Don't play with your food (too)

Helga Stentzel is a Russian-born visual artist based in London. She works across a wide range of media including illustration, photography, video and stop motion animation.

She has built a large following for her playful art that often uses everyday objects and household items in creative and unexpected ways. 

 

Especially love the dog ones

Tray planting

Bonsai (Japanese: 盆栽, 'tray planting'), is a Japanese art form which utilises cultivation techniques to produce small trees in containers, that mimic the shape and scale of full size trees.

 I'm obviously not enough from my bonsai, as clearly shown in this post from the Twisted Sifter people

Bonsai Fruit Trees are a Thing and They’re Pretty Adorable (11 Photos)

 A recent post on reddit sent me down a wonderful Internet rabbit hole in search of Bonsai fruit trees growing both full-sized and miniature-sized fruit.

People considering a Bonsai fruit tree should know that in the winter the leaves of a fruit tree will fall and the they typically grow much faster. You can find many more tips on growing Bonsai and specific considerations for growing Bonsai fruit trees here.

To see more pictures of Bonsai fruit trees and learn more about the art form, check out Bonsai Empire. 

1.

 2.

 3.

4.

 5.

 6.

 7.

 8.

 9.

 10.

 11.

Ballet movements

Amazing footage - an overhead view of a humpback whale surfacing through a bait ball of fish. The drone footage was captured off the coast of La Jolla, California by  DolphinDoneDom. The first eruption is the best as the whale materialises from the depths.



A bait ball occurs when small schooling fish swarm in a tightly packed spherical formation about a common centre. It is a last-ditch defensive measure adopted by small schooling fish when they are threatened by predators. You can see the birds circling attracted by the bait fish and seemingly not scared off by the whale.

Ocean waves

From the people at TwistedSifter comes this awesome video 'MOCEAN' it is an incredible short film by Chris Bryan that captures the raw power and beauty of waves. 

 A major part of the beauty of the video is the colours - yes I know water is clear, but the reflected and absorbed shades and tones add to the mood and that sense of power.

All the images where shot using a Phantom Flex 4K camera with Leica Summilux lenses and Bryan’s custom underwater housings.

Image from 'Back to water' Chris Bryan

3D bookshelf

Didn't realise it has been sooo long between posts.
So here is one from Twisted Sifter.

Dutch street artists Jan Is De Man and Deef Feed recently completed this amazing mural on the side of an apartment building in Utrecht, Netherlands.
According to Jan, the artists asked people in the neighbourhood to share their favourite books so they could incorporate local favs into the 3Dtrompe-l'oeil mural. The mural took about a week to paint. 

Love the way they have incorporated the windows into the work, think they look like the pamphlet boxes with the insert label frames.

From in space

It has been a long time between posts, but not a great length of time in galactic terms. So I've gone into space for inspiration - the result:

Trami

In September European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst recently shared a series of incredible images of Typhoon Trami from the International Space Station, where he is currently serving as Station Commander for Expedition 57.

Trami

‘Trami’ was originally a category 5 super typhoon but has since weakened to a Category 3 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of approximately 195 km/h as it prepared to make landfall.

Trami

According to CNN, ‘Trami’ comes on the heels of Super Typhoon Mangkhut, which cut a swath of destruction through northern Luzon in the Philippines less than two weeks ago.’

Gerst described it ‘as if somebody pulled the planet’s gigantic plug.’

Florence

Also in September, Gerst took another series of photographs, this time of Hurricane Florence as it approached the United States.

Florence

Then in October Gerst captured a brief and yet beautiful time-lapse of the Aurora Borealis dancing above Earth.

Inspiring nature

Faye Halliday is a travelling artist best known for her incredible black marker illustrations. 

Originally from the UK and currently living in Costa Rica, the artist has amassed huge followings on Instagram and Facebook as she shares her ongoing artworks and creative pursuits. 

In an ongoing series of illustrated paper cutouts, Faye has been using nature’s vibrant palette to fill in her works and she has been using the results as inspiration for her coloured prints and canvases.

The stories behind the faces:

Faye has been drawing these animals for years. She sees “each creature has brought with it a lesson and a means for me to heal and grow as a person during different points in my life. 

Sometimes I'd approach the paper with a particular intention in mind and have it reflected back to me. Other times, the meaning or lesson behind the animal would reveal itself towards the end of the piece.

This is why I refer to these creations as ‘family’. The countless hours of love and attention that went into creating them...and the warm reminders of the lessons and support they gave me. 

In my experience, people have resonated with the pieces that carry a meaning relevant to their present circumstances. 

Which is why it might be interesting for you to see which animal you're drawn to, before finding out its meaning." 
(Check out the Meet-the-family link).

< Possibly my fave 'Rajaga' (Fire)

Faye produces her designs as prints for sale, and also t-shirts, temporary tattoos, and as phone cases.

The story behind the 'Pani' (Water) phone case design.

Heaven on earth is waiting for us to relax into our hearts, let go of the burdens we hold onto and wake up from the dream of stress. Inspired by the colours dancing in its glimmering surface, Pāṇī is an acknowledgement of the endless lessons to be found in water.

In a world of rigidity, water shows us how in all of its gentle flexibility, it cannot be destroyed. Freeze and it turns to ice, boil and it turns to vapour, drink it and it endlessly nourishes the people it passes through before eventually returning to its source.

Buying a book

Twisted Sifter has a number of photographs of the beautiful Buenos Aires ‘El Ateno Grand Splendid’ bookshop inside a 100-year-old theatre. 

Situated at 1860 Santa Fe Avenue in Barrio Norte, Buenos Aires, you will find one of the most stunning bookstores in the world. El Ateneo Grand Splendid is one of the best known bookshops in Argentina. 

Designed by the architects Peró and Torres Armengol, with ceiling frescoes painted by Nazareno Orlandi and support columns sculpted by Troiano Troiani, the grand theatre first opened in May 1919 with a seating capacity of 1,050. In the late 1920s it was converted into a movie theatre, and then retrofitted into a flagship bookshop during 2000.

According to a recent study by the World Cities Culture Forum, Buenos Aires has more bookshops per inhabitant than any other city in the world – roughly 1 bookshop per 3,937 inhabitants (Melbourne is well back at 1 per 12,945. It does fare better with the number of public libraries – Buenos Aires has one library for 35,680 inhabitants, while Melbourne has one for every 29,213 – so maybe Melbournians just prefer to borrow rather than buy!).

Pics of the Day

Reminiscing with Twisted Sifter, as they post their best 50 'Pictures of the Day' for 2015.

'Water walkway in Croatia'

One day I'd love to visit the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia - more than once, to see it in different seasons, (and without the crowds of people!).

From the everyday to the extraordinary, the 50 photos of the day cover the gambit from macro - the galaxy inside a flower, to the world encompassing - astronaut's salute to Mr Spock/Leonard Nimoy.

Then there's opportune - a pirate kite, and the what is that, oh - the Yunnan rice paddy terraces.