eyecandy

"I believe that my first attraction towards the family of Sun-birds took place in Nubia, where I fell in with Hedydipna metallica, the first truly tropical form of bird that I had ever procured. 

The sense of pleasure with which I preserved my first specimens of this beautiful little species on the banks of the Nile above the First cataract, and the engaging habits of the species, impressed me so much, that on subsequent visits to the African continent I paid especial attention to the Sun-birds in each country I visited." [link] [from the Introduction to 'A Monograph of the Nectariniidae' by Captain GE Shelley]

[W]: "The sunbirds and spiderhunters are a family, Nectariniidae, of very small passerine birds. There are 132 species in 15 genera. The family is distributed throughout Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia and just reaches northern Australia. Most sunbirds feed largely on nectar, but also take insects and spiders, especially when feeding young. Flower tubes that bar access to nectar because of their shape, are simply punctured at the base near the nectaries. Fruit is also part of the diet of some species. Their flight is fast and direct on their short wings. The sunbirds have counterparts in two very distantly related groups: the hummingbirds of the Americas and the honeyeaters of Australia. The resemblances are due to convergent evolution brought about by a similar nectar-feeding lifestyle. Some sunbird species can take nectar by hovering like a hummingbird, but usually perch to feed."

Sun-birds (Nectariniidae) information, photos and videos at the Internet Bird Collection - "a non-profit endeavour with the ultimate goal of disseminating knowledge about the world's avifauna." George Ernest Shelley (1840-1910) was a geologist, ornithologist, nephew of the renowned poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley^ and author of a number of books on African birds. Of particular note was an unfinished 5-volume series covering all the birds of Africa^ which was cut short when the author suffered a stroke towards the end of his life. Regrettably, a stand-in author, tasked by Shelley's wife to supply at least another three volumes to complete the series, for whatever reason, only managed to polish up Shelley's final book and he went no further with it. It was Shelley's (and our) good fortune that he was able to collaborate on the Sun-birds book with the excellent Dutch artist and naturalist, John Gerrard Keulemans (1842-1912). Keulemans had begun his career as a taxidermist for the Leiden Museum of Natural History and its director encouraged him to accompany a 2-year expedition to Africa in the mid-1860s as a kind of artist-scientist. Our author, GE Shelley, obviously had sufficient regard for his illustrator's journal notes from the African trip, as he relied upon them as a source when writing the Sun-birds book. (in fact, Shelley acknowledged Keulemans' artistic and scientific reporting qualities in a glowing reference to the illustrator in the book's introduction) More than 120 lithographs were prepared by Keulemans for the collaborative project on Sun-birds which consisted of twelve instalments being issued over a four year period to a mere 250 subscribers. No wonder a first edition copy of the bound book was sold in recent times for around $11,000. The lithographic illustrations - printed by M&N Hanart - were hand-coloured and finished with gum arabic highlighting to particular locations in the feather arrangements.

"Keulemans paid particular attention to colour and structure of feathering and his ability to transmit clear, accurate impressions of various plumages was held in much esteem. Overall, his skills for accurate representations are attributable to his detailed study of birds." [source]

The quality of the plates from 'The Monograph of the Nectariniidae..' (also known by its original working title of 'Monograph of the Cinnyridae..') brought Keulemans instant acclaim, early in a very notable book illustration career. He moved to England and became the leading ornithological artist of the late-Victorian era, contributing illustrations to a number of significant book and journal publications on birds.

• The illustrations seen here from 'A Monograph of the Nectariniidae, or, Family of Sun-birds' by GE Shelley and JG Keulemans (1876-1880) come courtesy of this Flickr set, uploaded by the most fabulous and collaborative, multi-institutional Biodiversity Heritage Library. Click on any of the images above to access much larger image files on Flickr.
• The Sun-birds book at the Biodiversity Heritage Library. {bibliographic record}.
• The Sun-birds book at the Internet Archive.
• Most of the information in this blog entry derives from three sources: AbeBooks, Antiquariaat Junk and a number of Christie's auction records.
• Works by Shelley: Amazon & Archive.org.
• Works by Keulemans: Amazon & Archive.org.
• Just in passing, I noted that one reference in particular is quoted all over the place and I presume it is the authority on ornithological publications: 'Catalogue of the Edward E. Ayer Ornithological Library' by JT Zimmer (1996 edition) -- (1926).
• 'Feathers to Brush the Victorian Bird Artist John Gerrard Keulemans 1842-1912' (1982) by Jan Coldewey (limited edition biography)

New to me, these wonderful land art installations by French artist Sylvain Meyer who modifies wooded areas and landscapes to create various impermanent patterns, sculptures, and textures. Everything seen here was constructed without the use of Photoshop, even the mossy spider. Whoa! See much more over on Flickr. I’ve also finally crated a land art tag for Colossal. (via ruines humaines)

We are making friends :) With each other and some of the artist around us at Konstepidemin, like Bibbi Forsman.

We visited a small happening, organized by Rum för Papper and HDK, where they played with an old Heidelberg printer.

Screen explorations by Stdio Title: Ada Lovelace Similar: Photographs of tube televisions the moment they are switched off by Stephan Tillmans Atley

I was absolutely floored watching this enchanting stop motion video directed by Vincent Pianina and Lorenzo Papace for a song called Østersøen that was also written, composed, and recorded by Papace for his band Ödland off the album Sankta Lucia. What strikes me most about the video is the transitions between scenes, as objects change scale or as the camera zooms in to reveal alternate dimensions embedded in the smallest of areas. You’ll watch it two or three times before you see everything. See many more making-of photos over on Le Petit Écho Malade. Can somebody please give this Papace guy lots of money so he can make a short film? I would pay lots of money to see it.

Auckland-based artist Peter Madden gleans found images from old encyclopedias, back issues of National Geographic, and nature books to create his dense and nearly psychedelic collages suspended in perspex, also known as ‘safety glass’. Of his work Madden says “I consider myself a ‘Sculptographer’; a ‘post-conceptual photographer’. A mediator between genres and dimensions, between you, the other and I. I suppose I am an altogether different collagist, maybe a collagist of difference.” To see much more of his three dimensional work, check out this gallery. Images above courtesy Ryan Renshaw and EyeContact. (via junk culture)

Lithuanian photographer and artist Tadao Cern has been working on a series of hilarious portraits entitled, ahem, Blow Job, that depicts individuals enduring gale-force winds directly to the face. Say goodbye to the next 15 minutes, he’s taken 100 portraits so far. And if you liked these, here’s a similar series by Jonathan Robert Willis from last year. (via behance)

The recently completed Kerry Landman Memorial Tree by Jordan Mason and Eric Landman (via Miguel-Hernan Otero-Meier)

Trees made of books by Frederico Uribe (via the curiosity workshop)

Stacked firewood sculpture by Alastair Heseltine (via cmybacon)

The Voice of Winds (2012). Suspended tree branches of hallow earthenware by Kazunori Matsumura. (via surface)

Wheel tree photographed by Robert Holmgren

I have an enormous folder of saved links, things I’m on the edge about posting, or just want to save for later reference. From time to time patterns start to emerge and it just make sense to post everything at once, as has happened with books, waves, and people as pixels. Lately the theme has been trees, and these are my favorite tree-related endeavors I’ve encountered the last few weeks.

This year the workshop is in a studio at Konstepidemin, here in Gothenburg. We can hear the birds singing outside through the skylight. Angela is spoiling us, making the most delicious lunch.

The workshop started with rain and wind, we stayed inside as much as possible. But to still get a feeling of nature we went to the Palmhouse.

Paintings by Landon Metz Title: Aleister Crowley Folkert

Drawings by Paul Noble Title: Halldór Laxness Previous post on this artist: The Neighborhood of Infinity Quote from Independent People via Mythology of Blue Will 50 Watts

The Chinese Fish Collection is a large set of 19th century watercolour sketches depicting species  from the waterways and seas of China and Japan.  The illustrations range from the absurd to the accurate and the selection below skews intentionally towards the former. The captions are all taken from the source site. Holland's Groningen University plays host to a unique collection of 19th century watercolour sketches produced somewhere, some time, in the far east of Asia. Two boxes, containing more than 450 drawings, were bequeathed to the University's Natural History Department in about 1870 via the estate of the former Dutch consul in Canton, MJ Senn van Basel (d. 1863). There is little in the way of background information online relating to this collection (story of this blog's life). It's not known whether the set was commissioned or purchased by van Basel and there's no indication as to the name(s) or origin(s) of the artist(s> involved. Pencilled notations of the Latin name(?) of the species and what is likely the surname of the person who first described the animal - (eg. Cuvier or Linnaeus etc) - appear on all the sketches, as well as the less formal species names written in Chinese characters. It's quite possible both sets of handwriting were later additions. But the charm of the series really derives from the stylised and amusing, near-anthropomorphic, representations and vivid colours of the marine animals, rather than in the degree of scientific accuracy. While there was some active prejudice in the selection of the examples above, the bizarre and absurd types certainly outnumber the regular, run of the mill sketches in the collection, that's for sure. And thankful we all are too!

• 'Afbeeldingen van Chinese vissen, HS 433' is online at the Groningen University Library and consists of more than 450 digitised marine animal sketches. An icon near the zoom slider brings up a thumbnail image page, but be warned: it's like one of those old 'wheel-spinning' Java applets and it killed my browser a couple of times, so the thumbnail page was actually less than useless for me; paging through the sketches ended up being easier and more productive.
• The Groningen Library special collections blog, 'The World of Books'^[T], provided a dedicated blog post in 2008 about the series [Trans.].
• The Groningen Library catalogue entry.
• Previously: science and marine and fauna --> related summary bookmarks for this here BibliOdyssey blog. 

Argentinean sculptor Adrián Villar Rojas creates enormous sculptural works that seem like remnants of a science fiction movie set, or bizarre moments from a surreal dream. One of my favorite pieces is My Family Dead (2009), in which he created a life-size blue whale in the woods outside Ushuaia, Argentina. The beached cetacean is pockmarked with tree stumps, making me wonder if it’s being slowly claimed by the forest or perhaps it’s a native resident. Beautiful. (via devid sketchbook)

Photographs by Ori Gersht Title: Karl Jaspers Atley

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Type City is a recent artwork by artist Hong Seon Jang that uses pieces of movable type from a printing press to create an elaborate cityscape. It’s fascinating to watch as the need for printed books and typography wanes, the unused objects themselves are more frequently used as an actual medium. Jang also completed a much larger Type City in 2009. Also, if you liked this, make sure you watch the creation of Ephemicropolis by Peter Root, a city built from 100,000 staples. (via quipsologies)

As requested - This is how I store parts of my collection of found items. I like to be able to look at them when I need inspiration. For me this is a treasure box/drawer.

In an hour I will meet the people, who will participate in my workshop, for the first time!! I'm exhited and a little nervous. What shall I wear... I think I'll better hurry :)