It ‘s such an old cliche: I don’t know art, but I know what I like. Sure, you feel that way yourself. There’s really no reason to argue about what is art and what is not, because if enough people like it, it becomes art, whether you agree or not (and whether any talent is involved or not). But that doesn’t mean we can’t make fun of it anyway. 

My Perfect Post Award for the month of January  goes to Old Guy’s
Treehouse for the story of The Little Red Shoes. He was inspired to write this when he saw the picture of an antique glass knicknack shaped like shoes. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it... it’s a work of art. You can see all the Perfect Post Awards for January at Petroville and at Suburban Turmoil. And you can sign up to give your own award next month!



Men on Art

The Museum of Bad Art. (via b3ta)

25 Secrets of the Mona Lisa.

Watch a digital artist at work.

Chopper Reed evaluates art. Audio NSFW.

Who painted this picture, and artist or an ape? I only scored 67% on this quiz! (via the Presurfer)

What would those classical sculptures look like in color? Surprise, many of them were probably in color when they were unveiled! Listverse has photos of ten classical statues as they are, and as they have been recreated in color. (via Cynical-C)

B3ta Photoshop Challenge: Extending Album Art.

The drawing of a face that survived all these years. Be sure to read all three parts of this, because it just gets better as you go.

Da Vinci’s The Last Supper has been rendered as a 16 billion pixel digital image. It may take a while to load, but you can really zoom in on this one!

Evolution of an Artist.

16 Post-It Note art projects. It’s amazing what you can do with too much free time and a closet of office supplies.

THEFT

(via Phil’s Phun)
A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre. After careful planning, he got past security, stole the paintings and made it safely to his van. However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and the make such an obvious error, he replied,

"Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings. I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh."

(And you thought I didn't have De Gaulle to tell you this one!)

Well, I figured I have nothing Toulouse.

Three Black Men

At the National Art Gallery in Dublin, a husband and wife were staring at a portrait that had them completely confused. The painting depicted three black men totally naked sitting on a park bench. Two of the figures had black willies, but the one in the middle had a pink willie.

The curator of the gallery realized that they were having trouble interpreting the painting and offered his assessment.
He went on for over half an hour explaining how it depicted the sexual emasculation of black men in a predominately white, patriarchal society. 'In fact,' he pointed out, 'some serious critics believe that the pink willie also reflects the cultural and sociological oppression experienced by gay men in contemporary society.'

After the curator left, an Irishman, approached the couple and said, 'Would you like to know what the painting is really about?'

'Now why would you claim to be more of an expert than the curator of the gallery?' asked the couple.

'Because I'm the guy who painted it,' he replied. 'In fact, there are no black men depicted at all! They're just three Irish coal miners. The guy in the middle went home for lunch.'

Previously at Miss Cellania: Art, Art Class, and Art Show.

Thought for today: I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process. -Vincent van Gogh

humor jokes video funny art artist painting

After my bathroom remodel, I had a pile of discarded lumber in the backyard. The kids said, “Why don’t you build a playhouse out of it?”  I thought about the old lumber, and the discarded paneling on the front porch, and the leftover vinyl siding that’s been in the basement for a few years. OK! I’ll build a playhouse! We have a spot in the backyard that the previous owner had covered in concrete, for what reason no one knows, but it will do fine for a playhouse floor. We had been using it for bonfires, so there was about a foot of wet cinders and bricks to clear away and clean up. The house itself took a couple of weeks of pondering and planning, and I decided to buy some new 2x4s for the upright beams (for strength). If the kids were much younger, I’d opt for pressure-treated lumber, which is expensive and much harder to work with, but lasts a long time. My kids are nine and ten, so if this thing lasts one or two years, that will suffice.

I began with the frames for the front and back, completely from 2x4s. The uprights and crossbars are five feet long. The trusses were an adventure. I wish I could tell you I worked the dimensions out mathematically, calculating the hypotenuse of the angle, but no. I just eyeballed it, using the three-foot boards leftover from my uprights. The only saw I used was a jigsaw, which I’m pretty good with. Yeah, a mitre saw would have been better, but I didn’t want to invest in new tools for a recycling project. There is no outdoor electrical outlet near the backyard, however, so all my sawing was done in the front yard.

As with any rectangular building, it needed corner bracing. Lots of it. I thought it would be easy if I just bought some shelf brackets and screwed them on. Those were useful for temporarily holding the front and back frames together til I got them on site, but I ended up using lots of scrap pieces for diagonal braces, too. It didn’t help that I had very few nails more than two inches long. Lowe’s only sold them in ten-dollar boxes, so I just made do with what I had... some long nails, some staples, some U-nails, and the shelf brackets.

 

In the front piece, I framed the door opening with my last 2x4s, and added framing at the bottom. If I had to do it again, I’d frame across the bottom of the door opening, too. Then I moved the project to the backyard site.

The only part I needed help with was connecting the front to the back. I used a combination of new 6’ 1x4s and recycled lumber. The kids had to hold up the front and back frames while I connected the first side beams. Other than that, this was a one-person project. I added more diagonal braces for all three dimensions. The anti-twist braces double as corner shelves. I didn’t eyeball these, but used a true 45-degree angle to cut them. I used nails to connect them to 2x4s and screws to connect them to 1x4s (two or three in every corner). There’s nothing in the world more useful than a cordless drill with screwdriver bits! Still, my left thumb won't be the same for a while after I whacked it with a hammer, oh, maybe a dozen times.

The leftover vinyl siding will made a decent waterproof roof. Learning to cut it was a pain. I ruined a good pair of everyday scissors cutting the siding. Then I thought of the toughest, sharpest, most leverage-friendly tool I have... my tree-loppers. They don’t cut nice clean lines, but it got the job done! As I added siding up the roof, I thought about snow and how it would weigh the roof down. So I added some thin boards as support underneath. It won’t add much support, since there’s no upright beams under them, but it might keep the siding from bowing in too much under snow weight.

The upper part of the roof required me to get on a ladder (a six-foot ladder, much bigger than the one in the picture), which was OK except that there was no level ground near the back of the playhouse. I kept my phone in my pocket, in case I fell and broke something. Like my neck. I finished off the roof with the one piece of corner soffit I had left. Not aesthetically pleasing with the tabs showing, but it will get the job done. The roof siding overhangs several inches in the back and sides and even more in the front.

The side walls are made of old paneling taken from the remodeled bathroom. I nailed it to the outside of the uprights. I had to add one-inch shims to balance the sides, since the side beams were nailed to the outside of the front and back frames. I left an inch or so free at the bottom to keep the walls from soaking up rainwater. To do this, I stood my wall on my foot while nailing. I used a couple of nails on each panel, but attached most of it with a staple gun. No one piece of paneling was enough for any wall. One wall was a spare piece of shower enclosure leftover from the previous bathroom remodel... it had been in the attic for fifteen years! I figured it would be tough enough to support a window. Cutting a hole in the middle of this panel was one of the more difficult parts of the project. Between that, cutting the siding with scissors, and hammering my thumb, I was glad most of this was done while the kids were in school. There are certain words I don't want to contribute to their vocabulary!

A window was neccessary so the kids could have sunlight inside. I had saved a plexiglass panel from the old storm door that was recently replaced. It had a metal frame, so I couldn’t just nail it into a wall panel. I used some metal door handles salvaged from a set of kitchen cabinets. I used metal screws and nuts to attach the handles to the wall panel, then slid the window into the bottom two corners. Then I added the top two corners, so the plexiglass is not going anywhere that the wall doesn’t go. I added duct tape around the backside for strength, since I tore some corners of the panel a little when making the hole.

More vinyl siding on the outside walls now. I was halfway through with this project when I found that siding panels will snap together (duh) and stay in place long enough to attach them! That made the short pieces around the window work, since there was no upright to attach them to near the window. If I’d known the snapping secret when doing the roof, it would have made life easier. But you live and learn. Oh yeah, I made sure to measure the house again before cutting the siding, since my dimensions “grew” from the outside beams, paneling, and shims.

I measured the door frame and had to “readjust” (meaning: shove) the bottom of the house to match. Thats why I should’ve had a beam all the way across the bottom of the front. My first idea for a door was to use a shower curtain, but as  my plans evolved, I decided that wasn’t good enough. I built a frame using old boards measured and mitered, connected with staples and braces, and used the leftover piece from the shower enclosure to cover the frame. It wasn’t big enough, but I convinced the kids that they needed a “peephole” in the door.The door was hung using hinges from the aforementioned kitchen cabinets. To keep the door from swinging in, I slapped up a small piece of wood on the inside corner of the doorframe. It also swung way out, so after I finished the vinyl siding on the front, I added a door bolt the kids are supposed to use when they leave the house. I found another cabinet handle to use as a door handle, although it didn't match the hinges (or anything else). The eaves of the house are left open for ventilation. The roof overhang will keep rain from going in through the trusses. I am considering adding screen material sometime before next summer, unless the kids talk me into stained glass or something.

The kids loved it! They immediately went to work adding decorations (which involved me screwing hooks in the interior) and furniture. A plant hanger outside can hold a plant in the summer, or a bucket in winter. A bucket? I made a note to pick up a windchime for them when I can. Princess drew up a set of rules for their house. Click to enlarge if you want to read them.

If you want to build a much better playhouse, you can spend some bucks and follow the 21 pages of instructions here. Or get really fancy with these. IF you have a workshop full of tools, these plans are easy to follow!

I didn’t consult these, or any existing plans before plunging into my project, just made it up as I went along. The kids actually asked for a treehouse first, but I said no for many reasons, mainly because I’d probably kill myself building one. But if you are so inclined, there are instructions here and here.

Thought for today: Play is the highest form of research. -Albert Einstein

DIY playhouse building project children

I am in awe of font people and type people (there is a difference, although you can be an expert in both). They are artists, designers, writers, and bibliophiles who are passionate about letters and words, and how they look. They know what they are talking about and they have plenty of opinions about it. Me, I can’t tell you the name of the fonts I use, much less recognize them elsewhere. In researching the subject, I found tons of great sites and discussions about fonts, way more than I can jam into one post. So I whittled it down to a few that the average person with about as much font knowledge as I have would find amusing or interesting. Experts, please be gentle.

EXTRA: I have a special request for my regulars (and anyone else) here.



Vanna’s Favorite Fonts (via YesButNoButYes)

The Internet Phenomena Phonetic Alphabet. From All Your Base to ZOMG. Not in order, though.

Ban Comic Sans!

Helvetica vs. Arial. You are Helvetica in this game, and your mission is to stomp Arial.

Fifteen excellent examples of web typography.

Young children will get a kick out of seeing themselves in an ABC Adventure! Upload a photo, enter a name, and watch your video. See mine here. (via the Presurfer)

What’s your favorite font?

More favorite fonts.

My Favorite Font. What some writers prefer.

Spanish designer and illustrator Alex Trochut loves to make art from type.

Did you know quote marks can be smart or dumb? I didn’t know. I just vaguely knew that curly quotes can get you into trouble in html.

Fonts make great movie posters!

Sing along the alphabet song! Here are the lyrics. (via Bits and Pieces)

SCHOOL

Teacher: Susie, make a sentence starting with the letter 'I'.

Susie: "I is ..."

Teacher: "No, no, no, don't say 'I is', you say 'I am'".

Susie: "OK, I am the ninth letter of the alphabet."

The leader's rise to power in San Serriffe

Mark Arnold-Forster
Friday April 1, 1977
The Guardian

For the last six years San Serriffe has enjoyed stable government, rising prosperity and freedom from strikes of any kind. This happy state of affairs is justly and widely attributed to the personality of the President, Maria-Jesu Pica.

Born 37 years ago of poor but honest sisal grinders, he is now generally regarded - despite his relative youth - as the father of the San Serriffian people. From an early age he took a keen interest in politics.

Conscripted into the army at the age of 16, Maria-Jesu Pica was an apt pupil at the Bodoni machine-gun academy and quickly rose through the ranks to become, by exceptional promotion, a general by the time he was 29.

He has eight children. Maria-Jesu Pica is a family man, a quality reflected in his choice of Ministers. The Government of General Pica, elected for life in 1971, consists of Prime Minister Angelico Pica; Minister of the Interior Rudolfo Pica; Foreign Secretary Martin Pica; Minister for Oil Phosphates and Foreign Trade, Arnoldo Pica; and Minister of Education, Public Enlightenment, Woman's Affairs, Minorities and Culture, Esmeralda Pica. There is no Minister of Finance. Martin and Arnoldo Pica are the President's two eldest sons. Rudolfo is his first cousin. Esmeralda Pica is his aunt. Three other members of the family - Giuseppe, Adolf, and Luigi -are serving life for treason.

The Government was formed following a coup in May, 1971, when seven regiments of dismounted cavalry, loyal to General Pica, overthrew the Government led by General Minion, of part Malaysian extraction. Although reports vary, the casualty list was considerable, with many Malaysian immigrants reported dead while resisting arrest.

For 17 days Radio San Serriffe broadcast nothing but martial music interspersed with appeals for calm. In his subsequent presidential address President Pica promised his people stability, two chickens in every pot, rigorous prosecution of General Minion and other enemies of the State, the abolition of Minionite newspapers, the establishment of a government-controlled press and broadcasting service which would tell nothing but the truth, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly subject to licences to be issued by the Ministry of the Interior.

No restrictions are placed on foreign visitors except that their mail is censored.

For more information, consult the San Serriffe Travel Guide.

Letterpress

This documentary made me appreciate the art form more than ever. (via Metafilter)

Previously at Miss Cellania: Letters and Words

Thought for today: The tendency of the best typography has been and still should be in the path of simplicity, legibility, and orderly arrangement. -Theo L. DeVinne

humor jokes video funny font type typeface typesetter

There’s not as much culture on this site as there should be. Someone mentioned a couple weeks ago that I have more traffic than they did, and I explained that it was because he has important and serious things to say, and I have fart jokes. But every once in a while, I like to put some real culture in amongst the rednecks and LOLcats and dirty jokes. Lucky for you, I am able to resist those urges and carry on like I always have. It’s just dressed up a little today. You could call this a work of art! You could, but you won’t.



Women in Art

Here’s a website that identifies all the faces in the video.

The secret of Mona Lisa’s smile.

Fun little art game, the String Spinner .. wake the kids if you need help. If you liked that, you'll love this kaleidoscope.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges-Pierre Seurat is often used to illustrate pointilism, the art style that became the precurser of dot-matrix printing. The painting has inspired many recreations, parodies, and unusual uses for the artwork. Frogsmoke has collected many of these in one post, including this tattoo. (via Grow-A-Brain)

Watch Dan Dunn on stage as he paints on a rotating canvas. You WILL be impressed!

Art with a sense of humor. A multi-page site.

THE PORTRAIT

Recently, an elderly woman decided to have her portrait painted. She told the artist, "Paint me with diamond earrings, a diamond necklace, emerald bracelets, a ruby broach, and gold Rolex."

"But you are not wearing any of those things." replied the artist.

"I know," the woman said. "It's just in case I should die before my husband. I'm sure he will remarry right away, and I want his new wife to go crazy looking for all of that jewelry."

 

THE NUDE

(via Bits and Pieces)
Ole, while not a brilliant scholar, was a gifted portrait artist.

As his fame grew, people from all over the country were coming to him in Minnesota for portraits.

One day while Ole was mowing the lawn, a beautiful woman pulled up to his house in a stretch limo. She asked Ole if he would paint her in the nude. She said money was no object -- she was willing to pay him $50,000.

Not wanting to get into trouble with Lena, Ollie asked the woman to wait while he went in the house and conferred with his missus.

In a few minutes he returned and said to the lady, "Ya, shoor, you betcha. I'll paint ya in da nude, but I'll haff ta leave my socks on so I'll have a place to wipe my brushes."

Big Art

Previously at Miss Cellania: Art and Art Class

Thought for today: Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable. -George Bernard Shaw

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humor jokes video funny art artist painting