How To: Make a paper mache baby elephant
In this tutorial, we learn how to make a paper mache baby elephant. To begin, you will need a pattern, which you can find at Ultimate Paper Mache. There is a grid on the pattern that you can use to expand onto a large piece of particle board. This will give you the entire body for the elephant. After you cut the elephant out of the board, glue and nail it together with spacers in between the body parts. After this, crumple up newspaper and then tape and squish it onto the wood until the muscl...
News: Incredible Human-Sized Nests Installed Across the Globe
Wow, forget treehouse-lust, I want my own Patrick Dougherty human-sized twig-nest. According to Dougherty's site, he has built over 200 sculptures all over the world to date, beginning in 1982. Dougherty uses primitive building techniques to create his tree sapling structures.
How To: Make a mold and cast of an arm with alginate
Use alginate to make a mold and cast of an arm. Watch this video for a detailed list of needed ingredients and step by step instructions on how to do it yourself. This is a good technique for sculpture or special effects.
News: Peeing German Cop Sculpture Makes the Police Awfully... Pissed
The German police have their panties in a bunch over a highly inflammatory sculpture of a urinating policewoman by artist Marcel Walldorf. Entitled "Petra", the hyperrealistic figure depicts a female officer crouched, peeing with buttocks exposed. The most chilling detail is her riot baton casually propped on the wall next to her.
News: Massive Cocoons Trap Humans Like Flies in a Web
INSANE what you can do with a truckload of packing tape. Viennese/Croatian design collective For Use/Numen uses the common junk drawer office supply to create massive, self-supportive cocoons that visitors can climb inside and explore.
How To: Sculpt a pig in polymer clay
This video sculpting tutorial shows a high speed version of the process for building a pig out of clay. Beginning with an aluminum foil skeleton, pink polymer clay is slowly added on, molded, and finished to create a realistic looking pig. Watch this video sculpting tutorial and learn how to make a pig figurine out of polymer clay.
How To: Make a duplicate sculpture using a press mold
Mary Buckman describes how to create a cast clay sculpture from a press mold. Press molds can be used over and over again to duplicate a sculpture without going through the tedious process of actually sculpting it or without the artistic talent required to. Watch this video sculpting tutorial and learn how to use a press mold.
How To: Sculpt a wire twisted scorpion with copper
Here is the first attempt to make a scorpion on video using copper wire bending.
News: Vintage Books Get Carved into Insanely Detailed Painted Landscapes
If print is a dying media, you might as well destroy books in the most beautiful way possible. Guy Laramée is a Montreal-based interdisciplinary artist who turns old books, such as the Encyclopedia Brittanica, into intricately-carved works of art using mostly a sand blaster and some paint.
News: Artist Turns a Penny into $207 by Morphing Lincoln into Homer Simpson
Pennies may only be worth $0.01, but if you want a coin with everyone's favorite donut-eating dad on it, you're going to need to shell out a little bit more.
News: Artist to Schlep Mammoth Chunk of Ice from Greenland to NYC
It's an ambitious How-To project to say the least, or more specifically, an over-the-top political art installation by San Francisco artist Brian Goggin. You may have previously heard of Goggin for his "Defenestration" project—an installation of "frozen" furniture, being tossed mid-air from a San Francisco apartment building. But Goggin's latest project sounds significantly more challenging to execute, considering the elaborate game plan involved:
The Getty Museum Presents: How to Make Art from Ye Olden Days
Art Babble is a video network for artists and art lovers alike, launched by a group of curators at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. The site is divided into channels, series and partners, with a wide variety of top notch videos from institutions far and wide. The Getty Museum has posted some especially fascinating content, most notably their series on modern artisans and craftsmen demonstrating antiquated art techniques.
How To: Make a Deadmau5 charm out of polumer clay
Do you love Deadmau5? Show your love with a charm made of polymer clay. This charm can be used on a keychain, necklace, or whatever else you can imagine to show your love for Deadmau5. Follow this video to learn how to made a Deadmau5 charm out of polymer clay.
News: Polish Artist Recycles 300 Dead Computers into Giant Installation
Electronic waste (or e-waste) is becoming a bigger and bigger problem thanks to the rapid growth of technology. In 2009, the United States produced 3.19 million tons of e-waste in the form of cell phones and computers. It's estimated that 2.59 million tons went into landfills and incinerators with only 600,000 tons actually being recycled or exported. Recycling programs just aren't cutting it, so what's the next best thing? Art.
News: Mechanical Sculpture Spits Out 441 Perfectly Sphered Water Droplets
Beauty is a fine line between art and science for Pe Lang, a Swiss sculptor living and working in both Berlin and Zurich. The autodidact artist specializes in graceful, hand-built kinetic sculptures made of magnetic, electrical and mechanical devices, all of which are elegant and completely mesmerizing. "Positioning Systems - Falling Objects" is one of his newest contraptions, which feels like a mix of home waterfall fountains, mechanical metronomes and a busy manufacturing plant.
How To: Paint eyebrows and hair onto your reborn baby doll
The importance of paint cannot be underestimated when it comes to correctly constructing a reborn baby doll. There are many tutorials showing you how to correctly replicate the hair on your baby doll's head, but what about the eyebrows? This tutorial shows you how to use a variety of paints and fine tip brushes to correctly achieve realistic eyebrows as well as head hair for your next reborn project.
How To: Paint Hair on a Reborn Baby Doll
If you don't have the patience or the tools to root hair, you can use paint instead! This tutorial is primarily for reborn doll artists who want to learn how to use Genesis heat set paints to replicate the look of real hair on their baby doll head. You will need: your doll head, a palette, Genesis heat set paints in your chosen colors, a few paintbrushes and some soft makeup sponges. You will also need a little paint thinner and some water.
News: Build Your Own AT-AT Imperial Walker Snow Sculpture
It's been a legendary year for snow art. First there was the Eiffel Tower penis. Then the crash-landed AT-AT. Then the beautiful snowdecahedron and the skull-shaped igloo fortress. Found on Unreality Mag, the latest newsworthy snow sculpture is every Star Wars-loving little kid's dream: an AT-AT "pony ride". Okay, so it's freezing cold. And it's technically immobile. Who cares. It's awesome.
News: Amazing Tape Sculptures
In the DIY community, much is said about the versatility of duct tape. But it's hardly the only game in town. For proof, one needn't look any further than the impressive, diverse tape sculptures submitted to Scotch's second-annual Off the Role tape sculpture competition.
News: Edible (and Itchy) Icelandic Landscapes
Inspired by the vast and exotic geography of Iceland, Canadian-Hungarian artist Eszter Burghardt uses food and wool to reconstruct her memory of the landscape. The series, "Edible Vistas and Wooly Sagas", is molded from "poppy seeds, coco powder, coffee, milk, and chocolate cake crumbs" and Icelandic wool—there are endless herds of native sheep wandering the countryside. She then captured the dioramas with a macro lens.
News: AT-AT Made with Spare Computer Parts
Blacksmith Sage Werbock —also known as the Great Nippulini, "pierced weight lifting extraordinaire"—welded together this Star Wars Imperial Walker sculpture with a bunch of old computer parts and scrap metal. Currently listed on Etsy for $450, the AT-AT is artfully assembled as follows:
News: Snowdecahedron
Best snow art I've ever seen. And Wonderment has seen some good stuff: penis, AT-AT, more penis. (Ok, we like the little boy stuff.) But we also like math, and this snowdecahedron is one stylish geometric form plopped right in the middle of the sidewalk in Porter Square, Cambridge, Mass. Nice work, sushiesque.
How To: Construct an armature out heavy gauge wire
This video tutorial shows you how to make an eighteen inch armature, just out of some basic hardware. You will need some 3/4 inch pipe and a length of heavy gauge wire, as well as some wire cutters and pliers. Construct an armature out heavy gauge wire.
News: Cigarette Ash City
In "Cigarette Ash Landscape", Chinese artist and photographer Yang Yongliang suspends a huge cigarette sculpture above a pile of black and white photos, fake grass and artificial flowers. Upon closer examination, the tip of the cigarette reveals a tiny city made of fastidiously layered, paper-cut urban skylines.
How To: Human Hair Bugs (It's Not How It Sounds)
Hold the repulsion- we're talking art, not lice. Seattle artist Adrienne Antonson makes tiny insect sculptures with recycled human hair and glue, and they're pretty spectacular.
How To: Make a dreamcatcher using only duct tape
Make a dreamcatcher from duct tape and show everybody your creativity and resourcefulness! This tutorial video from Ducttapestuff shows you how to make this object from a roll of duct tape, a hobby knife and a cutting mat. You are limited only by your imagination!
News: NYC's Secret Video Game World
While it's unlikely you'll encounter this caliber of insane pixelated madness in real-life, everyday New York City, you might be lucky enough to walk past a tangible "portal" of sorts. Below, images from Pixel Pour 2.0, an installation on Mercer Street in Soho.
News: Where Man and Machine Should Never Meet
Household appliances enslave random body parts in a series of sculptures entitled "Integration Series" by Joseph Barbaccia.
News: Apple Toys Destroyed With Bullets, Sledgehammers & Torches
We know it's fun to break stuff, but Santa sure isn't going to be as good to Michael Tompert next year. The San Francisco digital imaging and CGI artist destroyed a whole slew of brand-new Apple gadgets as a statement on "our relationship with fetish, fashion, freedom, and bondage."
News: Rainwater + Solar Power = DIY Rainbow Machine
Artist Michael Jones McKean has harnessed nature with his DIY rainbow machine, a mechanism that uses reclaimed rainwater and solar power to shoot man-made rainbows across the sky at whim. High powered jets and fountain nozzles shoot a heavy wall of rainwater into the air, creating a faux rainstorm. Sunshine does the rest.
News: Japanese Artist Mutates Underwater Creatures Into Beautiful, Glowing Specimens
UPDATE: Looks like the previously featured mysterious translucent skeletal specimens aren't the work of unknown scientists, but rather a project by Japanese scientist-turned-artist Iori Tomita. Tomita majored in fisheries as an undergraduate student, and has since used his knowledge to create a beautiful collection of mutated sea creatures, called “New World Transparent Specimens". Tomita creates his specimens by dissolving their flesh, and then injecting dye into the skeletal system.
News: Enter the Trippy Vortex of Optical Distortion
New York based studio softlab's latest installation "(n)arcissus" is an eye-bending site specific installation currently on display at the Frankfurter Kunstverein art center in Frankfurt, Germany. The piece, made with over 1,000 mylar and vinyl laser cut panels, hangs in a stairwell, measuring 9 meters tall from the lobby ceiling.
News: 1,200 Hot Wheels in Perpetual (NOISY) Motion
Chris Burden's latest piece is a portrait of L.A.'s hot mess of traffic, entitled Metropolis II. The artist has constructed a miniature highway system, complete with 1,200 custom-designed cars, 18 lanes, 13 toy trains and tracks, and a landscape of buildings made with wood block, tiles, Legos and Lincoln Logs. Burden tells the New York Times:
News: Eat Me Dresses
Love Lady Gaga's meat dress? Then check out Sung Yeonju's series entitled "Wearable Foods". The recent graduate of Korea's Hong Ik University creates garments out of a wide variety of edibles, including "Tomato #2", which was used by H&M for an ad campaign.
News: Madison Square Park's Eerie, Electrifying LED Ghost Land
Engineer-turned-artist Jim Campbell's recent installation "Scattered Light" converts New York City's Madison Square Park into a ghostly world of light bulb pixels. Campbell dangled 2,000 floating LED light bulbs programmed to display shadowy human silhouettes passing by.
How To: Sharpen your chisel inexpensively
In this tutorial, we learn how to sharpen your chisel inexpensively. This is an art you have to learn if you are going to have to learn to work with tools. To start, you will first need to lay down a piece of paper down on a block of wood. After this, lay a piece of grit down on top of the and grab your chisel. Spray the grit with some water and then use the bevel on the chisel to move it around. Use your body to move the chisel, not just your hands. Continue to do this around the sides until...
News: Artist Paints the World Invisible
“Western Imports”, by artist Cayetano Ferrer, uses inkjet prints to create site-specific optical illusions in public spaces.
News: Vote Now to Electrocute This Artist
Oleg Mavromati's latest project, Ally/Foe, allows online voters the chance to electrocute the Russian artist at a mere fifty cents a pop. From November 7th to November 13th, viewers of Mavromati's livestream can pay to vote “innocent” or “guilty.” 100 guilty votes result in the artist voluntarily shocking himself in front of the camera, live, with his homemade electrocution machine.
News: See a Woven Rug? Look Again
Dutch designers Marcia Nolte, Stijn van der Vleuten, and Bob Waardenburg are the masters of illusion behind We Make Carpets. Look, then look again. What you initially see isn't what it appears to be...
News: Bicycle-Go-Round
Artist Robert Wechsler has salvaged and reassembled 9 bicycles into a carousel arrangement. The best part about the project? Wechsler leaves his bicycle-go-round in public places for strangers to ride. Imagine stumbling across one of these in a public park! Genius.