Roald Dahl Coloring Challenge September 14 2017

Who's the most colorful writer of children's literature? We nominate Roald Dahl, who was born on this day in 1916 in Cardiff, UK. He wrote 48 books and countless short stories in his 71 years, including the ever-so-famous "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory," which was published in 1964 and has sold more 990,000 copies worldwide. That's a lot of moolah to buy Everlasting Gobstoppers.
 
Download your Dahl HERE. Then get creative using any medium you choose. When you're done and ready to share, post it on our Facebook page with your first name and age. GO MAKE ART!

Hurricane Harvey T-Shirt Fundraiser for donorschoose.org September 02 2017

Maker Faire Austin Art Party This Weekend May 10 2017

LET'S DRAW AT MAKER FAIRE AUSTIN May 04 2017

 
ART PARTY ILLUSTRATORS WANTED
Artists of all ages, come SHOW UP AND SHOW OFF at our ART PARTY by giving a one hour workshop or demo of your work. Drop us a line and we'll send you the sign up sheet so you can pick a day and time. 

This OUTSIDE VOICE collaboration is made possible through sponsorship from Big Medium and a grant from the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.

Food Art Friday! November 06 2015

Artist Tisha Cherry loves turning her food into art on her Instagram page. She creates edible masterpieces that have an expiration date! However, she also finds a way to be creative while doing daily things, like eating. This is a great skill to have. There are times when you have a super busy day and have no real time to be creative. Finding time to hone your creativity is important. Find little moments in your day to get creative; instead of checking twitter or Instagram, make something using your camera or bust out a  piece of paper and a pen to create. 

¡MONSTRO! (review) October 12 2015

¡MONSTRO! is a great animated short. The best thing is that it turns your expectations on its head. It uses tropes, a common theme or element in media, and subvert them. When creating a piece of fiction this is key, because you don't want your audience to know exactly where your story is going. Always subvert expectations!

¡MONSTRO! from Chris Romano on Vimeo.

Maser, Literal Street Artist! September 30 2015

Artist Maser makes the streets his own when he takes over the entire space, creating an Op Art extravaganza. He uses bright colors and various lines to make an area into a piece of art that you can walk through. Take a page from Maser, and always be thinking of different ways your surrounding can be made more beautiful.

Music Maker September 25 2015

Company Dentaku has created many things. One of their newest creations is Ototo, a tiny invention that can make anything like vegetables, or foil into an instrument. This creates endless possibilities of what you can play. Jam out on jam! Play on Plantains! Rock out with your block of cheese!

Dentaku - Ototo from Broadway on Vimeo.

Budding talent, Kirk Chen September 24 2015

Kirk Cheng a floral artist works with various plants to create strange, exotic sculptures that look like other worlds. He makes tiny looking landscapes that are a thing of beauty. The pieces have minimal life spans since they are made with real flowers, but that adds to the piece's beauty. What kind of different landscapes can you create using the flora that is found around your home?

Renewse Your Stuff! September 23 2015

Newsed is an up-cycle brand that creates new products by putting a different spin on old things. We love to make new, cool things out of old things! Use what you have to create what you need!

Here we see old, industrial waste made into a bubble blower.

These bird callers are made from wood scraps of a xylophone's production.

What kind of things can you make from discarded items? Think of clever ways to transform what you have.

Artist Spotlight: Yuko Shimizu September 17 2015

Yuko Shimizu is an amazing Japanese editorial and advertising Illustrator living in New York City. She is also a teacher at the School of Visual Arts. Illustration wasn't her original career path. She first worked in advertising and marketing for 11 years while figuring out what she really wanted to do. In 1999, she moved to NYC to study art as SVA. In 2003 she graduated with an MFA and has been illustrating since. 

Yuko has had work in Target ads, on GAP shirts, Pepsi cans, Penguin Books, DC comics, and other major brands. She shares a name with the creator of Hello Kitty, and hates being confused for her.

What is really interesting about Yuko is her process. She records her entire process from wild sketches convaying the concept to the inking stage to the finished designed product.

Here is the process for an editorial illustration project for soccer magazine 8by8.

She uses a bamboo brush and black india ink to do all of the traditional work and then she goes in with photoshop to color the images.

Here is the process of another one of her works for the New York Times.

What a delightful style! Do you use ink and and brush techniques? Would you like to try? Show us what you make!

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Weird Wednesday: Organic Alien Lifeforms September 16 2015

NETWORKS "SIZQ" from NETWORKS on Vimeo.

This is really crazy, and absolutely gorgeous. The glowing paired with the weird visible nervous system of these seemingly conscious plants is absolutely astounding. It begs the question: what would human look like if they were plants? Can you show us? Would we look this weird?

Happy Wednesday!

KeFe, Cool Creative Couple September 15 2015

Artistic couple Kelly Tunstall and Ferris Plock that have collaborated on a new project. They combine their artistic talents and create colorful characters full of whimsy. Today we're going to learn a quick way  to create something in their quirky style!

 1.) with either watercolor, acrylic, or tempra paint make some marks that make a figure.

2.) Add tiny details like hands and tray (or whatever you feel like drawing)

3.) Add details of items in a different color to add some variety. 

4.) You can now outline your figure. I chose black, but if you look at their work, any color works! Pick whatever you want.

5.) Here you see some more finished line work. I've also added a fifth color, whit for some light highlights and embellishments. 

6.) Finished! I ended up adding another color for the lips, and some beauty marks.You can do different things and explore different ways to make shapes and figures. just keep playing and see what works for you. As Always, we love to see what you create on our Facebook page!

Masanobu Hiraoka September 14 2015

Animator Masanobu Hiraoka makes cool videos of objects that verge into one another creating a kaleidoscopic experience. Think of what kind of drawings you can make, and how they can transform into something new. 

Land from masanobu hiraoka on Vimeo.

September 11, 2001: American Memoirals September 11 2015

The morning of September 11, 2001 two planes crashed into both towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. In Washington, two men were successful in crashing a plane into the Southwest side of the Pentagon. Another plane from New Jersey was also hijacked, but one of the passengers was able to take control and crash the plane. It was carried out by 19 members of the extremist islamic group called al-Qaeda. Many people died that day, and we continue to remember those lost.

The way that Americans grieve bear an odd sense of creativity and constucivism. Cities are willing to pay for public art in memorial to the people who are lost. Americans almost demand memorials for any sort of historical event. 9/11 was definitely historical, and still haunting most of the population's minds. One of the ways we overcome sadness is by letting it go. If we put the sadness in a certain place or create a place for it, most people can be themselves again. They stop thinking about what make them sad or it doesn't make them as sad when they think about it. 

This is essentially what Americans are doing when creating memorials. The sadness doesn't go away, but it is encapsulated in a place so we can keep moving forward. 

Today we are going to remember those who left us the day of 9/11 even if most of the readers of this blog are too young to remember or to be alive during the event. Its important to understand that most of the living population still harvest the memories of where they were when September 11 pops up on their calendar. 

Today we will look at the amazing works centered around the 9/11 attacks:

1. The 9/11 Memorial in New York City.

This memorial was created on site of the attacks: Ground Zero. Large square pools framed in the names of those lost covers the surface area of where each tower once stood. There is a new visitors center, and a museum close by.

Image belongs to www.911memorial.org

Click here to learn more

2. Cranes

In Japanese Culture, folding 1,000 paper cranes make your wish come true. When Japanese School children folded 1,000 cranes and gave them to the owner of Nino's Restaurant to place on ground zero, people started doing the same. Now you can view all of the cranes at the 911 museum near ground zero.

This photo belongs to the 9/11 Museum and was taken by museum staff. 

3. San Antonio's 110 Memorial Climb

This happens every year to remember those who died climbing the 110 floors of the crumbling buildings to rescue those who couldn't get out. The participants climb the stairs of the Tower of Americas with 393 tags representing the firefighter, 71 tags for each law enforcement official, and 9 tags for EMS personal. 

Photo belongs to to the University of Texas System.

Kaleidome! September 10 2015

This is the Kaleidomelocated in a local park in Hong Kong. It is a public art display by Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation for “Jockey Club Community Arts Biennale 2015′′. It was created by LAAB designs and architecture firm which is composed of architects, artists, and engineers that have won crazy amounts of awards and have done TED talks. They are a brilliant set of people who are bringing making and building together with design. Normally public art projects are designed then outsourced to a builder, and they are changing the game.

The Kaleidome encourages people to look and go inside the structure, but most public art can't be touched. Kids can climb and play in it if they want. Looking into the structure's walls creates a kaleidoscope effect using the reflected images of the world around it. 

To see more photos go here

The process of making the Kaleidome was very meticulous. A computer program was created to stitch together all 262 laser-cut pieces together with 22 individual shapes. 

How cool! Do you enjoy kaleidoscopes? Do you have an idea of what your surrounds would look like pieced together like in a kaleidoscope? Show us or tell us all about it.

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Weird Wednesday: Misaki Kawai September 09 2015

Misaki Kawai is a fun loving Japanese artist with success in the United States who uses any media she can find for her installations. Her paintings are simply done, and crazy colorful. Her father was an architect and amateur painter, and her mother made puppets. She dislikes classical art and uses an anime method called "heta-uma" that "risks amateur aesthetics by embracing basic expression".

Below is Misaki posing with one of her interactive sculptures. She often makes large animal blobs with long fur, and makes combs for the visitor to comb through the fur.

The best for last:

All images and Work Copyright Misaki Kawai

At OUTSIDE VOICE we love her use of low-fi materials to make fine art. She uses whatever she can find and techinques that people learn when they are as young as 5. Her installations are easily made, and maybe you can make something as weird a Misaki! Papier-mâché, markers, and patience is all you need. Share your creations with OUTSIDE VOICE!

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Neon and on, and on. September 07 2015

Let's take a look at the amazing talent that it takes to make neon signs. This is a skill-set that falls between art and craftsmanship. Can you think of other professions that don't quite fall into a single category?

In the video you can see that Mike follows a drawing to complete his neon signs. What would your neon sign look like? As always, show us your results on our Facebook page!

10 Seconds from The Pressure on Vimeo.

Reach Mike Heist at http://neondist.com/

The Eyes Have It (review) September 04 2015

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the great directors. He's made a ton of amazing movies! 

Repetition is one of the principles of design. In film the repetition is seen through the vast body of work that creators leave. Some directors have very specific reoccurring themes, other have themes reoccur with out them even being aware of it.

This quick clip shows how interesting Hitchcock found the eyes of his characters. 

Look on your past artistic work and see what themes you repeat, then think about why you like these themes.

Eyes of Hitchcock from Criterion Collection on Vimeo.

Created by :: kogonada

Music: "Anything can happen, and usually does... On the Orient Express" by Rob Cawley
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

How Tuesday: Easily Make your Own Jewelry September 01 2015 1 Comment

Sculpey Jewelry

Most art is made by things accessible to the artist. This sculpey has been sitting around for a little over ten years, and I haven't used it in a long time. Surprisingly, it's still good! Sculpey is a specific brand of polymer clay used for various projects such as small sculptures, hardware, and I have even heard of people using it as a setting for stones. As long as you keep the polymer clay in an air tight bag, it won't dry up. When you need it, take it out, and make something cool!

Supplies

• 1 to 4 colors of Sculpey or any other brand of polymer clay
• Needles for making holes in the beads
• Thread
• Wax paper to protect your work surface
• Oven
• Old Cookie sheet
• A flat notebook for shaping
• A wooden skewer
• String or a chain for your beads

Step 1

 Step 2

Make your first bead. I decided this bead should be a simple sphere by balling up the clay and rolling it around on the surface with the palm of my hand. Pairing simple beads with complicated beads creates contrast. 

Step 3

Polymer clay is cool because you can mix the colors easily, so I mixed some of the black and white to make a gray color. Then I added it to more white, but instead of fully mixing it, I marbled the clay. That is when you get two colors and fold them together a few times so they layer with interesting swirls.

This is my finished piece of marbling.



Step 4

To make the sides more even, I used a piece of thread to cut the clay. If you use thread instead of a knife, it prevents the clay from pinching at the ends.

Step 5

Now we are going to make holes in the beads so they can go through your string or chain. I used a skewer for the longer bead, so I could roll the bead out on the skewer. For smaller beads use the needles. Don't forget to put a piece of thread in the needle, so if the needle gets lost in the clay you can easily take it out.

Step 6

After the longer bead was taken off the skewer, it still had uneven edges. I used the thread to cut the edges off again. Then, I curved the bead into a smile shape so it would hang at the bottom of the necklace. You will see it in another picture

Step 7

Next was a geometric bead to balance out the round beads. I used the table and a note book to push the bead flat on different sides.

Step 8

I made another blue bead, but covered it in small bits of orange. Then I rolled it on the work surface with the palm of my hand to make it spherical again.

Step 9

Preheat the oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit, and put your beads on the cookie sheet. I ended up making little beads with the bits of marbling I cut off. Bake the beads for 15 minutes for every 1/4 of an inch thick they are. The little beads were baked for 15 minutes while my blue, pink, and large marbled bead baked for 30 minutes. 

After Baking.

Step 10

Now string your beads on your chain or thread, and you have a Necklace! I am wearing mine now.

Thanks for sticking around. Remember, you can make any kind of beads you wish. Dinosaurs, fish, leaves, and your favorite food can be easily sculpted into a bead. Show us your beaded masterpieces on Facebook or Instagram!

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Creating the Right Mood with Scenic GIFs August 28 2015

GIF artist Toyoi Makes sprite GIFs of different scenes about Japanese life, both real and imagined.

These first two GIF examples set different kinds of moods. Today we're going to explore how to make that happen. The most obvious method employed by Toyoi is by having a limited color palette, which is a specific set of colors that you use exclusively on a piece of art. The first example above is using about six colors, and the darkest color used is the foreground color of the tree. Using a dark blue color for the tree emphasizes that it is supposed to be the closest to "camera", and pushes back the other brighter colors. Except for the tree, the other colors used are fairly light, and are pretty close in value (the relative lightness or darkness of a color). If you take a close look, you'll notice that the items furthest back are the lightest, almost as if disappearing into the background. This 'atmospheric perspective" happens in real life as well, so next time you're outside, stare as far as you can, and you will witness this occur. 

The second GIF above uses the same principle of having background elements be lighter in value than the foreground items. Even when the lights flicker on and off, the value changes accordingly. The second example uses almost a monochromatic color scheme ( using different values of one color, in this case, blue) to set its mood. The blues used give it a sad, melancholy to the scene. Other element in this piece help with this, like the flickering light, and the twinkling stars.

In your next art piece think about what kind of feeling you want to evoke, and set an appropriate color palette. After that you can add different elements to enhance the feeling you're going for.

As always, you can post any examples to our Facebook page, and we'll share!

Alondra the Passionate August 26 2015

Happy Women's Equality Day!

This day in 1971, was declared Women's Equality Day. This day was marked the anniversery of the passage of the 19th Amendment which gave the women the right to vote, and was a major legal change to getting closer to universal civil rights. Of course, a lot of people didn't love the amendment, and it only won by one vote. Women were still treated as second class citizens no matter what happened to the law. However, today, We celebrate!

Let's highlight this AWESOME woman:

Alondra De la Parra!

Alondra del la Parra is the most passionate composer on the block. She leaps and prances. She smiles and sways. Her passion flows from her like a waterfall. It's amazing! Younger kids, around 5 to 7, tend to get really obsessed with a certain thing. It could be dinosaurs, ballerinas, and super heros. The sort of passion that Alondra has is similar to the intensity of a child. That is very rare in adults. Being an adult is stressful. Adults sometimes loose that spark. 

Being a kid is great. Appreciate it for as long as possible. Is there something that you are so passionate about, you can't contain your excitement? An artist? A sport? An animal? It can be anything really. (OUTSIDE VOICE is passionate about giving kids the inspiration to go out and create).

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Drawing Tools August 25 2015

Artist Lee John Philips is spending the next four years drawing every item in his grandfather's garage. His illustration skills are top notch! 

Drawing from life is an excellent way to improve your drawing skills. So take some items from your room, or from around the house and start drawing them. Get a feel for how they take up space, and how they work. The more you study an item the more you'll be able to draw it without reference further down the line.

Happy Senior Citizen's day with Yayoi Kusama August 21 2015

Today is a day to celebrate our citizens over 65 old. Franklin Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act in 1935 which was a bill that helped senior citizens retire, and have a life after work. In 1988 Ronald Reagan declared August 21st as National Senior Citizens Day.

Let's Celebrate with one of our favorite Senior Citizen (of Japan) with Yayoi Kusama.

She is an amazing artist who is obsessed with Polka Dots. She originally started decorating in polka dots in the early 1950's in Japan. She called her polka-dotted covered spaces "infinity nests" because eyes had an easy time getting lost in the mesmerizing pattern.

Picture Reference

Yayoi Kusama's Ascension of Polka Dots on the Treesat the Singapore Biennial 2006 on Orchard Road, Singapore

Following the advice of Georgia O' Keefe, Kusama moved to New York city in the

Picture Reference

Here is Yayoi posing in matching clothing with her polka dotted pumpkin painting. She often matches her clothes to her art work.

Picture Reference

Another Dot installation

Picture Reference

This is her most recent major brand collaboration with Louis Vuitton.

She developed her own style, and repeated it onto every surface for most of her works. Her repetitive behavior calms her into her own style. 

Is there anything you do to calm you down? Do you pace or doodle? Repetitive patterns are known to calm the mind. Next time you are feeling frustrated, try drawing multiple circles on a page help calm you down. Share with us your calming doodles on instagram or facebook!

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