Famous art Art prints posters & Book of Art

Fun and Functional Area Rugs

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Don’t underestimate the functionality of area rugs. They can help reduce noise and echoes in a large room. They can add a cute country charm or a beautiful cosmopolitan feel.

Fun area rugs are plenty to be had, from fluffy flokati rugs to retro shags. You will find the three dimensional lushness in flokati rugs, shag rugs, and sheepskin rugs to be irresistible. They come in every imaginable color and fit right in to a den, an office, and a child’s room.

Perhaps fluffy isn’t exactly what you had in mind. Look at all the variety of natural material rugs like jute, sisal, and bamboo. Along with being sturdy and durable they are also in style and classic at the same time. You can choose from all sorts of colors that will fit in to any nature inspired setting.

Enjoy the selection of hip and chic designer rugs from classic Andy Warhol to trendy Mary Kate and Ashley. Match your lifestyle to a number of officially licensed designer rugs and one of a kind creations. You will appreciate the chance with bold designs and humorous patterns these rugs display. If you’re the adventurous type check out bold blocks and retro mixes that stimulate the senses.

There are plenty of rugs that appeal to the eyes, from funky retro to classic florals. You may appreciate how intricately detailed some designs actually are and enjoy discovering these details as you relax.

Themed rugs can be very fun and really jazz up your space. The especially playful ones are the ones designed for children’s rooms. They can be interactive and learning oriented featuring shapes, numbers, and the alphabet. Others are fun maps of imaginary cities and the solar system.

Whatever level of a playful mood and atmosphere you hope to bring into a room you can top off with a functional and fun area rug.

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Sarah Graham Reveals Art Inspirations

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Photorealist painter Sarah Graham has picked her five favourite artists in a recent magazine.

The Hitchin-born artist told Fine Art Collector about her “favourite five” an article that covered a range of subjects from her most loved films, songs, places and most importantly artists.

American printmaker Andy Warhol, who has an obvious influence on Sarah Graham prints, was one of the artists chosen because the photorealist said that the bohemian painter was “brilliant”.

German visual artist Gerhard Richter, who uses photographic imagery as a starting point for paintings, was called an “art hero” by Ms Graham. She told the magazine: “I discovered him whilst at Uni and from that point on I realised it made sense for me to combine my two great loves of oil paint and photography. As a result I create work which refers to the camera lens; yet on close inspection is a mass of subtle brush work.”

It was at De Montfort University in Leicester where Sarah Graham began to paint detailed portraits of her classmates from photographic source material and she has continued with this method since graduating in 2000.

Sarah Graham also chose her friend Charlotte Hardy as one of her favourite artists because she inspired her to pursue a career in art instead of staying in full-time employment.

Yorkshire painter David Hockney, an important contributor to the Pop art movement of the 1960s, was another favourite artist because he is an inspiration to art students everywhere.

Contemporary artist Mitch Griffiths, who paints modern subjects in an Old Master style, was also selected by Sarah Graham as she was astounded after visiting his exhibition at the Halcyon Gallery in London.

Ms Graham said on her Facebook page that she created her painting ‘Alice in Wonderland’ in honour of her friend Lisa Sabine, who passed away this October after a long battle with illness. The original piece was sold from Artica on South Molton St, London recently although Sarah Graham prints are still available.

The artist said: “Lisa loved it whenever an original painting sold, so she will be very pleased. Sadly however it does mean we will have to keep its image in our minds, but as I always explain to people, I never feel I ‘lose’ a painting, although they are no longer with me physically they remain part of me, as will Lisa.”

British designer Helen Rochfort joined forces with Ms Graham to create a limited edition of handbags.

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12 Creative Photography Ideas

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Here are 12 ideas to get your creative juices flowing and increase your skills and value as a photographer.

TIP 1 – Time Lapse photos. I showed my niece how to do this with clay figures and stitch the resulting frames together into a video file, and she was busy for days. If you control the exposure consistently to keep the images consistent with one another, you can do some really fun stop-motion animation. Or, you can set up your camera to capture other slow motion effects such as flowers opening and seedlings growing.

TIP 2 – Night Lights. Things look very different at night. Shooting city scenes with available light creates some interesting images. And shooting outdoor images under moonlight or with “light painting”, where you open up the camera shutter for an extended exposure, and “paint” your targets with colored or plain light, can create some truly bizarre images.

TIP 3 – Astrophotography. Hook that SLR up to a telescope, and you are ready to peer into the depths of space and time. You’ll need some adapters, and ability to compensate for the earth’s rotation for really long shots. Start with the moon and move on from there.

TIP 4 – Macro photography. From flowers to coins to stamps, you can polish your skills at close-up photography and capture some really detailed images. Often a macro lens or close-up attachment will help. See my tips on Flower Photography to get more information.

TIP 5 – Micro photography. If you can interface that camera with a microscope, you can get some really crazy images. Or, stack up a bunch of close-up magnification and try your hand at turning salt crystals into surreal imagery.

TIP 6 – Insurance Photos. OK, maybe a bit boring, but you and your friends and relatives will thank you. Take a couple hours and touch and photograph everything of value, with a full shot or two if each item of value, accompanied by a shot of the identifying marks – manufacturer model or serial number. Then burn a CD or DVD and store it off site. If you have a fire or other loss, this could save the owner thousands of dollars.

TIP 7 – Family Recipe book. Anytime those family favorites are prepared, copy down the recipe and take some photos of the food. You can produce a printed or electronic cookbook of family favorites that everyone will love.

TIP 8 – Stock Photography. This is a very busy market niche, but the cost of entry is low. Specialize in things you love, and you may be able to generate some income from your stock images. Search for stock photography sites, and make sure you understand your rights before you post images.

TIP 9 – Special Effects. Maybe you want to specialize in high-speed images of athletes, or surrealistic collages. Try your hand at using your editing skills to put someone in a soda bottle or floating on a candy lifesaver. Often more artistic than photographic, it will test your composition, lighting and editing skills to come up with believable artificial realities.

TIP 10 – Still Life. Ahh, the bowl of fruit. Sometimes a simple object or collection, properly lit, shot and edited, is a thing of beauty. It’s a great way to study light. Start with an egg on a light background, a lamp and a window and see how you can learn about lighting and composition.

TIP 11 – Computer Control. Many cameras have a USB interface and remote control software. You can actually control the camera from the computer. See if you can get it to work to your liking, and maybe even program some time lapse or exposure bracketing experiments.

TIP 12 – Be Like Andy. Take some images of everyday items and try to create those neat colored backgrounds like Andy Warhol used to make. Create a 4-up print of the same image and change the colors of each quadrant to make an interesting square print.

Have fun with these ideas, and let me know when you become famous!

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Famous Abstract Contemporary Art Paintings

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Abstract Art came about in the last few centuries where artists sought to move away from pure realism painting and put in their own style and emotion into the subject of their painting. From the Renaissance and Baroque styles of almost photo-realistic paintings, abstract contemporary art began to become popular.

Romanticism, Impressionism and Expressionism followed on from the traditional art styles and started to allow artists to impress their own creativity. Such styles laid the foundations for the later art movements which are collectively referred to as Abstract art, in the modern era.

Post-Impressionism continued the change towards abstract art yet further, thanks to works by the likes of Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cezanne. Inspired by the likes of Paul Cezanne, Fauvism & Cubism were created, bringing famous artists like Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Wassily Kandinsky & Pablo Picasso to the public’s attention. Synthetic Cubism also followed. The Abstract Contemporary style that we have now was ready to be created at this point.

In Britain the first Abstract art exhibition was opened in 1935, with paintings by the likes of Piet Mondrian, Joan Miro, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson on display the following year at a more international event.

The attack on art by the Nazi party in the 1930s and 1940s forced some abstract artists to flee to America which resulted in the likes of Modernism, Late Modernism, American Modernism, and Surrealism starting to gain popularity, particularly in New York. These attempts to control art’s direction actually helped to spread communication of these new art movements to the rest of the world.

The 1950s to now have brought us the likes of Neo-Dada, Fluxus, Conceptual Art, Neo-expressionism, Installation art, Performance Art, Video Art and Pop art. Pop Art of course remains hugely popular today with the likes of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein still selling well.

Modern Abstract Contemporary art styles include the likes of Abstract expressionism, Color Field, Lyrical Abstraction, Post-Painterly Abstraction, Sculpture, and Minimal Art, though new movements appear all the time, particularly with the influx of computer based artists, and different styles of digital art.

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The Whimsical Andy Warhol

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Talk about pop art and no other name comes to mind first before Andy Warhol. Born as Andrew Warhola on August 6, 1928, he is a famous painter, printmaker, record producer, filmmaker and author from America. Also popular for coining the term “15 minutes of fame”, but his art has endured decades of fame and his style has become immortal in the pop art world. He is a member of extremely diverse social communities such as wealthy people, Hollywood celebrities, renowned intellectuals and even bohemian street people. The Andy Warhol Museum is found in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Warhol‘s hometown. His 1963 painting Eight Elvises was bought for the price of $100 Million which is considered a benchmark price that has only been attained by Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Gustav Klimt. He has also been the topic of many books, films (documentaries and features) and exhibitions.

He studied commercial art at the School of Fine Arts at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now called Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh. In 1949, he went to New York City to pursue a profession in magazine advertising and illustration. He became famous in the 1950s because of quirky drawings of shoe ads. He also worked as an album cover and promotional materials designer for RCA Records.

On July 9, 1962, he held his first solo art exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. This was also the debut of pop art in the West Coast. Also in the 1960s, he started making paintings featuring Campbell’s Soup Cans, as well as celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Muhammad Ali.

He died in February 22, 1987 because of cardiac arrhythmia after a gallbladder surgery.

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The Sky’s the Limit

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Skyscrapers have been around for over one hundred and twenty years. The first of their kind was built in the US in the 1880s, and by 1890 the tallest building in the world, The World Building in New York, measured 309 feet. Since then we have steadily worked our way higher and higher in our attempts to reach the heavens; not unlike those who began the Tower of Babel. We all know how that cautionary tale ended.

Human kind isn’t easily daunted, however, and in 1998 the Petronus Towers in Kuala Lumpur were completed at a height of 1483 feet. For six years they held the record as the tallest manmade structures in the world. But, in 2004, Taipei finished its ambitious construction of theTaipei 101 Tower, which came in at a staggering 1667 feet and successfully clinched the title.

The design and construction of skyscrapers has evolved into an exact science. This is an essential development considering that the lives of all those people who live and work in skyscrapers depend on structural integrity and precise engineering. Structural engineers play a major role in ensuring that skyscrapers conform to international safety standards and are built to last. Some of their most important functions are to see that the building can withstand earthquakes, high winds, blizzards, and the occasional lightning bolt. They also need to make sure that the most durable materials are used, and that contingency measures are planned in the event of structural failure.

Structural engineers need to maintain good working relationships with civil engineers, surveyors, construction managers, and architects. Architects are responsible for planning, designing and managing the overall construction site. It’s imperative that architects have thorough knowledge of all building methods and stay abreast of the latest developments. This is necessary so that they can advise the owners of the site about possible design difficulties and help them to reach a compromise between what they want and what is practically feasible. Architects also need to be able to understand the concerns of the construction crew and help them overcome any problems with the building process. The responsibility of completing projects in time and on budget also rests with architects.

Construction managers, quantity surveyors, and civil engineers all play important roles in the safe construction of structurally sound buildings; but without construction workers, all projects would flounder after the planning stages. Jobs within the labour sector include heavy equipment operators – considered the most prestigious position- ironw orkers, carpenters, masons, teamsters or truck drivers and hodcarriers, who are masons’ assistants.

It’s generally accepted that workers carry personal tool kits with all the essential tools. Hammers, screwdrivers, vicegrips, pliers, and wrenches are just some of the tools that make up a construction worker’s tool-box. Employers generally provide safety equipment such as safety goggles, hard hats, and gloves. Some construction workers, however, prefer to supply their safety equipment, especially personal items like hard hats and gloves.

It’s difficult to find aspects of the concrete jungle that appeal to people’s sense of aesthetics. No matter how hard designers and architects try to create buildings that are pleasing to the eye, an edifice is still an edifice with very little to recommend it. However, few would deny that skylines, such as those found in New York and Chicago, are spectacular when viewed from afar. As Andy Warhol said, “They look like money.”

Recommended sites:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/buildingbig/skyscraper/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyscraper_design_and_construction

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Andy Warhol- The Pope of Pop

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Fame, Mass Media, Consumerism and Death

Born Andrew Warhola in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1928, Andy Warhol was destined to change the world of art forever.

Upon his graduation, he moved to New York where he worked as an illustrator for publications such as The New Yorker, Vogue , and Harpers Bazaar. He also created window displays for several prominent retail stores at this time. It is perhaps during these years that he developed his keen sense of style and realized the power of image and media manipulation. Throughout the 1950s, Warhol was one of New York City’s leading commercial artists, and he received numerous awards and accolades for his work.

He held his first solo show at The Hugo Gallery in 1952 and a group show at The Museum of Modern Art in 1956.

In 1961, Warhol created his first series of silkscreens with images of Campbells Soup Cans. The Pop Art Movement thrived on presenting seemingly banal, everyday objects and giving them a monumental importance, Warhol was simply making society aware of it’s own obsessions. The silkscreen process enabled silk-screen mass-produced multiple images with a seemingly endless array of color and compositional variances. Consumerism, one of Warhol‘s central themes, was evident in many of the works produced at this time. Coca-Cola bottles, Brillo Boxes and Dollar Bills took on a life of their own. The silkscreen technique and the iconic treatment of Products as Art made Andy a star.

Warhol‘s next thematic breakthrough was the Death and Disaster Series. Works depicting car accidents, Electric Chairs, and racial Riots. The heavily manipulated photographs, repeated over and over again, imply through their multiplicity that society is merely a silent witness to everyday horrors and that death, is simply another aspect of life to be reckoned with. The public’s reaction to these works was not exactly all-embracingly positive and at the advice of Henry Geldzahler, Warhol‘s Art Dealer, he produced a less threatening series of Flower Prints.

In the years between 1962 to 1964, Andy altered his concentration and celebration of iconic images to include famous personalities and focused on the allure and mystique of Fame. It was at this point that he created the now legendary Series of Marilyns, Jackies, and Elvis paintings, at his studio known as The Factory.

By this time, Andy Warhol had become a world famous artist. He held exhibits at The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, The Leo Castilli Gallery, and as far away as The Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He produced works at an amazing rate and baffled many with his uncanny ability to choose images that literally became instant icons. Warhol erased the lines between Fine and Commercial Art and forced the world to consider a new perspective that it, subconsciously, had already embraced.

FAMOUS WARHOLIAN QUOTES:

” When you think about it, department stores are kind of like museums.”

” In the Future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.”

” I love Los Angeles. I love Hollywood. They’re beautiful. Everybody’s plastic, but I love plastic.I want to be plastic.”

” I want to be a machine.”

The Factory was Andy‘s art and experimental film studio, where he and his entourage of self-proclaimed “Superstars” produced over 300 experimental and pornographic films. The Studio was far more than simply an artist’s atelier. It was THE meeting place for artists, musicians, and actors. The atmosphere was a non-stop party where ideas, rock and roll, drugs, sex and art mingled. In 1968, Warhol was shot two to three times by a fanatical woman,Valerie Solanis, who claimed at her arrest that “He had too much control over my Life.” The truth of the matter was that he had ignored her and her radical organization, SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men). This near fatal attack changed Warhol and his Art. His artistic response to this episode, The Skulls and The Shadow Series reflected an interplay between printing and Painting.

Moving away from the repitition of Iconic Figures, Andy‘s work focused on singular Portraits of the Rich and affluent. The silkscreen was still utilized but with a far more expressionistic quality and singularity. Some of his subjects were Mick Jagger, Michael Jackson, Liza Minelli and the like.

In the early Seventies Warhol began publishing Interview magazine. he also wrote the autobiographical The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and back again). He continued to produce numerous Portraits of celebrities and members of the European elite. The phenomenally priced portraits photographed in Europe, were often produced by Warhol‘s assistants at the factory with Andy‘s long distance artistic “direction”. His subjects in the late eighties, Mao-tse-Tung and The Endangered Species Series continued to confound,delight and shock art lovers with his always new and ever expanding catalog of colorful images.

During the last years of his life, Warhol began a series of collaborations and promotions with a whole new generation of artists, among them, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Harring, and Francisco Clemente.

Interestingly, these were all younger contemporaries of Andy‘s that were carrying on his tradition of artistic revolution. On Febuary 22 ,1987, Warhol succumbed to heart failure, and as a consequence of a badly executed gall bladder operation. The assassination attempt of 1968 had finally taken it’s toll on the physically fragile artist. In 1989, an exhibit was organized by The Museum of Modern Art, encompassing the largest retrospective exhibit of his works to that date. in May of 1994, the Andy Warhol Museum opened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Andy Warhol‘s influence on 20th Century Art cannot be denied. His perception, exploration and experimentation in the field of Visual Arts is unmatched. There is hardly an Artist today that is not touched in some way by his thematic and cultural accomplishments and vision. In accordance with his will, he provided a considerable endowment Fund for Art Education and Patronage, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

” Andy Warhol looks a scream, hang him on my wall. Andy Warhol, Silver Screen, can’t tell them apart at all.”

- David Bowie, Hunky Dory, 1971

Websites of Interest:

The Andy Warhol Museum

The Andy Warhol Foundation for The Visual Arts

Andy warhol Prints

This Article Text © 2005 by John Keaton . All Rights Reserved.

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Basic Knowledge on Pop Art Paintings

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Pop art was an art movement that initially occurred in the United States of America in the early sixties. The epicenter of this art phenomenon was New York, the city confirming its trend setting leader position. Although this movement strongly erupted in the early sixties, the attempts of change started during the late fifties in the work of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. These painters wanted to replace the abstract mode of artistic expression, aiming at making the art’s message easier to be understood by the public. The first pop art paintings contained easy to recognize images of common items. The purpose of incorporating these objects was to mock the gravity, the metaphysical dullness of abstract expressionism that had started to become out of fashion. Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg introduced amusing objects into the first pop art paintings: flags, maps and targets or stuffed animals and rubber tyres for the latter artist. The pop art movement become famously known for their main feature: mockery and irony.

Claes Oldenburg, James Rosenquist Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein were the most representative artists for this new art stream. Their pop art paintings were characterized by their original display of popular culture’s symbols: advertisements, media images or even comic strips. These new, colorful, lively pop art paintings were strikingly opposing the gravity, the spirituality of abstract expressionism. Consequently, these kinds of pop art paintings become very popular among the art loving public and among the art critics community. But the abstract expressionism continued to be highly appreciated, despite the pop art paintings’ mockery.

Although the pop art movement was popular and influential it proved to lack the strength of completely supplant the abstract expressionism, but it determined the birth of two new schools of abstraction: color-field painting and minimalist art. The color-field painting movement (mainly represented by painter Helen Frankenthaler) minimized the influence of abstract expressionism’s old features into a style completely committed to the use of pure color.

The American art of the sixties remained in the art history books as a period of constant rivalries between different competing styles and ideas. Yet, the pop art paintings represented best the ideas and the symbols of the American lifestyle in the sixties.

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How to Tell One Type of Area Rug From Another

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Area rugs seems like a pretty good general description to get you started on your on-line search for the perfect rug. That’s because we all like to believe that our own particular image of what one of these should look like and will yield the perfect results when we search for a rug? I’ve searched for so many types of rugs on-line, and let me tell you, the so called rugs “experts”, think just a little differently than me.

They are categorized in a fairly straightforward, and easy to understand way. So please indulge me for a few minutes, as I pretend to know the complete industry vernacular.

Area rugs can be shopped by style, or they can be shopped by brand. The top styles that I have seen are:

Contemporary looks are best personified by decorator favorite Sphinx area rugs, and in particular the Sphinx Generations family. The Sphinx Generations collection is really quite amazing in its breadth of designs. Products in the Generations collection range from contemporary to tribal, and from transitional to traditional. The latest Sphinx Generations color palettes include reds, greens, browns, and plums, ranging from soft to deep tones.

Andy Warhol styles can only be described as contemporary. Andy Warhol rugs are also made by Sphinx, and can captivate you for a very long time as you browse through the Factory collection, the Revolution collection, and more.

Traditional area rugs are the Contemporary area rugs rival when it comes to favorites in the eyes of home decorators. The biggest names in area rugs all produce traditional pieces.

Shaw rugs, Couristan rugs, Sphinx rugs, and leading maker, Nourison, all play deeply in the traditional production arena. Tommy Bahama area rugs also fall into the popular traditional area rug category. A traditional area rug will fit into any home decor, including contemporary. This is a bit different than contemporary rugs, which usually won’t fit into a traditional decor.

This may seem confusing, but let me assure you, it’s not. To be totally confused, you have only to look at transitional rugs. Unlike floral rugs, which anyone can figure out, transitional means absolutely nothing to most people.

Transitional area rugs look a lot like traditionals to me, but with tighter patterns. All the big names like to throw their hat in the transitional rug ring as well. Nourison’s Ashton House collection are a favorite transitional rug. Tommy Bahama rugs are transitional, Sphinx are transitional, and even Shaw is considered transitional.

Now for the big secret in any type of style definition. It’s really just a guideline as to where to start. Whether your home is decorated in a contemporary or a traditional style, it comes down to your own personal taste. Sometimes the best way to shop is by starting with the primary color. Then pick the type that you like, get the right size and shape, and enjoy the decision you made.

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Contemporary Area Rug, Oriental Weavers Sphinx Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was known for breaking the rules, harnessing the latest technology to express his ideas, and creating a new movement in Twentieth century art to be studied and imitated for years to come.

Contemporary Area Rug, Oriental Weavers Sphinx Andy Warhol Collection 100% Wool 3’6″x5’6″