I came across the Pothole Gardener today, and it’s totally put a smile on my face, this guy spends hours walking the streets of London looking for potholes and making tiny gardens in the- cute! It’s a bit like yarn bombing but scores a lot high on the cute scale, it’s also known as guerilla gardening.
Steven Wheen was asked why he did this and he said he just wants to bring a little happiness to people. He also is a fellow blogger on wordpress with a lot of videos on and a few pictures.
See all those people who say the don’t like graffiti. I think this is a fabulous idea and every village, town or city should have their own resident guerilla gardener
I know I’ve been bad recently- no posts for some time, sorry guys, life got in the way and I didn’t feel like it, haven’t produced anything at all, plus my keyboard and my mouse has broken which kinda gets in the way. Anyway I’ve just been looking at pinterest for some inspiration for any artwork for me to do or just anything to get the artistic juices flowing again, it didn’t really help but I’ve discovered a new artist that is just simply awesome. Her name is Nanami Cowdroy, born in Australia (one of my favourite countries), and he artwork just speaks to me, it’s amazing, I’ve always been a huge fan of pen and ink, there’s something very beautiful about it, the way it blends, the way you can just go crazy with it, the way it captures water onto paper, my carpet doesn’t like it too much though. Nanami’s artwork is the kind where you can stare at it for hours on end and still be picking out new bits, extremely busy, my favourite type! Nanami’s work has so much flow and energy running through it’s veins, it’s absolutely stunning. I love the fact she’s left all in monochrome, they don’t need colour, it just speaks for it’s self.
Nanami actually has a blog you can follow too which she frequently lets you know what she’s been upto and also there’s a link to some skins you can buy with her work on, I’ve never seen or bought from the website so I can’t really say if they’re any good, I think it’s only USA & Canada they sell to.
Nanami’s work does strongly eco traditional Japanese art but with a grungy modern twist, which makes sense as she lives in Australia (amazing country by the way) with an Asian background. I think it’s a brilliant and balanced mix.
I think many people are unaware of book carving, some might even think it a waste of good books, I’m not in either of those categories. I think that it’s a beautiful and skilled craft and it really gives a new life to old books.
The thing about book carving is that it seems to pull a story or subject from right off of the page, suddenly books on engineering become interesting, or books on aviation history appeals to everyone. I think it speaks to the imaginative child in all of us, when we used to truly believe in magic (well, there are still some adults that believe but we won’t go there). For me they make me think of the Adam’s Family library and we all wanted one of those, right?
I love the picture below, it looks just like I’m peering out of a cave.
I’m sure there are a lot of people who probably think that destroying books is a bit like graffiti artists tagging our culture, but that’s what art’s about, changing culture, creating something that tugs at your heart strings, something that completely changes the way you look at an object. I’m not saying some one should do this to the dead sea scrolls or the original works of Shakespeare but in a world where books are becoming obsolete we need to do something with them to recycle them and give new life to the stories printed inside, think of all of the books you’ve got sitting gathering dust on your shelves , I bet you’re now looking at them slightly differently and wondering where your craft knife and PVA glue is, have a go at it, you’ll ruin a few but your not going to need them, that’s why you’ve got your Kindle!