Season’s Greetings to All !

My best wishes to all who visit this site during this holiday season and the year to come! I hope that you have enjoyed your stay at this site and will visit often. Have a great winter season, stay well and safe. -Chas  Ultrawolvesunderthefullmoon.blog

The food gifs have been made by the talented cinematographic artist Daria Khoroshavina who is based in Moscow, Russia. Her project Kitchen Ghosts is about food, drinks and other little precious moments of life captured and looped in live photographs.

The Kitchen Ghosts project has been noticed and loved by many brands which led to successful collaborations with Pepsi, Martell, Blue Angel vodka, Schweppes, Amazon, Samsung and others.

Represented by:
glasshouseassignment
Kari Anderson
kari@glasshouseassignment.com

Joseph Meehan

Illustrations by Joseph Meehan

Joseph Meehan is an American freelance illustrator and concept artist who currently lives and works in New York. He studied at New York City’s Fashion Institute of Technology where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in Toy Design. 

Meehan worked initially as an intern at Hasbro where he designed toys fo the GI Joe series, and also did preliminary work for “GI Joe: The Movie”. Beginning in September of 2011, he worked for three years at Mattel where he designed action figures, vehicles, and created new features and play patterns for its Batman action-figure line. 

In September of 2014, Joseph Meehan began working freelance at Volta Studio in New York, a design studio dedicated to creating high-end 2D and 3D visuals for video games, films and toys.  As a Senior Artist, he created illustrations and concept art for a wide range of products, such as mobil games, trading cards, and triple-A games. In October of 2020, Meehan became a full-time Senior Illustrator at Rockstar Games in New York City. 

Meehan is skilled in a multitude of software graphic systems including Keyshot, Photoshop, Adobe Creative Suite, ZBrush, and Solidworks. Meehan has produced artwork for numerous leading names including Random House, Wizards of the Coast, Bioware, Bethesda, Ubisoft, NetherRealms, Hasbro, and Mattel. among others.

Joseph Meehan’s work and contact information can be found at his website:   https://www.josephmeehanart.com 

Note: Joseph Meehan designed many illustrations over the years for “Magic the Gathering”. He is currently creating a set of ten laser marked, ink washed anodized aluminum tokens to be used within “Magic the Gathering”. Examples of these can be seen on his Kickstarter site: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/josephmeehanart/joseph-meehans-hand-made-metal-tokens?fbclid=IwAR3BwmS8ZDadXgWnvjj30ZKq-G_Rg9pC-Y4GZLInHStC8CdmHeGR_LkhlH8 

Bottom Insert Image: Joseph Meehan, “Barbarian Warchief”

Nicholas Moegly

Illustrations by Nicholas Moegly

Based in Cincinnati, Ohio, Nicholas Moegly is a freelance illustrator and graphic artist who specializes in nostalgic, mostly dark imagery with a focus on light and shadows. An early influence on his work was the paintings of realist artist Edward Hopper whose scenarios of light and shadow gave an intimate perspective on urban life. Later in his career, images of scenes photographed at night became a prominent source of layout reference for Moegly’s initial sketch work.

In his early career, Moegly worked for several agencies in the Cincinnati area where he created graphic designs for advertising, packaging, and branding. Beginning a career as a freelance artist in 2016, he worked with multiple Fortune 500 companies and international beverage and apparel brands. Moegly has designed posters and music collection images for several Grammy-winning artists, such as The Dave Matthews Band, The Avett Brothers, and John Prine, among others.

Nicholas Moegly’s illustrations largely focuses on the normal, quiet landscapes of suburbia in the midwestern part of the United States. Done in a realistic style, his work is executed with great attention to perspective and the smallest detail. Nostalgic and expressing a sense of urban isolation, Moegly’s images often feature surreal details that lend an unworldly mystery to their conventional appearance. Scenes of local shops and urban homes might contain an oddly lit window in a dark, fog-bound dwelling, forest animals on the lawn or in a deserted classroom, or a lit desk lamp on the front sidewalk with no source for its electricity.

Moegly has produced many hand-drawn, screen printed editions of concert and gig posters which were made available in limited editions of one hundred. In addition to his personal work as an artist, he is now working as a software development lead in the digital enablement department at Moog Incorporated. Moegly continues to live and work in the Cincinnati area of Ohio.

Nicholas Moegly’s website, containing contact information and an online store, is located at: http://www.nicholasmoegly.com

A more complete collection of Nicholas Moegly’s work can be found at his Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/nicholasmoegly/?hl=en

Mati Gelman

Mati Gelman, “Joel”, Date Unknown, Trending Deities Series, Photograph, Computer Graphics

Born in Hungary, Mati Gelman is a commercial and fine art photographer who spent his early years living in Israel. Interested in the processes of nature and humans’ interaction with them, he initially pursued a vocation in the field of science and earned a Bachelors of Science in Biochemistry from the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa and a Masters of Science in Chemistry from the Bar Han University in Tel Aviv. Upon moving to New York City in 2015, Gelman decided to enhance his self-taught photographic skills with technical courses at the International Center for Photography and the Pratt Institute, both located in Manhattan.

Gelman’s work aesthetic focuses on the connections between the forces of nature and the human body. His images explore the issues of human integration with nature, sexuality, and queerness; they are heavily influenced by legends and fairytales, which have had a lasting impact on human society. Gelman tends to create scenes which provoke an ominous sensation in order to induce a sense of the unknown. As human beings are pattern recognizers and often prescribe meaning to unaccustomed phenomena, the elements of Gelman’s works are intentionally left open to the viewers’ interpretations.

Mati Gelman creates stories and shapes his characters through both his imagination and his life experiences. His work is a blend of photography and computer graphics. Using a Sony a7R11 with a 24-70 lens, Gelman photographs his posed subjects and continues his work with Lightroom for minor adjustments and Photoshop for the basic effects. Gelman won the ViewPoint Gallery International Photography competition for his work entitled “Flight”, an image of a figure mid-air surrounded by billowing cloth in the light of a sunset. His “Entangled”, a figure seemingly suspended by strips of white cloth, won first place in the 2018 Chromatic Awards. Gelman has also won awards at the Annual Fine Art Photography Awards, FAPA, in 2019 and 2020.

Besides his fine art photography, Gelman has executed photo shoots for off-Broadway theater productions. He shot the promotional images for playwright and director Asher Gelman’s 2018 theater production, “Afterglow”, a character study which explored the dynamics of an open gay relationship involving three personality archetypes. Mati Gelman’s work also includes photo shoots for the following plays: “Diaspora”, “Safeword”, “Eco Village”, “Counting Sheep”, “We Are the Tigers”, and “Medusa”.

The title image “Joel” and the middle insert image, title unknown, are from Mati Gelman’s “Trending Deities” series which explores the parallels between ritual and worship in both religion and social media. Using both modern and traditional references throughout the series, Gelman’s work uses cinematic proportions as a reference to smartphone screens and, by multiplying the characters and placing them in ritualistic activities, depicts the virtual cult-like following that is adherent on social media platforms. The color palettes and compositions were inspired by Renaissance, Greco-Roman, and Medieval art.

The work of Mati Gelman can be found at the artist’s sites: https://www.matigelman.com and Instagram @matigelman .

Hector de Gregorio

Paintings by Hector de Gregorio

Born in Valencia, Hector de Gregorio is a Spanish painter and digital artist. He had his foundational fine art taining at Camberwell Art College in London. Between 2004 and 2007, De Gregorio studied Fine Art at London’s Central Saint Martin’s, where he earned his BA in 2007. He later earned his MFA in Printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London in 2009. 

Hector de Gregorio was influenced in his formative years by his Catholic upbringing, which furthered his interests in devotional art from different religions, and by his mother, a dressmaker who taught him the skills of design and tailoring. He was also interested in European art: the sensuality of Filippo Lippi’s figures, the realism and dramatic lighting of Caravaggio’s work, the religious narrative works of Hieronymus Bosch, and the surrealist work of  Salvador Dali. All these elements combine to give de Gregorio’s work, although contemporary in appearance,  a familiar medieval atmosphere with overtones of a mythological or religious nature.

De Gregorio’s work is both meticulous and labor intensive. Each image entails extensive costume design research, photographic shoots, digital imaging, and hand finishing of the final image. De Gregorio begins by photographing his friends, dressed in personally made elaborate costumes, at his studio. Taking a number of photos from the shoot, he fashions a collage that distorts the perspective of the image. To these images, de Gregorio digitally adds elements such as colored backdrops, Latin phrases, and other motifs with either mythical or religious references. This finished product is printed on either canvas or fine art paper, and overlaid with waxes, oil paints, gold leaf and varnish.

Hector de Gregorio has exhibited widely, with exhibitions in London, Berlin, Milan, New York, Miami and Chicago.  In November 2009, he won the prestigious annual Young Masters Art Prize for his inspiring contemporary portraiture. In 2012 Hector de Gregorio exhibited his “Absinthes” in  “The Perfect Place to Grow”, an exhibition of work by the alumni of the Royal College of Art to celebrate its 175th anniversary.

Bottom Insert Image: Hector de Gregorio, “Self Portrait”, Date Unknown, Mexed Media on Paper

Franz Szony

Photographic Work by Franz Szony

Raised in Reno, Nevada, Franz Szony is a writer and photographic artist whose main body of work, both in its fine art and commercial forms, embraces conceptual portraiture. 

After finishing his primary education in 2014, which included art classes at an early age, Szony relocated to San Francisco where he attended the Academy of Art. At the academy, he initially studied fashion and illustration, and, later. focused on photography. After learning the technical aspects of photography, Szony returned to his hometown of Reno where, as a freelance artist, he photographed different advertisement campaigns for newspapers, theaters, and several casinos. He exhibited his own work in a small gallery he created and hosted monthly nude drawing workshops in that space. 

Szony moved to Los Angeles in 2012 and settled in the Brewery Artist Loft complex, an industrially zoned area where artists rent living and working space. Inspired by the area’s creative energy, he photographed campaigns for perfume and fashion brands, created album covers, and did creative photographic work for companies, including Disney and Warner Brothers. 

Influenced by illustrators such as Marc Davis and Erte, and, at an early age, by the extravagant stage shows of Reno’s casinos, Franz Szony’s conceptual portraiture work is lush both in its color and settings. His images are presented ambiguously in time and place, and androgynously in character. Szony’s photographs often contain symbolic or mythological elements and convey psychological, political, and sexual identity messages to the viewers.  

Franz Szony is also a songwriter who has produced several music videos in which he has incorporated his poetry and visual art. Shot over a period of three days, his music video, “Petunia”, based on several of his photographic pieces, was released in 2018. Other music videos by Szony include “La Petite Mort”, “Antibeige”, and “Pansy”, also released in 2018; and “What You Seek” and “Surrender Dorothy”, both released in 2020. 

Szony had solo exhibitions at Reno’s Sierra Arts Foundation in 2015 and at Hollywood’s World of Wonder Gallery in 2019. His work is included in many private collections. Franz Szony’s website is located at http://www.franzszony.com

Richard Laeton

Digital Photographic Art by Richard Laeton

Born and raised in Long Beach, New York, Richard Laeton is a graphic designer and illustrator. He attended the Carnegie Mellon University from 1973 to 1975, receiving his BA in Communication Design, and attended the Parsons School of Design from 1974 to 1975, earning his MFA in Illustration and Design. Laeton currently lives and works in Marin County, California. 

A versatile graphic designer with expertise in all phases of art direction, Laeton was graphic designer and illustrator fo the SYDA Foundation from 1995 to 2003. He was art director for the global world music label Real Music from 2005 to 2012, a which time he founded Laeton Designs, a provider of designs and illustrations for private clients, as well as a source for commissioned portraitures, fine art drawings, and other digital work. 

Richard Laeton creates works of art that blend conventional photography and painting with digital technology. Inspired by the naturally occurring forms, contours, and colors in the environment, his figurative work uses natural colors with a layered and textural approach to the image. Laeton’s works include figurative works, celebrity portraits, floral images, abstracts, and meditative works.

For more information and images, Richard Laeton’s website is located at:  https://richard-laeton.pixels.com

Toshihiko Okuya

Artwork by Toshihiko Okuya

Born in November of 1955 in the Gifu Prefecture of Japan, Toshihiko Okuya started his art career in 1981 doing illustrative work for children’s and picture books, and magazines; he also produced illustrative puzzles and mazes for books and periodicals. Okuya became a lecturer in 1983, specializing in education for children. In 1989, he entered his paintings in the “Illustration in Japan1988” exhibition held by the Seibu Art Forum in Tokyo.

Toshihiko Okuya began work, starting in 1996, in the fields of graphic design and web design. In 2001, he began to combine his oil painting with computer graphics, first scanning his work into digital images and then adding effects on his computer. Okuya entered the 2001 Mikuni Town Exhibition, becoming a special prize winner in puzzle art. He won a prize for his oil paintings at the 44th Kanagawa Prefectural Art Exhibition in 2008 and  a prize at the 2009 Epson Color Imaging Contest for Digital Art- Ink Jet Print Works.

The artist’s site is located at:  http://quinbaya.com/okuya/#

Ray Bradbury: “The Sky was Woven into the Trees”

Artist Unknown, (The Sky was Woven into the Trees), Computer Graphics, Endless Loop Animation Gif

“And he was gesturing up through the trees above to show them how it was woven across the sky or how the sky was woven into the trees, he wasn‘t sure which. But there it was, he smiled, and the weaving went on, green and blue, if you watched and saw the forest shift its humming loom.”

—Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

Cari Vander Yacht

 

Graphic Works by Cari Vander Yacht

Born in Oregon, Cari Vander Yacht is a Brooklyn, New York-based multi-media illustrator and computer graphic artist. Besides her work for print media and corporations, she animates photos found in Portland’s thrift shops, turning them into surreal, often humorous, gifs. Originally part of a collaborative project with film artist Thomas Sauvin called “Reanimation”, Yacht has developed them into a new series called “Thank God It’s Monday Graphic Interchange Format”.

Cari Vander Yacht ’s first illustrative work was for The New York Times, a media publication to which she still occasionally contributes. Among her completed projects are; developing the branding for the Iranian soft drink Mr. Cat; animations for the Pop Up magazine; animations for Nike’s Lebron XIII shoe release; illustrations for Businessweek magazine and Brooklyn’s Parlor Coffee; an animated cover for Buzzfeed Reader; and a promotional animated graphic for Emerald Nuts.

Conan Chadbourne

Digital Mathematical Images by Conan Chadbourne

Born in 1978, Conan Chadbourne received his BA in Mathematics and Physics from New York University in 2011. He has worked in the fields of experimental physics research, digital imaging and printing, graphic design, and documentary film production.. Chadbourne lives in San Antonio where he works as a freelance graphic designer and documentary film producer.

Chadbourne  draws inspiration for his work from his experience in mathematics and the sciences. He is motivated by his fascination with the occurrence of mathematical and scientific imagery in traditional art forms, and the mystical, spiritual, or cosmological significance that is often attached to such imagery. 

Mathematical themes both overt and subtle appear in a broad range of traditional art: Medieval illuminated manuscripts, Buddhist mandalas, intricate tilings in Islamic architecture, restrained temple geometry paintings in Japan, complex patterns in African textiles, and geometric ornament in archaic Greek ceramics. Often this imagery is deeply connected with the models and abstractions these cultures use to interpret and relate to the cosmos, in much the same way that modern scientific diagrams express a scientific worldview.

Conan Chadbourn’s works have been exhibited at the Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas; The Art Center of Corpus Christi,;the Museum of Geometric and MADI Art in Dallas, Texas; and the Bridges Conference for Mathematics in the Arts.

“There are 212,987 distinct ways to partition a 4×4 grid of square tiles into component shapes composed of contiguous tiles, assuming any two such partitions are considered equivalent if they differ only by a symmetry transformation such as a rotation or reflection. There are exactly thirteen of these configurations which partition this grid of sixteen tiles into two component shapes of equal area, each composed of eight tiles. This image presents this set of thirteen equal divisions of this group of tiles.”

—Conan Chadbourne, Discussing his image “Concise Lesson in Uniform Partitions”

Dave Whyte

Dave Whyte, Computer Graphics, Endless Loop Gifs

Dave Whyte is a Generative artist living and working in Dublin, Ireland. He accepts commissions for graphic work through dawhyte at tcd.ie. Equipped with a PhD in Physics and taking inspiration from the early days of GIF Art on Tumblr, Whyte, also known as @beesandbombs, has crafted his own mind-bending aesthetic worth celebrating.

An interview with Dave Whyte, which includes a discussion on the development of his art and includes additional images, can be foun on the ARTXCODE site located at: https://www.artxcode.io/journal/artist-spotlight-dave-whyte

Many thanks to https://doctordee.tumblr.com, who introduced me to this artist.

 

 

Sergei Parajanov: Film History Series

Sergei Parajanov, “The Color of Pomegranates”, 1969, Computer Graphics, Film Gifs

The 1969 Soviet art film “The Color of Pomegranates”, written and directed by Sergei Parajanov, is a visual, poetic treatment of the life of the eighteenth-century Armenian musician and poet Sayat-Nova. The film is presented in a series of chapters depicting the poet’s life in active tableaux, presented with little dialogue. Each chapter, framed through Sayat-Nova’s poems, is indicated by a title card: Childhood, Youth, Prince’s Court, The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death, and Death. Narration on the film was done by Armenian-born renowned actor Armen Dzhigarkhanyan, known for his role in the 1979 “The Meeting Place Can Not Be Changed”. 

Four actors took the role of Sayat-Nova at different stages in his life, with Soviet Georgian actress Sofiko Chiaureli, notably playing six roles in the film, both female and male. The film was shot at numerous historical sites in northern Armenia, many being medieval churches in the Lori Provence, including the Sarahin Monastery and the St. John church at Ardvi. Filming was also done at the Old City of Baku, Azerbaijani, and in the countryside near the David Gareja Monastary in Eastern Georgia. 

Objections were made by the Communist Party and the Soviet censors  to Parajanov’s poetic, stylized treatment of the poet’s life, citing that it failed to educate the public. As a result, the original title “Sayat-Nova” was changed to “The Color of Pomegranates” and any references to Sayat-Nova’s name was removed from the credits. The Soviet officials also objected to the amount of religious imagery in the film and removed a substantial portion of it. Although the State Committee for Cinematography initially refused to allow the film to be shown outside Armenia, it did allow the film, now with a seventy-seven minute running time, to premiere inside Armenia in October of 1969.

Filmmaker Sergei Yutkevich,  the 1962 People’s Artist of the USSR and a script-reader on the State Committee, recut the film by a few minutes to appease the authorities and created Russian-language chapter titles for easier understanding by the public at large. He also changed the order of some of the sequences in the film. This seventy-three minute version ultimately received only limited distribution in the rest of the Soviet Union. 

The digital restoration of “The Color of Pomegranates” was completed in 2014 by Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation with the help of Cineteca di Bologna. It was re-edited as close as possible to the Sergei Parajanov’s original version, with its premier held at the 67th Cannes Film Festival. Parajanov’s film premiered in the US at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in September of 2014 and the 52nd New York Film Festival in October of 2014.

Busby Berkeley: Film History Series

Artist Unknown, Busby Berkeley,’s “By A Waterfall” Scene, Computer Graphics, “Footlight Parade” Film Gifs

Lyricist Irving Kahal and composer Sammy Fair had a sixteen year collaboration which started in 1926 and lasted until Kahal’s death in 1942. Among their many notable songs was the 1933 “By a Waterfall”, written for Warner Brothers Picture’s “Footlight Parade”, the third film in the 1933 Gold Diggers Trilogy. The vocal performances were done by actor-singer Dick Powell and actress-singer Ruby Keeler. 

Directed by Lloyd Bacon and presenting great cinematography by George Barnes, “Footlight Parade” contained opulent musical numbers created and directed by Busby Berkeley whose routines contributed to the film’s success. Berkeley’s extravagant arrangement features his trademark human waterfall with its synchroniised water ballet of diving and swimming chorus girls, who produce elaborate, geometric patterns in the water.

One entire sound stage was filled with a twelve by twenty-four meter swimming pool with walls and floor made of glass. Two weeks were required for the one hundred chorus girls to practice their routines in it before shooting began. The six days of actual filming for the waterfall scene required that twenty thousand gallons of water per minute be pumped across the set to produce the required effects.

Besides the placement and movement of the dancers, the cameras also had to be positioned to film the entire scope of the choreography. Berkeley set his cameras in motion on monorails and custom-built booms to get the correct angle of shot. Since Berkeley was not hampered by the need to shoot multiple images at once for continuity, he was able to expand his creative potential by fluid camera motion and the use of intricate editing, creating fantasy out of the movement.. 

Cody Sampson

Cody Sampson, “Closer Look”, 2018, Digital Art, Computer Graphics

Cody Sampson is a digital artist living and working in both Long island, New York, and New Plymouth, New Zealand. His graphic works, often illusionary images or depictions of scenes with an unique flair, includes computer-generted animations, infinite loop gifs, and digital stills. Sampson creates his work using tools, such as Octane Render, Maxon’s Cinema 4D, and Adobe Photoshop. His main site is: https://cody-sampson.tumblr.com

Image reblogged with thanks to : https://doctordee.tumblr.com

 

New Power

Artist Unknown, (New Power), Computer Graphics, Anime Film Gifs

“Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with new self-respect, with new power, and with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Any information on the artist or film source would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Olivia Howard Dunbar: “The Not Yet Darkened World”

Artist Unknown, (The Not Yet Darkened World), Computer Graphics, Anime Film Gifs

“The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater—a moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in.”
Olivia Howard Dunbar, The Shell of Sense

The Lumière Brothers: Film History Series

Artist Unknown, (Paris Scenes), Computer Graphics, Film Gifs from “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900”

The Belle Époque was a period in the history of Paris between 1871 to 1914, from the beginning of the Third French Republic until the first World War. The nostalgic term came into use, after the despair and deaths of World War One, for what seemed a simpler time of elegance, optimism and progress. This “Beautiful Age’ brought dramatic advancements in art, culture, and technology. 

In the field of architecture, Paris saw the construction of the Paris Metro, the completion of the Paris Opera House, the building of the Eiffel Tower, and the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on Montmartre. During the three Universal Expositions of 1879, 1889, and 1900, millions of visitors came to Paris to see the latest marvels in commerce, the arts, and science. Paris was also the birthplace of the Ballets Russes, the most influential ballet company of the twentieth century, and the new art movements of Impressionism and the experimental Modern Art.

One particularly important technological invention that emerged at this time was the projected motion picture, patented in 1895 by Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean Lumière. With this new technology, the Lumière brothers captured contemporary life in 19th-century Paris, culminating in the priceless black and white footage we can still see today.

Shot between 1896 and 1900, the compilation  “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900” takes viewers on a journey back in time to Paris. In six minutes, it showcases several sites around the French capital, including still-standing landmarks like Notre-Dame Cathedral, the Champs-Élysées, and the ten-year-old Eiffel Tower. In addition to featuring specific locations, it also offers a glimpse of daily life, from a scene showing firefighters on horseback to footage of children playing with little boats in the Tuileries Garden.

In order to set a lifelike scene, film restorer Guy Jones slowed the footage to a natural speed and added ambient noise. When coupled with the video’s strikingly high quality, these alterations make it possible for people today to wander through the Golden Age of Paris.

The complete film “A Trip Through Paris, France, 1896-1900” by the Lumière brothers with restoration and soundtrack can be found, along with other restored works, at Guy Jones’s Youtube site:

https://www.youtube.com/user/bebopsam1975/videos

Buckhead1111

Buckhead 1111, “Colaboration with Paul Cadmus”, Digital Art Photography

Buckhead1111, born Steve Douglas, is an artist and designer living on Maui, Hawaii. He is a multi-media artist who has produced work in a wide range of media including theater set design, jewelry, sculpture and painting. He is currently working in digital art using multiple apps on his iPad. Buckhead1111 weaves textures that he digitally creates into photographs that he has processed, frequently collaborating with other artists on their work.

Image reblogged with thanks to the artist: https://buckhead1111.tumblr.com