The colors, the composition, the light.  Delicious. Luscious. Scrumptious.

Valcox on Flickr

amazon2008 on flickr

Vintage Alphabet Circa 1946

Rendevous, acrylic on panel, 48″ x  48″

Pachelbel, acrylic on panel, four 24 x 24 panels

Working all in white also enables me to concentrate the viewer’s visceral response on the paintings’ surfaces, which reach out from the picture plane and engage the senses.

Tree of Life, acrylic on panel, 48″ x  48″

In my studio I use tools to braid, mold, and weave paint into shapes that are sometimes soft and graceful, sometimes spiky and dynamic. After the shapes are created and positioned, I envelop them in sheets of acrylic paint, until their contours rise like islands from a glassy-smooth sea.

Mystical Secrets, acrylic on panel, 48″ x  48″

In our increasingly detached digital age, I aim to bring viewers back into touch with the opulent physicality of art, and to remind them of the beauty within themselves.

Pardue suggests that her work is best viewed in person and I have no doubt that she is correct.  To get a sense of the scale of the paintings, look here and these images showcase the textures.  Read more about the artist at Saatchi Online.

Love this image – and don’t miss cheesekid’s Australian Spotted Jellyfish on Flickr – what’s not to love?

cheesekid on flickr

fede_gen88 on flickr

Amigos de la micologia Joseba Castillo on Flickr

Sarcoscypha coccinea, or Scarlet Cup Fungus…loving this!

Tracy Chapman

Tracy Chapman’s new website, Tracy Chapman, Our Bright Future is set up like a virtual animated coloring book, complete with jumping fish, moving clouds and flying kites.

Home page uncolored

Here’s the beginning of my coloring effort on Chapman’s homepage

The upper right corner of each page boasts a ‘paintbrush’ and ‘paints’, and you can color every page of the site while you listen to her sing.

The paint palette

I’ve been a fan for many years, but if the music doesn’t lure you in, the interactive coloring book will.  Beautifully done.  Go on, color your world.

Michael Stringer, Marine Diatoms

Last October we visited the gallery pages of Nikon’s Small World Competition.  Time to visit the gallery again, now that the 2008 photomicrography winners were announced. Michael Stringer took first place with this image of marine diatoms. The image looks like painterly brush strokes or softly striped feathers.

From the website:

This image was one of a series Mr. Stringer created to illustrate a talk to a camera club on “Photography through the microscope.” His objective was to display diatoms in a modern way using super contrast and careful application of color. Rather than showing all the details, or warts and wrinkles as Mr. Stringer likes to call them, he dressed up the diatoms by manipulating the image and creating this beautiful photomicrograph.

Dr. Rachel Fink grabbed an Honorable Mention for this picture of newly fertilized killifish embryos.  My personal favorite.

me*voila on flickr

Vonns on Flickr

Hope your holiday weekend is as sweet and juicy as these berries!

My Monday is topsy turvy already (and it’s only 9:30 am here).  I need some time to set it right again! In an attempt to ‘seize the day’, I’m posting this Flickr pic first…cool art posts will follow later. How’s your Monday morning going?