Category: General Topics

The Beautiful Illustrations of Wenyi Geng (updated)

Posted on | by Ken | Leave a Comment on The Beautiful Illustrations of Wenyi Geng (updated)
Used without permission: Please visit his portfolio at Behance.

I’m not sure why, but I’ve been on a real illustration binge lately. While I was going through my twitter feed and ran into a talented artist that creates some of the most interesting illustrations that I’ve seen in a while. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great illustrators online, and many have great work as well. It’s just the work of Wenyi Geng just struck me somehow. If I were forced to give an answer why I enjoyed his work, I’d say that I think it’s is use of line mixed with the pastel colors that really caught my attention the most.

Most the pieces that I looked at were playful and fun. The one that drew me into his work was of a of a fully clothed woman riding a wave while holding an umbrella. If I had that kind of  creativity, I would say that it’s straight out of a dream, but I don’t. I can only enjoy Wenyi’s work. That piece in particular, gives the impression that the artist has incorporated some of the ukiyo-e style into it. The ukiyo-e style is best identified by the woodblock print of the Japanese artist, Hokusai.

The ukiyo-e style is best identified by the woodblock print of the Japanese artist, Hokusai

As far as I can tell on my quick examination of his work, none of the pieces are labeled by name or size. So my only way to identify them is by the content of the work. Another piece that I enjoyed was of a bird drawn in a playful manner. I think that’s the only way I can describe it quickly. Since this isn’t a critique, just my observations, you’ll have to cut me some slack. This piece is child-like and fun, and plays with one of Dali’s most famous pieces, The Persistence of Time’s melting clocks. Only with Wenyi’s work he’s replaced the melting clock with a melting orange slice. To a lesser degree I get a sense that there is a touch more Surrealism in his work. I can’t help but feel that the artist is taking a cue from Magritte as well. Though I can’t tell why, it’s just a feeling.

After doing some research online I’ve found out a little bit about him. Wenyi Geng was born in Japan, grew up in China, studied at SVA MFA Illustration and currently based in Tokyo Japan. Before writing this article I had not heard of him so I didn’t know if he was up and coming, or already established. I’m going to say that I’m embarrassed to see that he is very recognized in his field. I realize that I can’t know everything about the artists that I profile on this site, but Wenyi has been featured in at least three magazines. The magazines are listed on his personal site at http://www.wenyigeng.com/ in the about page. Other than that there really wasn’t that much more about him. I think it’s great that he’s getting the recognition that he deserves.

His Portfolio

Used without permission: Please visit his portfolio at Behance to see more of his work.
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Looking for Content

Posted on | by Ken | Leave a Comment on Looking for Content

I was surfing through my normal channels looking for articles and ideas for the next post. The fact of the matter is, is that I seem to be coming up with nothing to write about. There are some things that seemed interesting, but nothing that inspired me to do a complete article.

There are few ideas that I’ve been planning on doing, but they are more tech related and I need to be posting more in the arts. That’s ‘arts’ in the strictest sense. I’d like to do an article on painting or ceramics, but anything dealing with the end result instead of the tech used to create it would be good.

If you’ve got an idea or if there is something that you’d be interested in seeing you can leave a comment on the blog post. Thanks in advance.

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Social Media in Context

Posted on | by Ken | Leave a Comment on Social Media in Context

Have you ever wondered how the different social media networks stacked up next to each other on the amount of users they have? For me it was always something that I thought about but wasn’t really sure. I knew Facebook was the largest, but after that I just wasn’t sure. I found a short video that puts that all into context.

I’m not sure who created the video, but from reading the attached article it sounds as if The Next Web(TNW) was the source of it. The full article can be read here at TNW.

Link The most popular social media networks each year, gloriously animated

The video starts with the beginning of what was called at the time, Web2.0 with Friendster topping every other player by a huge margin in 2003. It should be mentioned that many of the networks that we use now didn’t exist back then. As the years tick by you see though the use of bar graphs, the rise and fall of popularity of the respective sites. It’s almost like watching a graph of the western civilization, you know the rise and fall of empires through time.

Screen capture of the battle for social network site. – Credit: thenextweb.com

The graph is a interesting look into time that is almost hypnotic to watch. There are some networks that I don’t think I’ve even heard about, but most are pretty much well known. At one point I caught myself rooting for Reddit. It’s funny because it isn’t a race, it’s just how the bar graph expands and contracts along with the selected music.

It’s not going to change your world to watch the video, but it is really an interesting graphic that will have you wondering where all these people are coming from, and maybe why you aren’t using the particular social network.

As I was finishing this hastely written post, I started to wonder if it actually belongs on this site. I mean, it’s not art nor is it technology for artists. I guess in the end, it’s just interesting and yeah, maybe it doesn’t really fit in Art & Technology, but for now I’ll leave it here.

Unfortunately, it appears that TNW won’t allow embedding of the video, at least in the way that my WP site can actually understand, so I guess if you want to see the video, you’ll have to visit their site. Seems kind of petty to me, but hey, they took the time and expense to make it.
Link The video

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Creating an infographic template in AI

Posted on | by Ken | Leave a Comment on Creating an infographic template in AI
How to create a Vector Infographic, by Andrei Marius (tutsplus.com)

As a graphic and web designer there are a lot of different requests I get from clients. One that I haven’t needed to do in some time is to create an infographic. That being said, I think it’s at least a good tool to have in your “tool box” if the need ever arises. That, and considering that as part of my plan for this site I like the idea of adding a mix of different areas of art I think this is a great addition.

This post is about creating infographics in Adobe Illustrator by . The article appeared on tutsplus.com and if you’re interested it seems to be a comprehensive step-by-step guide to the process. I do have to acknowledge that I haven’t done the tutorial yet, but given time, I will attempt it. I typically don’t like templates, more for personal reasons than any other, but the result looks pretty good. Good enough for me to give it a shot.

As mentioned, the writer takes you through the process at a beginners steps, “1. How to Create a New Document and Set Up a Grid” to finish at what appears to be a generic, yet very professional infographic. Like I said, I’m going to give it a shot if only to have a ‘fall back’ if I have to create one in  rush.

Do the tutorial

Update: I sat down this morning to do the tutorial. I mean it looks pretty good and like I mentioned in the article, we should all know how to do an infographic. Let me just say that the tutorial was really bad. The author made simple things difficult and relied on this sense of,” let’s use the tools that are pretty much useless unless we have tutorials making us use them.” Serious, I couldn’t finish the tutorial and I’ve been using AI since about 1997, and I’ve been teaching it since about 2001, and let me repeat, I couldn’t finish it. I did however sit down and do the infographic in about an hour just copying  what the image looked like.

I guess if you’re new to AI then maybe you’ll get something from it, but I think a better way to do it is too sit down and play. You’ll probably be more creative and maybe even do something interesting.

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So what’s this all about?

Posted on | by Ken | Leave a Comment on So what’s this all about?

So there I was feeling all down and out about being fucked over by someone that for the time being, I don’t know right now. I don’t really care if I find out who is my enemy, but if there is any justice then that person will feel the wrath of kharma. Yeah, I’m not going to go into the details, but just let me say that I had to somehow expel this anger. So what would you expect a creative people do when then feel violated? They build a website. 🙂

So where is this anger coming from? It’s hard to tell, I will say that about five minutes ago, a bug flew into my beer and I’m still feeling violated by it now. Should I throw out the beer and clean the cup… or just try to forget that I removed the bug’s body and flicked it to the floor and save all that beer.?


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