The cat art is a gift from Noor JontryMasterson. She gave me five, and I've used them all. You can click the smaller ones to see more detail.

Noor was nine when she made these images, and was doing lots of cats.
The title art is new in 2012, but much of the rest of the page has been here a long time. Some of the links are gone now, but most are still good and they all lead to others, so go forth and frolic in ideas!


Ian's Shoelace Site - "Bringing you the fun, fashion & science of shoelaces" (Ian Fieggen, who did that shoelace page, is a professional artist in all kinds of media, and has a page on that with samples. Ian's Sample Artwork.)

Paper Toys you can print out and build. The artistry is not in the manufacturing of one (though that can be fun) but in the original design of them.


"Sidewalk Art"

Julian Beever—"Anamorphic illusions drawn in a special distortion in order to create an impression of three dimensions when seen from one particular viewpoint." Chalk on sidewalks, by Julian Beever. Holly's favorite is to the right. That's chalk on a flat sidewalk, and the artist posing for effect. (more of his)

This art is by David Zinn.

(Maybe mute the sound. 🙂)

A Chinese artist named Zhang (I don't know more):



Teeny Little Super Guy

Teeny Little Super Guy not only had a great theme song, it was a combination of stop-action animation and animated cartoon, in a really interesting way--plastic cups were the animation cells, and they were moved around in a real-world environment as the cups were changed, so the character on the cup moved too... Well just watch them! There were more. I hope they'll be on DVD someday. They originally appeared on Sesame Street in the 1980's. I'm grateful to the geeks who know how to transfer these and put them on YouTube, and to Jocelyn Vilter for letting me know they were there.



Two full episodes, about three minutes apiece:
Danger and Eggbeater (episode about practicing to ride a bike, basically, I think, sort of). There are others on YouTube.

There are several people to credit, but the details are here in a Wikipedia article, with lots of background. It says there were thirteen episodes in the series..

ArtPad

ArtPad saves the process and plays it back, so one fun thing to do is to put a drawing or some text and then cover it over and see it reappear. The picture I had there has expired, but it wasn't very good anyway. If you click "view another" and then "skip to beginning" you can see something someone else has done. Then click "paint your own" on the left. Save the name of it; you don't get to pick your own name. Also, you can speed up the playback, top left slider.
(If anyone knows where ArtPad went, I will add a new and current link.)


Japanese Cartoon

Strongbad answers the question "What would you look like as a Japanese cartoon and what would it be about?" This is art about art. These are cartoons about cartoons.


"Can you draw a dragon?"

(the birth of Trogdor)
I would put a picture of Trogdor here, but that would ruin the fun of seeing the origins of... TROGDOR!
More Art about Art

Simple Art Game

More art than game—very interesting. Flow is a quiet, simple, beautiful video game created by Jenova Chen as a thesis for a master's in fine arts degree by Jenova Chen. You can read the thesis, and her intentions for this game (to induce the "flow" that Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described) here: JenovaChen.com/flowinggames

Another link, and a second game by the same designer:
flOw
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/flowing/

Cloud
http://interactive.usc.edu/projects/cloud/ [PC Download, on Cloud; Flow can be played online]

Tie Dye Temple has free backgrounds and inexpensive tie-dye shirts and hats. It's a shop, but the patterns are fun to play with. If you click on the backgrounds they will fill in the page behind, and you can see how the patterns continue. Very pretty.

Gallery of Tie-Dyed Art by artist, so click around there. The sponsoring site, Dharma Trading Company, sells supplies for tie-dying, silk painting, marbling and other such things, and blank white clothing to do it on!

Computer Jigsaw Puzzle of pigments, and they have other art-supply-related images..

Pavement Art—"Anamorphic illusions drawn in a special distortion in order to create an impression of three dimensions when seen from one particular viewpoint." Chalk on sidewalks, by Julian Beever. Holly's favorite is to the right. That's chalk on a flat sidewalk, and the artist posing for effect. > Scott Kim's Inversions—word art that says one thing but says the same (or a different) thing upside down. Some are animated. There are many there, but here are two examples (and links to notes).

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Al Seckel's page of, and about, illusions in art: Illusionworks.com
"Here we will show you a variety of examples based on optical illusions which we are exposed every day. On the video where you see one of the best and the world's most famous master illusionist Al Seckel."

Pumpkin Carving 101

with links to some amazing pumpkin art by Scott Cummins, in Texas, called Pumpkin Gutter.


Movie Monster Art by an unschooled kid, by the guys who do Strongbad (the claymation is just after the greenscreen which is just after "12 levels of blinkiness" and don't forget Trogdor), and by Ray Harryhausen.

What about Art?

In an interview with Herman Zimmerman, art director for several Star Trek movies and two or three of the series, he said:

One of the best educations for what we do as art directors is history. Learning history, and the history of art, the history of the theatre, politics, sociology, you name it. Because the history of civilization is the thing that you have to call on—your experience of that is what you have to call on—to create the environments that you're going to be asked to create.
Among many other things, he created the Bajoran sailing ship, that didn't have an engine or anything. Commander Sisko and Jake go out in it in one episode. It's beautiful.


Click the image for more info.


Everyday Art&mdashDesign

Everyday Art Webpage and also a place you can contribute your ideas: Topics Blog, on the Everyday Art week.

Very Many Art Links
            of all sorts

Art, Music, and Theater Links
Children's Literature Collection and other book-arts links, Victoria and Albert Museum site
CBBC Art site
To find more, click this and put in "art" and any other word or three. You'll likely see some new art as soon as that page opens.


Here's a page with stories of unschoolers' art experiences and thoughts, too: Art Stories

more on knots, tying in math and history

Music Scanner Art Mirror photos