little circus designs

gosh, last week just wore us out!

but we're back, and breaking out of the felt rut. i just love these prints from little circus designs.

little circus is madeline stamer. inspired by a childhood spent in the neighborhoods and nature of melbourne australia and an adolescence roaming the streets of melbourne's graffiti scene, stamer's art is keenly personal, yet very accessible. it also feels full of life, the natural world, folk art, vintage fabric, mexican culture.

here are a few of my favorites:

lucky fertile rooster
29200
a new work, fierce protectors
angel you can find more of her work on her website, or for purchase at modamuse.

seasprayblue

we all know there's no shortage of wonderful screenprints and letterpress designs on etsy...but who can't use a little more eye candy?

today i'm really loving the prints from katrin, found in her shop seasprayblue over on etsy. here are a few of my favorites:

i can wait:

too many teacups:
coming home:

and of course, it's teatime:

golden millenium

browsing etsy this morning, i discovered john w golden's rovinato series of digital prints. oh.em.gee, are these gorgeous, or what!?! some of you may know of this keen eye's predilection to the industrial sublime, and golden's prints capture that sublimity in the most perfect tonal and grainy look. here are some of my faves:

the tanker and the skiff

paris railroad

firebell no. 2

the best part is that right now, golden is offering BOGO. so buy one and get another one!

golden's subject matter is not only industrial, he loves puppies too. check him out.

i am still alive

looking back at almost a year of the keen eye, i was reminded of a print that keen eye e and i loved a while back. it read "we are so good together" and really captured our attention.
alas, it's still sold out, as is every amazing print on their website, but i am still alive deserves a post of its own. we keen eyes are all about the letter press, after all.

i am still alive "is a design practice committed to authoring, shaping, and distributing honest and progressive narratives" and in this they succeed. designer dylan fareed's way with words is astonishing. i continually marvel at people who construct simple sentences with tremendous power, such as "we are so good together." this is personal reaffirmation at its most elegant and effective.

i am still alive is all about the message. to illustrate, here is a selection of their offerings. maybe by pointing to them, the keen eyes will encourage them to get back to printing. print more, damnit!

hilarious and stunning!

so true, my friends.

this was, quite possibly, printed especially for my house.

get back to work already, dylan!!!!

annie fitt

it's no secret that the keen eyes love prints. we love linoleum block prints, letterpress prints, etchings and monotypes. if it's ink on paper, we like it. so, while perusing etsy the other day, i discovered annie fitt and i'm smitten. not only does her work focus on animals but she lives just across the river from the keen eye b parents - imagine that!

fitt describes her work as very low tech - using no other electricity but that produced by her own body. she seems to focus on portraiture and specifically animal subjects. keen eye e loved the nydam press print of the italian greyhound and she's sure to love annie fitt's greyhound (or maybe whippet) portraits. this particular portrait is called sweetgrey and is tiny - only 3"x2" on 5"x4" paper.

the paper is another fantastic aspect of fitt's art. she uses only llama li bright paper - sales of the paper benefit the paper making cooperatives in rural nepal which produce it.

here are a few more fitt's prints i love, but be sure to check out her etsy shop!

i think stripey cat (also tiny) looks like little d of president street, brooklyn!

i absolutely love this one, called blueberry wine!

please check out annie fitt's etsy shop. you won't be sorry. maybe someday you'll see a portrait of the keen eye canine!

nydam press

i am in love with these linoleum prints from nydam press. i remember trying to do a linoleum press back in high school...didn't turn out so well.

Fada bullet!


whale!


italian grayhound (how i love this one!):
and close to my conservation minded heart, the piping plover:
you can find all of these over at the nydam press etsy shop (most are only $4!), and fun crafty reading at the nydam press blog.

spelling

how to waste time (but at least have fun): spell with flickr.

this handy little utility searches out photographs of letters based on the name or words you enter. if you don't like the original results, you can click the individual letters until you find the perfect one.

it's fun on screen, but i think it could also translate well into printed and framed photos for a room. you could print and frame each letter, or you could use photoshop magic and smoosh them all together.

lala dex press

we all know that there's no shortage of great letterpressed finds out there on etsy, so i won't pretend i'm breaking any boundaries for you, but i did come across these two this weekend that i thought were just too cute to pass up.

from lala dex press:

du er min favoritteperson

and bonjour

buon giorno

a few weeks ago a friend and i were tooling around georgetown, in our nation's capitol, looking for some yummy italian eats. en route to finding ristorante piccolo (which was molto fantastico), we stumbled upon the vibrantly painted yellow fine art and artists gallery. as if the facade was not enough to draw me in, i spied this stunning textual piece, welcoming the flowers 2007, dominating the back wall of the gallery.

the gallery was, unfortunately, closed when we returned to investigate this enormous and engaging piece, but this keen eye was not deterred. after all, i do have a strong affinity for the art of text. as i gazed longingly into the window of the faa, i was determined to figure out who was responsible. a little searching lead me to the art of john giorno. giorno, known predominately for his poetry and his giorno poetry systems, was socially linked to andy warhol, jasper johns, and robert rauschenberg in the sixties. it's clear that they also had quite an influence on his visual aesthetic.

as giorno is represented by galleries across the country, prices for his pieces are hard to come by without direct inquiry. nonetheless, i wanted to feature a few striking works that really hit my hot button. individual prints from welcoming the flowers are available - it's considered a series of prints making one sceenprinted poem. for example, you might love almost miss america rose - in which case you would contact durham press:

as much as i love the prints that make up welcoming the flowers, i'm really loving this one, featured by galerie almine rech. i think it's so sweet and pure in sentiment.

i'm thrilled to have discovered john giorno's poem-prints, and hope to someday add one or two of them to my growing collection of words and images.

embroidered calls

I found these embroidered telephone coversations by louisa bufardeci over at NotCot, and i just love them (by the way, i think the initial burst of popularity was unexpected, as it seems her website has been overloaded).

these are the soundwaves from 13 telephone conversations, all one minute long. she also has embroidered portraits of anti-war speeches.

being the nature-lover that i am, i'd love to see a selection of birdcalls visualized in this fashion....

print shop

lots of talk about old or vintage-style prints happening...decor8 gave us the lowdown on the botanical print we were wondering about, and everyone's always chatting about the great finds to be had at etsy. i wanted to throw in an oldie-but-goodie found right here in nyc: the old print shop.

i found them while doing some kind of crazy-exhaustive search for french vineyard maps (which, ultimately was unsuccessful i might add), and i've been addicted ever since.

founded in 1898, the old print shop specializes in American art from 1750 to 1950, antique maps 1500 to 1900, photography, american and european art reference books, and artist's books. their online search function is nothing short of amazing, but i can imagine it doesn't hold a candle to actually going to the shop...something to add to my rainy-weekend list. granted, a lot of these prints are WAY out of my price range, but to be fair, there are plenty that are totally reasonable.

this print of geranium pinnatum by h. andrews is only $90, but absolutely great:

these figs by george brookshaw are, dare i say it, quite sexy:
georgium knorr's clove carnations are beautiful - love the hint of orange-red.
oh, this wild yam print by charles millspaugh is f-ing gorgeous...i might have to buy this myself..especially for only $60[!!].
and finally, how about this angelica sativa print by johann weinmann? $350, but worth it!

happy browsing!

T E X T

this keen eye has a real thing for text. fonts, lead type, textual images -you name it, i love it. as long as it's got letters and numbers, i'm smitten. as such, i find myself drawn to textual art and thought i would highlight a few pieces here.

i found this one on etsy just the other day! it's by canadian printer magaret rankin, and i think it's pretty fabulous. i've never heard the saying before, and don't know if it's her own, or an old saying. either way it's great: the colors are rich, the font is perfectly suited to the vessel shape, and i love the way the text is linear, but not overly so. nice work, margaret.

the following two are probably pretty familiar to all of us from recent appearances in living etc. and domino, but worth posting nonetheless.


for like ever was designed in 2004 by tracy jenkins, one of the founders of the village type collective. i think this font and the accompanying candyfloss cloud on which the text sits is so exuberant and joyful. the phrase itself is so youthful and sweet. and of course it's printed in red on pink, making it just the perfect love letter, as the members of village intended it. i can't wait to have this on my wall.

keep calm and carry on is so quintessentially british - i love it! the sans serif font in small and large caps topped by the crown - it conveys such a strong and firm message of endurance and fortitude. originally printed to guide the brits through the blitz, it can be relevant to many situations still today. even the colors are convey royalty! you can find the keep calm poster here, in emerald, burgundy and navy.

and finally, this little treasure from the drama store - i hold grudges by dustin hostetler. the colors and font convey such ire and fury and that hand is so vengeful.

these textual images convey such power in such and economical way - words and color, sometimes accentuated with just the smallest of image. language holds so much potential and these artists all captured that in beautiful ways.