The Pen is Mightier than Photoshop

What can be said about Gabriel Moreno? He is simply amazing! I am in love with this guy’s illustrations. He is most definitely a new favourite. I wish there was more information about him, but I’m having a lot of trouble finding anything other than his spectacular artwork.

The about section on his website (seen here) says that he is based out of Madrid, and graduated with a Fine Arts degree in 1998. However, it wasn’t until 2007 that he was picked up by Computer Arts, a popular magazine based in London, where he became globally renowned for his distinguishable style. Since then, his work has reportedly shown up in a number of places including many North American advertisements, newspapers, and magazines.

It looks like his preferable medium is pen on paper. I would love to see his artwork up close. I don’t think our computer screens do these illustrations any justice. He designs his artwork in large scale, and all we get to see is a downsized version of his talent.

This is the kind of artwork that inspires me. This is the stuff that makes me want to bust out some good ol’ pen and paper and start to draw again.

Thanks Mr. Moreno. Brilliance like yours is too few, and far between.

Think Differently

Street art! Why have I not show Street Art? Yes, since the works of Banksy and his fellow artists have been popping up all over the world, a new appreciation for graffiti and the likes have developed amongst the public. New and creative ways of making art on the streets has evolved into an era of unknown artist, with nothing but tags to show for their work.

Some people call it vandalism. Some laugh at it. Some describe it as a new wave of high art. Personally, I think it’s just fun. I see street art as taking the norm and developing it into something completely different, and in many ways more interesting.

Sure tags can be considered vandalism. I would consider most of the graffiti I see around my neighbourhood an act of vandalism, however when something makes you stop and smile, or hold your breath in disbelief, or think about a connotative meaning, I can easily appreciate it.

I can’t just speak for graffiti though, as I fully recognize that street art uses a variety of mediums to get there point across. Some are ridiculously original.

Here are examples taken from an amazing website of street art. For more from the website check out Next Web Design.

A New Way To Read

As much as I’d like to take the credit for coming across this one on my own, I found it on stumbleupon.com. I had to share the brilliance. I can’t imagine how much time must have gone into carving, and cutting these.

The website states that the artist cut out each page one at a time, however looking at some of the cuts, I find this hard to believe. Some of the outer carvings look like they would have been cut like wood. Regardless, the novelty (ha, get it! Novel-ty…yeah) and sheer devotion to detail is beyond spectacular.

The drawings and prints are original to the books, so the artist would have had to do some serious planning, and flagging pages to decide which to cut.

His creations range from using one book, to what looks like over 30 in some of his other installations.

What’s really mind blowing is the website shows hundreds of books, all designed and created by one man, Brian Dettmer(Click name for website). I am not sure if this is just a hobby of his or a job, but he seems to be getting quite a lot of buzz over the last few years for his hard work, especially online (thank you stumbleupon).