Collection: Cakes

Michelle sent me an email the other day letting me know about this amazing "Owl Cake Contest" at the Cake Central. They had over 470 submissions (wow!) by some very talented people. It must have been hard to pick a winner. I wonder if they flipped a coin? ;) Whatever they did the contest had its winner. The winning cake of this contest was "Owl Always Love You" (first picture).

The shown are some of the cakes I would have voted for. Which one would you have picked? You can see all the entries here.

Lush Designs

Marie Rodgers and Maria Livings are the designers based in London and the creative minds behind all beautiful things at Lush Designs. They studied painting and printmaking at Maidstone Art College and evolved their business while working in the theatre and community arts. 

Their unusual, fun and quirky designs are available on a wide range products like lampshades, pillow cases, bags, trays, tea towels and more. My favorite is the owl lampshade featuring an owl against a historic Greenwich Observatory design that continues around back of the shade. It's available in 4 lovely colors - green, blue, gold and red. Their products can be purchased from here and here.

DIY: Dancing Owl

Make a dancing owl with moving wings and legs with this easy to follow tutorial by Simona from Artsy Ants.

what you will need:

•  cardboard (like cereal box)

•  scissors

•  color pencils

•  4 beads

•  wire

For step by step instructions and to download a free owl template go here.

Emily Warren: Papier Mache Animals

Emily Warren is an illustrator based in Brighton who loves to draw and make things from discarded packaging, old newspapers and cardboard. After completing MA in Illustration at Central St. Martins she has been making papier mache trophy heads, creating installations and illustrations.

Her 3D masks are inspired by Folk and Outsider Artists, and love of animals. Each animal is hand painted and has it's own personality. They all will look great together on a living room wall and the cutie bear will look perfect in a nature-themed kid's room. You can see more of her work on her website Stealthy Rabbit.

Kim Coleman: Hand Painted Cookies

 

Birds of Canada Royal Icing Cookies by Kim Coleman from Sugar Rush Custom Cookies. Each cookie is hand painted and an edible work of art!

Michael Bartalos: Handle With Care

Born in Germany and now living in San Franciso Michael Bartalos is an illustrator and designer who attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Pratt Institute. He has a very impressive portfolio of clients like Nickelodeon, Target, Virgin Records and Time Warner Cable. His work has been published in The New York Times, Fortune, Newsweek, Time, Yale Medicine and many more. 

He recently worked on a very exciting sculptural project titled "Handle With Care" at the California Academy of Sciences. He sculpted a 16 foot high tree with a menagerie of cardboard animals - owl, moose, orangutan, sumatran tiger, fox and more - "representing a variety of species threatened by deforestation in two disparate locations affected by the pulp industry: temperate and boreal forests in North America, and the rain forests of Sumatra, Indonesia". 

The owl is about 11″ wide x 22.5″ high x 2″ deep. If you want to buy him or any other animal, you can contact Michael through his website.

Steven Kline

I discovered these fantastic illustrations by Steven Kline on Society6. The designs are available on iPhone cases, cards and t-shirts here.

Ran Hwang: Pins and Buttons Murals

Ran Hwang is a Korean-born artist currently living in New York creates incredible wall installations using buttons and pins. She creates oversized intricate murals of birds and owls that look like a collection of pixels on a screen seen on up close, but from afar it all comes together as a one amazing piece of art. 

Artist's statement: "The process of building large installations are time consuming and repetitive and it requires manual effort which provides a form of self-meditation. I hammer thousands of pins into a wall like a monk who, facing the wall, practices Zen. My works are divided into two groups. In the first, pins are used to hold buttons remain free to move and suggest the genetic human tendency to be irresolute. I choose buttons, which are as common and ordinary as human beings. In the second group of works, a massive number of pins connect yards of thread creating a negative space of the presented images, threads suggesting connections between human beings and a communication network between seemingly unlinked human experiences. The filled negative space in the absence of the positive space suggests mortality at the heart of self-recognition".

The Baishakhi Mela in London

The Baishakhi Mela parade is an annual event that takes place in London starting from Brick Lane to Weaver’s Fields. The conventional Bangla costumes, delicious food, music and activities are in abundance. I was browsing through the colorful pictures of the event on EEA website when I came across this stunning owl costume designed for the event.  

The large owl and the mechanical elephant were designed by Jennifer Lewis, Emma Garofalo and the women's group who helped with the traditional patterns. Did you attend or participate in the event?