The winner will be announced this Friday, May 18th –  judged by the likes of Katy Perry, Jordin Sparks and Mo Williams among others…You can find Eileen’s and all the state finalists’ artwork here: http://www.google.com/doodle4google/finalists.html.

These designs are so clever.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get this post together in time to announce before the voting had closed but check it out for the winner. It’s a cool concept from Google to get budding artistic children interested in the arts. Who knows, maybe their current artist, who I did this post on, can take a break every now and then.

The themes are chosen by the most clever conceptualization of the Google Logo that expresses the visual answer to this question, “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…” Eileen’s theme work is the 1970′s. I like her rendition of the fingers making the peace sign and that daisy “o” flower is so groovy. Good luck!!

If you missed this year’s contest, you can enter next year and if you’re out of school and just love to doodle, here’s what Google says about becoming a “Googler:”

Googlers and fans from around the world suggest the topics from which the doodle team doodles (you can suggest one too at proposals@google.com).

You never know what doodle might come next but we’re particularly fond of science, innovation, creativity, and fun. We also love to celebrate cultures from all around the world.

 But there is a pretty darn good monetary reason to enter if you can:

• Each of the other four National Finalists will win a $5,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of their choice, a trip to New York for the final event on May 17, 2012,  a Wacom digital design tablet, and a t-shirt printed with their doodle on it.

• The National Winner will have his or her doodle featured on the U.S. Google.com homepage. He or she will be awarded a $30,000 college scholarship to be used at the school of his or her choice, a trip to New York for an event on May 17, 2012, a Google Chromebook computer, a Wacom digital design tablet, and a t-shirt printed with his or her doodle on it. We’ll also award the winner’s full time school a $50,000 technology grant towards the establishment or improvement of a computer lab or technology programming.

Robert Graf's sculptural Marker's Mark award for the Kentucky Derby

Check out Kathy Morwaski’s beautiful, realistic horses in mixed media.

Have fun watching the Derby. With my Kentucky heritage, I’ll be watching with mint julep in hand. Cheers!

(reminder: One Last Day for One Kings Lane Casart Sale – see previous post)

I love wish flowers and this next one reminds me of Rousseau. These both require considerable effort to create — all hand-painted.

The author may not have realized that there is wallpaper out there that is removable and reusable, can be temporary or long lasting and mimics the hand-painted look, because they are originally hand-painted or illustrated.

This large scale flower mural reminds me of our Flower Power Casart wallcovering, which happens to be on sale right now on One Kings Lane!

Casart coverings can give an impression of a mural or art for your walls = Casa + art, which is Casart. If you want a more geometric look, we also have stripes now on the One Kings Lane sale as part of Domino magazine’s Enliven Your Walls event. If you head over to my other Slipcovers for Your Walls blog you can see the demonstration we did at High Point, using stripes in unconventional ways.

I like the illustrated style of this birch mural featured on PW Style.

It reminds me of our Birds & Birch design that comes in 16 different color combinations.

I moved this post from it’s regular mid-week Wednesday slot to post on Mural Mondays so could also receive this in time of our One Kings Lane sale before it ends on Thursday @ 11am. Don’t blink….

Another post is forthcoming this Wednesday.

I’ve mentioned this public art project before and I show it is referenced in a Speed Painting  video but this documentary is so worth watching to understand the creative process and the very methodical measures taken by Haas and Hahn to get results of a fully painted town. They have to take the architecture, the hillside perspective and the turmoil — literally gunfire in the streets — into account. Smart of them to start small and build awareness and commitment with community involvement. This helped to give the town and its residents a sense of ownership of the project and suspend some of the difficulty that initially was there.

All Images via Favela Painting Project via YouTube

This is the second project, Rio Cruzeiro, they did in 2008 before painting the whole town. What a beautiful Japanese inspired scene, complete with bridge (actually staircase) and all.

Click here to learn more about this project on their website and on their Facebook page.

How uncanny. I had just discovered this information on New Digital Landscapes, Word and Art by Walter Smith regarding Goyte’s creative process for producing the song Eyes Wide Open. This documentary is well worth watching to see the in depth strategy and time it took to put this piece together. You would never know upon just listening the amount of work involved but the music has some extra layering and sound pitches that make it unique and the background story makes it all the more interesting.  For instance, I never knew a “musical fence” existed. If you’re ever Down Under, like these artists are, you may want to go try it out yourself.

I’ve been listening to Someone I Used to Know and really liking it but honestly, I didn’t pay attention to who it was by. I certainly didn’t know that Kimbra had collaborated with Goyte on this song and video until they performed together on SNL. Maybe you’ll like the painted “camouflage” mural effect as much as I do (reminding me of Liu Bolin) and the parody that SNL does. On a side note, Goyte reminds me of a young Sting — something about his face and mouth. Enjoy:

And then there is Kimbra, the New Zealand Katy Perry of sorts but with more unusuality to her work, an equally talented singer and performer. I really like her Good Intent song and video. You can Kick Start the Weekend early with this one:

Very cool websites for both but Kimbra’s had me really looking — especially when her eyes moved. Creepy yet clever.

I’ve saved this Traditional Home article from November 2010 as reference because I’m so taken with Carin Gerard‘s artwork of Nature.

These are just some of the many gorgeous examples of  her beautiful artwork and butterflies. Be sure to visit her website to see much more.

Her extraordinary realism and detailed trompe l’oeil style remind me of Mark Leithauser’s artwork, who’s work I really admire.

If you’d like to see more butterfly art, flit on over to Casart coverings, where butterflies are featured this week.

Happy Easter Season!

Mr. Choe was interviewed by Barbara Walters and other news programs in the last couple of months. I saved this post to run after all the hubbub because 1) I found it interesting that he didn’t welcome the fame — he was already famous to those who knew his work and liked his lifestyle and 2) although he’s a talented artist, I don’t enjoy his work as much as the other artist that I came across from this Facebook story.

Homedit shows Choe’s murals in progression at Facebook’s facility as well as Jet Martinez‘s floral mural. I like his graphic style and rainbow colors + it’s perfect to post for spring — now that is is here — and hopefully to stay.

Here’s one more graphic floral mural that reminds me of my childhood Spirograph days. Love it! This happy sunflower mural by Kelly Placke is part of Roosevelt Row’s sponsorship of Adaptive Reuse of Temporary Space (A.R.T.S.) Program in Phoenix, Arizona as an annual effort to revitalize properties in the downtown area with a public mural program called Valley of the Sunflowers.

Flowers are sprouting…Life is re-blooming…Happy Easter!

Here’s what it looks like now that it’s actually rolling, every night from sundown until midnight until May 13th. The movie has about 30 – 40 different covers by Beck, Billie Holiday, Frank Sinatra, among other musicians of the 1934 song, I Only Have eyes for You. It is a series of moving pictures with the collaboration of music — not unlike a music video playing in an outdoor movie ampitheatre. Remember drive-ins? They’re baaaaack! Actually, I like the days of drive-in movies. They remind me of less complicated times.  Several years ago, we were looking for ways to project movies for community gatherinsg for our civic group but the idea faded when we couldn’t find the best outdoor place to gather with an available projection screen/surface. One difference with Song 1 is that you have to move to see the entire “movie” so you have to interact and engage to get the full effect.

Song 1 was achieved with 11 different projectors strategically placed around the perimeter so that trees and sculptures would not interfere with the projections. You have to walk around to see the entire movie you you’ll never see the same thing twice in doing so, so it is a different experience each time when it is viewed.

Philip Kennicott’s review is very insightful:

The song thus emphasizes the basic dualities of the whole work, the play of surface and depth, the flow of time or the fixation of looking. But it also suggests a kind of narcissism, being so lost in one’s own desires that one doesn’t notice the rest of the universe….By contrast, “Song 1” feels spectacular but disconnected, abstract, cold and a bit remote. Aitken is a major artist. And by design, his “Song 1” isn’t meant to be seen or digested all at once.

I look forward to taking it all in soon. With spring like weather here, this could be a delightful night concert to see & hear.  See more photos here.

Doug Aitken Song1 via Washington Post. Photo by Matt McClain

Leonardo da Vinci was a master painter and a technical genius with his talent. He is known the world over for his artistic masterpieces. Imagine the delight of the art world that recent evidence supports that one of his long lost murals, The Battle of Anghiari, has been discovered behind a false wall with Georgio Vasari’s painting, The Battle of Marciano, in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio.  Read further on psychorg.com on exactly how it was discovered. It was scientific technology that helped make the discovery possible, and of course funding and support led by the National Geographic, University of California, San Diego’s (UCSD) Center of Interdisciplinary Science for Art, Architecture and Archaeology (CISA3), in partnership with the City of Florence.  UK’s Daily Mail Online shows very descriptive picture.

Interestingly, this has been a long ongoing search. In 1970, a scientist discovered the words, “cerca trova” written on Vasari’s mural, which translates to “search and ye shall find” and could be a clue itself that a false wall was purposely built to protect Leonardo’s mural before painting Vasari’s visible one. This theory adds to the mystery that only science and technology may be able to prove with “exploratory surgery” of sorts, so the top mural won’t be damaged in the process.

You may have seen this in the news already from other papers:

• Discovery.com shows Peter Paul Ruben’s painting of Leonardo’s Mural, which serves as documentation for its existence.

• Live Science discusses the science behind the discovery.

•  The National Geographic provides in depth analysis and their part in the effort.

•  ABC News breaks the story and references past Leonardo discoveries as background.

I’m just as amazed at how quickly the news traveled around and what’s new news today may be old news by the time you read this. Here’s The National Geographic’s trailer to their upcoming special with more details on the reality of the Lost da Vinci Mural Revealed.

This is the email that has been circulating for background reference and this is the snopes article that disproves it:

Who would even think up something like this???  Read this  first, then watch.

This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of  Engineering at the University of Iowa.  Amazingly, 97% of the machines components came from John Deere Industries and Irrigation Equipment of Bancroft, Iowa.  Yes, farm equipment.  It took the team a combined 13,029 hours of set-up, alignment, calibration, and tuning before filming this video but as you can see, it was well worth the effort.  It is now on display in the Matthew Gerhard Alumni Hall at the University and is already slated to be donated to the Smithsonian.

Just so you are a little  prepared, balls (hundreds if not thousands) during the performance come out of a tube, hit an object (remember – tractor parts) and sometimes multiple objects before going back into another tube. Of the all the balls you will see, NOT ONE hits the floor!!

It takes a minute for it to load — but well worth the wait + you’ll like the jazzy music too!

Here’s the “real” version and video comparison, Industrial Concert Control by Intel. The original design, however, can be credited to the animated video by Animusic, however. This conceptual video was the inspiration to build the actual robotic controlled machine. The real balls are projecting so fast that you cannot see them except for the light display where they hit:

A musical feat indeed, regardless of how the egg hatched and if it came before the chicken or not. I investigated Animusic a little further and they bring a whole new meaning to ELO (Electric Light Orchestra), with their Beyond the Walls video:

They have quite a lot of videos uploaded but I’ll include this one, Cathedral Music, for my father-in-law.

I  like the Acoustic Curve for it’s harpsichord-like sound.