NASA wants to launch your masterpiece into space

Perhaps I'm late to the party but did you know that NASA is opening an art gallery for aliens? In September, the spacecraft OSIRIS-REx will travel to a near-Earth asteroid called Bennu. In hopes of making the minor planet the first extra-terrestrial art gallery known to man, the space agency is inviting the public to submit paintings, sketches, photographs, poems, songs, videos and other forms of creative expression. These works will be encoded on a chip and left in the asteroid's soil.

NASA is accepting submissions until March 20, and artists around the globe can send their works to the OSIRIS-REx Twitter or Instagram accounts using the hashtag #WeTheExplorers. Videos published to YouTube and Vimeo will be accepted as well; just link to your clips in an appropriately tagged tweet. To know more about the technical guidelines, visit the campaign's website. Below are some of my favorites from Twitter.

Comments

Poshichi's Digital Take on Nihonga

Using digital tools, Poshichi makes nihonga-style pictures of everyday life. These images can be anywhere from funny to calm, thoughtful, imaginative, or even a bit wild. It's a wonderful harmony: the past rendered perfectly in the present. Nihonga is basically Japanese painting that gets its look from using mineral pigments (and sometimes ink) on surfaces like silk or paper. The term was created back in the Meiji period (1868–1912) just so people could tell it apart from Yōga, which is what they called Western-style painting. Art was everywhere in Poshichi's childhood: the grandfather ran a framing shop, and the grandma was an art teacher. Poshichi loved to draw, and was destined for an art career. But, you know how it goes—life had other plans. Thankfully, a friend encouraged the Japanese artist not to quit drawing, even if just as a hobby. Though Poshichi initially created dark, gloomy pieces due to depression, adopting a cat two years ago changed everything. “I felt the nee...

Hand-Painted Movie Posters by Tony Stella

In the 70s and 80s movie theaters in Manila were usually standalone buildings with nice seats and red curtains. To sell tickets, cinemas needed to advertise their offerings. But they did not have the original posters, or the means to print alternatives. So they made their own, commissioning local artists to hand-paint them. I really miss those hand-painted posters and billboards, which conveyed an artistry that was a form of visual hyperbole. But hand-made objects always have a way of returning. In this digital age, people will always look for things made by hand. I recently stumbled across the work of Tony Stella, whose genuinely cool movie posters have caught the eye of film enthusiasts and art lovers worldwide. He likes to work in watercolor and ink wash but sometimes he will make an oil painting, depending on the film. Tony's very active on social media, and his Tumblr blog contains a massive collection of illustrated movie posters that are often better than the original. ...

Weirdly Charming

If you’re a fan of art that makes you do a double-take, you need to check out Richard Brener . Based in the UK, Richard is an internationally collected artist who works primarily with ink, fineliners, and gouache. When you first see his pieces, they actually look pretty playful. Then you realize the entire canvas is packed with thousands of tiny, ghost-like shapes he calls "champs." They’re all squeezed together like commuters on a rush-hour train, and the level of detail is honestly mind-blowing. Richard spends hundreds of hours drawing these little guys over and over. It’s obsessive, very intentional, and a little bit wild. The cool part is that the longer you stare, the more the vibe shifts. Check out more photos below:

finding cain

Search This Blog