Art

The Sketchbook Mobile Library Hits the Road

Just a quick heads up, the Sketchbook Project Mobile Library has hit the road on its inaugural journey, fully-loaded with over 1,000 sketchbooks selected by yours truly for an amazing show, A Landmark and A Mission. Look at that trailer! The project will be making stops in Pittsburgh (tonight), Ann Arbor on Saturday and Cleveland on Sunday. Check out the official site for more details.

Photography

Vanishing Spirits: The Beautiful Dried Remains of Single-Malt Scotch by Ernie Button

Aberlour 105

Balvenie 127

Macallan 101

Balvenie 129

Dalwhinnie 122

In his photographic series Vanishing Spirits Phoenix-based photographer Ernie Button explores what happens after the last drop is drunk in his macro photographs of evaporated single-malt Scotch whiskey. Not unlike the recently featured work of Jason Tozer, Button turns the minute details of stained glass into curious landscapes and colorful terrain. Of the project he says:

The idea for this project occurred while putting a used Scotch glass into the dishwasher. I noted a film on the bottom of a glass and when I inspected closer, I noted these fine, lacey lines filling the bottom. What I found through some experimentation is that these patterns and images that you see can be created with the small amount of Single-Malt Scotch left in a glass after most of it has been consumed. The alcohol dries and leaves the sediment in various patterns. It’s a little like snowflakes in that every time the Scotch dries, the glass yields different patterns and results. I have used different color lights to add ‘life’ to the bottom of the glass, creating the illusion of landscape, terrestrial or extraterrestrial.

This is just a preview of a much larger project, see more in his portfolio. (via stacey thinx)

Art

Hundreds of Pink Fingers and Toes Explode on Gallery Walls

What at first looks like an experiment in a psychedelic Petri dish is actually an installation by artist Ambreen Butt using hundreds of cast pink fingers and toes made of resin that seem to explode on the walls at Carroll and Sons in Boston. Titled I Am My Lost Diamond the piece will be up through December 22. All photographs courtesy Andrew Katz at New American Paintings.

Food Photography

The Energy Generated from A Single Orange: A Citric Acid Battery by Caleb Charland

This orange battery was built by photographer Caleb Charland (previously) as part of his ongoing alternative energy photographs using fruit, vegetables, and other objects to create light for his long-exposure photographs. The electricity powering the lightbulb inside the orange is generated through a chemical reaction between citric acid and the zinc nails inserted into each wedge. I think this is by far the most lovely piece he’s done in the series, but before you start work on a bunch of orange lights to keep on the nightstand, the light generated was so dim this particular photograph required a 14 hour exposure.

Photography

The Travel Photography of Lukas Kozmus

While on a backpacking trip through India two years ago, 23-year-old student Lukas Kozmus realized how much he enjoyed using his tiny Sony camera to photograph the Ganges river, the Taj Mahal and other sights. After returning he quickly purchased a better DSLR and took it with him on treks to visit the Himalayas in Nepal, to Indonesia, and of course carried it around his native Berlin, all the while snapping the wonderfully dreamlike images you see here. I think this could be a bit more than a hobby, no? Lukas tells me he’s preparing for a trip to Morocco and I can’t wait to see what he brings back. You can see more of his work on Flickr.

Animation

Hypnotizing New Animated GIFs from RRRRRRRRROLL

Though I just posted about these guys back in July, I’m not going to lie, I have a huge e-crush on RRRRRRRROLL (previously). This anonymous collective of five photographers and artists create a new animated GIF every single week that might as well arrive in my feed reader wrapped in a bow. Do yourself a favor and follow their Tumblr, bookmark it, subscribe to their feed … whatever. It’s like internet vitamins.