries' worth of wrist-mounted paint palettes worn by some artists. Read the rest

Joan C Gratz's animated short "Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase" is a lovely and trippy 2D claymation of iconic artworks transforming one into another. After spending a decade on the piece, Gratz won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Gratz called her animation technique "clay painting." From Educational Media Reviews Online:

“Clay-painting” is a unique process that blends film and painting, and an innovation that garnered Joan Gratz’s Mona Lisa Descending A Staircase a 1992 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. In this true landmark of animation, numerous famous and iconic paintings from 20th century art are “reproduced as exactly as possible but the transitions between these paintings [are] used to communicate the relationship of artistic movements” as Gratz has stated. “In the clay painting technique, which I began developing in 1966, I work by painting directly before the camera, making changes to a single painting, shooting a frame, repainting and shooting, etc. In the end there is one painting with the process recorded on film, the product is the process.”

I heard a rumor that Willem Dafoe will be filming a movie for Disney near where I've been dry camping these past six months. All of the employees at the lodge where he'll be staying have been instructed to only speak to him if he talks to them first. Gross.

But not quite gross enough to keep me from wanting to see At Eternity's Gate, a new film starring Dafoe about the trials and tribulations in the life of Vincent Van Gogh. Read the rest

Yoko Eda, a recent grad from Musashino Art University's Science of Design department, has produced a series of gorgeous, hyperealistic acrylic paintings showing everyday objects (glue bottles, toothpaste tubes, packages of plastic tubs, cleaning brushes, boxes of matches, lip balm tubes) sliced and arrayed like sashimi. Spoon and Tamago has lots more of Eda's outstanding work. Read the rest

Kareem Waris Olamilekan is a Nigerian artist who paints astounding hyperreal portraits. He's 11. From his Instagram @waspa_art:

I am waspa the bitty artist Art is my calling It's in me I draw, paint and design.

All Africa interview: "My Legs Shook As I Drew the Portrait of French President"

(Thanks Bob Pescovitz!)

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For centuries, many fine books have held a magical secret not within their pages but on the edges. Stunning fore-edge paintings are only visible when the book's pages are slightly fanned. Great Big Story introduces us to Martin Frost, one of the world's last fore-edge painters.

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This lovely trilogy of videos by Vugar Efendi collects shots from movies that are homages to notable paintings. Read the rest

When Brooklyn-based artist Iris Scott begins a new piece, she doesn't get out paintbrushes. Instead, she simply puts on gloves when she starts on an oil painting. Scott is a fine art finger painter.

This 10-minute long mini documentary on her from a couple of years ago shares how she got started and what she thinks of her "gift." She's quick to point out that it's not a natural talent, that it's the result of a lot of time and practice:

I do not think I was just gifted by any means. I think that I just practiced a lot. The only gift you might say I have is a tremendous interest and willingness to put tons of hours at it. I definitely don't believe people are born with the gift to paint. I know I wasn't. I just practiced a lot starting at a very early age. And anyone can pick up painting at any time of their life and as long as you throw a ton of hours at it, you will improve in ways you just never thought you possibly could. Just watch what happens, go throw 10,000 hours at one subject or one art form and just watch what happens, suddenly everyone will start telling you you are gifted.

Here's a how-to video she made that shows her process a little closer:

Do go check out her site. I was blown away by her work.

(The Awesomer) Read the rest

Artist Peter Combe turns hardware store paint swatches into gorgeous pixellated portraits. Read the rest