ATM Street Artist Paints Endangered Species to Spread Awareness

Last year, I blogged about the London based street artist who goes by the name ATM. He paints murals of endangered species in hope that they will catch attention of passer-bys and make them think about the their plight and help.

"Birds are often the most noticeable creatures to disappear, their loss the warning sign that something is fundamentally wrong in the way we treat our environment. They are the canary in the mine.

We as human beings are very much a part of the whole web of nature, dependent on a healthy environment like every other living creature. It is so easy to forget this in our modern industrialized world where we are insulated by comfort and technology. We must learn a greater love and respect for other living things if we are to avert global disaster."

The artist has been painting bare walls all over London in collaboration with London National Park City and local businesses to bring awareness about the needed change in modern techniques of farming, city planning and local Council approaches to public land.

You can see more of his work from the past and follow his work Instagram for new work.

Discarded Objects Transformed With Sculpted Flora and Fauna

I am in awe with the level of creativity of Stephanie Kilgast, a sculptor who sparks life into found objects by transforming them into masterpieces. Stephanie was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany in 1985 and currently lives in Vannes, France.

Since 2017, she has been working on a series "Discarded Objects". The series is a collection of sculptures inspired by flora and fauna depicted in rainbow colors. The artist creates three dimensional owls, bears, penguins, birds, tigers, and other natural elements such as coral, mushrooms and plants, and combines them with discarded materials. Her sculptures celebrate "the beauty of nature in a dialogue with humanity, questioning the lost balance between human activities and nature."

Her artwork "has a cheerful post apocalyptic feel to it, a reassuring reminder that nature has the capacity to grow , back, if we only let it." The artist sculpts miniature animals that are emerging from man-made objects such as plastic bottles, ceramic jug, tin container, plate, and old cameras.

The artist's work has been exhibited all around the world, such as The Stockroom Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, Harmony Gallery, Shanghai, China, Art Number 23, London, UK, Baton Rouge Gallery, Louisiana, USA, Galerie Freisleben, Übersee, Deutschland, and Les Vivres de L’Art, Bordeaux, France. Kilgast has been honored with many awards. She was one of the 25 Sculpture Award Finalists of the Beautiful Bizarre Prize, 2019. Two of her sculptures – Ahoy! And Poison d’Art – were shortlisted for the Sunny Art Prize, 2018.

Flora and Fauna Inspired Paintings by Catherine Earle

Catherine Earle was born and raised in France, where she studied at a National Art School of France, Ecole des Beaux-Art, in Nimes. Later, she moved to the US where she studied watercolor with Zoltan Szabo and encaustic with Daniella Woolf.

She spent early years of her childhood on a flower farm on South of France. She would inspect the flowers and get lost for many hours observing their shapes and colors. Nature is a huge part of her work often featuring animals peeking through the floral vines and other natural elements. The artist uses acrylic paints and paints them in layers giving a sense of transparency and a subtle light to the paintings. Her signature styled translucent circular watercolor marks seem to be glowing in the painting, give an ethereal quality to her work.

She has exhibited at various galleries including The Haen Gallery in Asheville NC, The Art Spirit Gallery in Coeur d’Alene ID, Radius Gallery in Missoula MT and the Union Co-Op, Seattle WA.

She has been featured for her paintings as a “Artist in the Studio,“ in the magazine Western Art & Architecture. Her work also got featured in The Essential Guide, Spokane - Coeur d’Alene – Walla Walla, and in the book 500 Chairs by LarkBooks. 

3 Dimensional Punch Needle Kits and Wall Decor by Derya Bilir

I love to do embroidery, and I have been wanting to try my hand at punch needle but never got around to getting everything together. Like me, if you too have been wondering about this embroidery technique then Derya Bilir's kits will certainly come in handy.

Derya Bilir of Lucky Pink Lady Bug creates adorable punch needle kits that are perfect for beginners. The kits come in several designs including flora and fauna, landscapes, abstract patterns and three dimensional designs. The kits come with a punch needle, a wooden hoop, a template, yarns, an instruction book and other tools to get you started. You can find kits and ready to hang wall decor at Derya's online store.

Realistic 3D Paper Birds Hand-painted by Johan Scherft

Johan Scherft is a paper artist born in 1970 in Netherlands. Ever since he was a kid, he has been interested in drawing and nature, specifically animals. As a young boy, he used to observe birds and make them out of paper, and then colored them with pencil colors.  Scherft studied graphic design at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, and later graduated in free painting and drawing in 1993.

He creates realistic paper models of various kinds of birds. "Paper is great material to work with in three dimensions, you can fold it, bend it, shape it, paint on it...In my art I combine all these techniques to come to a realistic result." from his profile on etsy.

Scherft paints birds with watercolors on paper before he cuts and assembles them. Each bird is painted in multi layers of thin paint which is very time consuming process and can take upto two weeks to finish a single piece. The artist paints feathers of his subject with small strokes, the attention to detail in his work makes his birds look almost real. His work is sold in several art galleries, and he has exhibited in Art-gallery Petit in Amsterdam, and the New Realism Stock-exchanges. He has also participated in exhibitions De Buitenplaats, Eelde, and museum The Lakenhal, Leiden.

He has made some of his birds available as template that you can download at home and make your own masterpieces. Find all his designs at his online store Paper Perch.