Birthday Celebrations

Separated by 380 years, this week marks the birthdays of the original bad boy artist, Caravaggio, who among other things is credited with using an early form of photography in his groundbreaking work into Chiaroscuro, and the venerable Adobe® Photoshop® application, also capable of a little chiaroscuro, turns 20 years young. Lifehacker is celebrating with a list of favorite Photoshop tricks and tips.

Lurzer's 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide

Store 44 Illustrators Carlos Araujo and Giulio Iurissevich are both featured in Lurzer's 200 Best Illustrators Worldwide

Congratulations to our 10 contest winners who are receiving a free copy of the book: John J, Scott N, Gordon W, Nancy M, Christine O, Elisin T, Dan S, Danielle S, Britt B, and Mary B.

1000 True Fans

Back in March, Wired Editor-At-Large and Cool Tools Blogger Kevin Kelly posted a business plan for working artists entitled, 1,000 True Fans. The concept is pretty simple. From the article:

"A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living."

How you ask? With a little more marketing, of course!

Article via BoingBoing.

Animated Mural

Italian artist Blu and his crew put together this excellent stop motion video called MUTO. Captured in a series of stills, the characters in the mural move across the walls and streets of Buenos Aires. Must see not-TV, for sure. I also enjoyed his sketchbook series entitled, Four Suicides. Paperwork. It's a killer. Found on Gizmodo.

Jumping From Space

A friend recently shared this video with me. Although the event itself occurred almost 50 years ago, making it older than the internet, it's still pretty incredible. I guess they had video cameras attached to him, and the balloon. The result is magical. I think the song is by Unkle, but I'll leave it to the music snobs to correct me.

A Photo History Find

The New York Times Art and Design section writes of a recent photo find, featuring the 100 year old work of Edward Steichen, famous for his early color photographs, winning an Academy Award for best documentary, and serving as Director of Photography at New York's Museum of Modern Art. More recently, he made news when one of his early 1900's platinum prints, "The Pond - Moonlight" broke the record for photography auction at Sotheby's with a price of $US 2.9 Million.

Record Setting Nude Photo

Artist Spencer Tunick staged a record setting group nude photo in Mexico City's Zocalo Square. 18,000 people posed for the photograph, as police and no-fly zones kept the onlookers at bay. Tunick is famous for similar shoots in Germany and Spain.

And while we're delving into NSFW territory with a little nudity, here's an interesting blog submitted to me by an artist simply titled, "Sex in Art". 18 and over only, please! The site does contain some graphic imagery, and as a precaution, I'm linking to their disclaimer page.

Making Daguerreotypes

Here's an article about making Daguerreotype photographs, the first patented photographic process, using iodine and silver. Article includes links to samples and Daguerreotype archives. Article and photo found via Make: