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Contemporary artist seem to be inspired and fascinated by topics and themes that represent the metaphysical.  Ellen Lanyon is one of these artists. Her work fascinates me because she uses so many fantastical images mixed in with realistic ones.  She makes one wonder at the mystery of nature and how we as humans affect our habitat

Lanyon tries to show that all living things are linked together through her work. She advocates the ecological balance of life and expresses it through her painting.  She combines normal things found in nature or in everyday life and combines them with items from junk shops, or taxidermy specimens and combines them all into a fantastic combination, expressing the relationship between man made objects and those objects found in nature. She wants people to understand the magical process that happens once life begins.

Even the titles of her paintings gives you a hint of what she is trying to communicate through her painting. Take the painting ¨Endangered,¨ in it she tries to explain how we shouldn’t allow things that are important to fade in our memory.

Most people fear aging, and once they hit a certain age, they believe that there is nothing else they can do in their life and that they are too old to learn something new, but this is not necessarily true when it comes to art.

Some people do not even begin to create art at least not seriously until they become older in life. Many wonderful and very good artists find themselves returning to school, taking courses in art and photography well in their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. But it seems that Art is the realm where you are never to old to start, and in many cases lifes experiences help the older artist be even more creative.

Now there is even scientific research that has established that creative people improve with time. Their productivity may reach its highest even when they reach their 60’s, but most artist in their 70’s and 80’s still produce quality work.

Why is this important? Well many artists find themselves having to give up their creative work early in life for various different reasons, family, work, other interests, etc. But based on this new research, these artists may decide to pick up their art careers again much later in life.  Take a look at the work by  Sue Smith who is an older artist and the article she wrote to better understand this truth.

Photo: Courtesy of Igilmour

We all love music, but some of us more than others, and some of us use music to inspire our lives and in the case of artists, this music inspires them to create their art.

Where do artists get their inspiration from? You might be surprised to learn that they are inspired everyday events, by other art, movies and music. Most artists are very emotional, sensitive people and everything in their environment influences the way they see things. Take the blog The Modern Artist. She expresses the deep emotional feelings she gets when listening to a U2 song.  Angel Turner Dyke is a professional modern artist, who takes images she finds in nature and adds her own feelings, person, and creativity to them. Her work stands out because, she takes what would otherwise be stark images, and creates color within them.  In a way this artist focuses on modern abstract art, and yet her work is not all abstract, but a combination of modern illustration, some abstract, and there are even some hints of impressionism (color) in her work.  You can tell from her work that this artist’s fills her world and her artwork with passion, love and color.

Artists find their inspiration from many different places. Some from other artists, some from modern day life and some from nature. But just because they take their inspiration from nature does not necesarily mean that they paint or portray exactly what they see in nature in their work. Lets take as an example the work of Jaison Cianelli. In his work he portrays a squirrel in boots, eating a sandwich.

The artist has created a type of whimsical self portrait, where he represents a connection with the spiritual and the mundane world. The antlers represent spirituality and nature, the boots, a tired and resting person, and the sandwich is the enjoyment of life.

It is truly amazing how an artist can find inspiration in things that we would never think of, things we may not even see until an artist, shows it to us.

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llustration, and especially referring to the world of computer illustration, has brought aspects of many different styles back to life, including that of primitive art. Many computer illustrators use a lot of principles from primitive, or folk art. Primitive art, or naïve art is best known for its bright colors, and simplicity, almost as if a child had done it. The form is known for its two dimensional drawings, no single principle of composition, and usually colors are placed simply as they come with little or no shading.  Most primitive art is done by artists that had little or no art training.

It is contrary to every principle in the art world, and yet many of today’s artists are relying on some of the principles of naïve art. For instance in naïve art color is not shaded or used in hues, it’s generally applied directly without much mixture.  It is known for it’s almost stick like figures and strong colors. It is so different and much simpler than regular art that, many artists have taken qualities from this charming art and integrated it into their work as you can tell by the work of Emila Yusof.

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Today many artists get their inspiration from life, from emotions and the emotional turmoil we go through on this road we all take.  As an example Artist Sandra Schimmel never could relate to her artwork as much as she can today. She creates portraits of famous people and sometimes not so famous people using a method called acrylic mosaic fusion, which was created by the artist herself when she was looking for a way to be environmentally kind and recycle. Then one day a freakish accident occurred which made her identify even more with her unique art style.

Her dog a Labrador attacked her, and bit her nose off. After several plastic surgery operations, her nose returned to normal, but she did not feel like it was the same. Similarly the faces she paints are put together.  She began to question who she was? Was she the person that people outwardly saw, or was she the inner being she knows herself to be? The point is her artwork has also begun to reflect these questions she asks of herself.

In her artwork she incorporates all kinds of materials from postcards, greeting cards to photographs and advertising in her portraits.

Have you ever seen the work of Tomasz Setowski. This artist specializes in fantasy art, but fantasy art as no other. Some say that his work is influenced by the polish illustrator Jan Marcin Szancer who died in 1973 and was a world renown childrens book illustrator, but I believe that the ethereal quality of the paintings by Tomasz Setowski are so much more. I believe Setowski must be influenced by many other artists as well to be able to attain the creativity and the imagery he is able to project in his paintings. These may come from his own inner being with little or no influence from any other painter, illustrator, or artist. Of course, I am sure much of his creativity stems from images, or stories he remembers from childhood, because all of his imagery is so childlike.

What I do know is that to fully appreciate the work of Tomasz Setowski , you need to stand  a few minutes and really observe all that goes on in his paintings, and once you do that you will believe in fairies, kings and queens, and enchanted forests. These paintings are full of optimism and happiness, this is the type of work we need more of in our lives.

Photo Via : Surrealist Fantasy Art

Do you like a lot of things? You may even be worried because you tend to like a lot of different art styles and cant focus on just one style, but this is normal. There are even many artists that like many different objects and styles and have started combining them in interesting ways.

A great example are the illustrations by Andrea Joseph. In her work, she displays her love of small things, like tickets, buttons, certain things made of a certain color. She combines this love into her illustrations. Although these illustrations may seem to be without any definite composition, the composition of these pieces is very well thought out, and you can tell by the way your eye travels through the illustration. If you look at her pieces for a moment, you will notice that certain tickets or parts of paper stand out above others, this is what makes the composition of her illustrations work. The colors she chooses are also unique, because they tend to be all in the same hue, just in different shades, which only an extremely talented artist can do.

There is no better gift than that of Art, and even other artists feel touched when they are given pieces by other artists, because they know, and understand the importance of giving of one’s artwork. Some work moves and inspires other artists that it makes them create and show what they have in their inner being through their art.

As in this story I found on a site where an artist sold an art piece to another artist, only this artist worked in textile material. Later in the year the textile artist gave the painter a gift, and it was the painted image worked in a quilt, which is another art form.

Only a true artist can fully understand the true meaning of what it is to give art away as an artist. It is a true gift of the heart, and a piece of the inner soul, and most artists give the gift with trepidation, worrying about whether the other artist will like it, and that is a part of what makes the gift so special.

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Spring tends to bring out the romance in most people and maybe even more so in many artists, especially if the artist loves to paint romance. For instance, let’s take some of the paintings from Wendy Ryan. Folk art is best known as the art of the people, and most people that work in Folk Art have no real artistic training, although all that is changing, and trained artists seem to also be taking up this style. The style is best known for its bright colors, simplistic forms, and little or no composition rules.

Wendy Ryans’ work is whimsical and beautiful, although I don’t really know if this would be considered Folk art, since the definition of folk art, is art with no serious training, where the colors have little shading, or whites and blacks added to them. I think this is a combination of both, Folk art and Romantic art, but even so her work truly brings out the emotions, and makes you think of romance. They may even take on certain Latin modern styles.

Today it is really difficult to classify art as any one style, its more about using a combination to express your passion and your love.