Life is great when you’re able to turn “a little too much time on your hands” into a business opportunity that pays hundreds of dollars for your doodles. And while many artists make their living with traditional media like oils on canvas, or watercolors on paper, this one makes his living with Sharpies on Styrofoam cups
They’re gorgeous: intricate black and white drawings that circle around the cup to tell a story with no beginning or end. Pointillistic drawings of people and animals, Japanese woodcut-style oceans of swirling waves, and playful vignettes of people in everyday activities. They can take hours or months to create: Cheeming Boey drinks out of the rejects and sells his best ones between $120 and $220 at a fine art gallery in Laguna Beach, California.
Some might raise their eyebrow at his medium which gets a bad rap in this environmentally aware society because polystyrene foam never biodegrades. But, as Boey said in an interview with the The Orange Country Register, “These cups last thousands of years, and my Sharpie says it’s permanent ink. These things are going to last generations. It’s archival material.” He also draws more temporary art – on bananas.
A friend gave me a link to this blog TheDailyOcean.blogspot.com; written by Santa Monica resident Sara Bayles, her plan is to spend 20 minutes collecting trash from her local beach each day and record her efforts online for 365 non-consecutive days. At each visit, she takes a photograph of what the beach looked like that day, a photo of the trash she collected, and she also includes a photo of something beautiful.
She keeps a running tally of each day’s collection: So far, only 70 days into her project, she estimates she has collected more than 325 pounds of trash. Sara says her goal is to raise awareness, and add some inspiration to help change the world.
Sara says her inspiration for this project came when she “realized I could treat everyday like a beach clean-up day, instead of waiting for an organization like Surfrider to host one.” She does belong to Surfrider, and says she believes membership in organizations like theirs is important, but ever since she moved closer to the beach, she “decided to do something to help protect our oceans as often as I could.” (more…)
Art teacher Sheri Lowe was alone in her Houston classroom with 10-year-old Kyle Forbes when she began choking on an apple. Kyle quickly ran to her rescue and administered the Heimlich Maneuver, a technique he learned in Cub Scouts. “I knew what to do immediately!” says the enthusiastic young man.
As a child with autism, Kyle is used to feeling like an outsider, but this experience has transformed him into a hero: “I was like a superhero and everybody was cheering me.”
Have a wonderful weekend, and let’s all be thankful for marvelous feats from unexpected heroes!
The video below says there is, but only if we look at things from a different perspective. It was created as part of a 2007 AARP contest on YouTube, to open an intergenerational dialogue encouraging young people to speak their minds and give AARP insight into their views.
The goal of the U@50 Challenge was to give people between the ages of 18 and 30 the chance to submit short videos describing what they expect their lives to be like at age 50. More than 50 videos were submitted from across the country and from these the five top videos were selected by a panel of judges based on their technical quality, creativity, and their ability to foster discussion.
The first-place video entitled “When I’m 50…” was submitted by Ilya Polyakov, a film studies student from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and earned a $5000 prize.
This second-place video was created by Jonathan Reed of Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. His point is clear: No matter how bleak our future looks, we can change it by approaching it from a different perspective.
“The aim of this contest was to create a dialogue between the generations and to gain an understanding of what concerns our future members,” said AARP Director of Academic Affairs Harry R. Moody. “We have been impressed with the enthusiasm young people have had for this contest. These videos have done a great job of highlighting the issues that are important to younger Americans in facing their futures.”
How’s your perspective? How can YOU change things to create a better future?
Here is an amazing video at YouTube that shows an elephant painting a portrait using its trunk to manipulate the brush. The pachyderm starts with a clean canvas, and finishes with what could be described as a self-portrait. Heck, it’s certainly better than anything I have painted recently!
It’s really amazing! This article at GreenMuze describes The Asian Elephant Art & Conservation Project (AEACP) was founded in 1997 as a unique charitable program developed to help raise awareness about the plight of endangered Asian elephants and to help make the lives of domesticated elephants a little better. The revenue generated from their paintings is used to care for the elephants and provide them with better food, improved shelter, and proper veterinary care. The AEACP has received attention and support from around the globe. The AEACP’s work with elephants has been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation and Esquire, as well as featured on CBS Sunday Morning, the Lehrer NewsHour, and a substantial segment on 60 Minutes.
According to an article at the BBC news, the giant mammals even had an exhibition of their paintings at an Edinburgh Gallery in 1996. According to Victoria Khunapramot, who imported the paintings from Thailand, “They are very intelligent animals and create the entire paintings with great gusto and concentration within just five or 10 minutes.
“They are trained by artists who fine-tune their skills, and they paint in front of an audience in their conservation village, leaving no one in any doubt that they are authentic elephant creations. The only thing they cannot do on their own is pick up a paintbrush, so it gets handed to them.” They are gently trained to paint abstract designs, flowers, and elephant portraits. (more…)
Life is great when you’re able to turn “a little too much time on your hands” into a business opportunity that pays hundreds of dollars for your doodles. And while many artists make their living with traditional media like oils on canvas, or watercolors on paper, this one makes his living with Sharpies on Styrofoam cups
A friend gave me a link to this blog 
Here is an amazing