Rex Ray wall decals at Blik

Friends, humans, countrymen, lend me your eyes! My friend Susie just sent over a link to these new wall decals at Blik, saying "You like Rex Ray, right?" Heck yes I do. While I feverishly try to think of a place to put these, you should go have a look if you like playful, retro graphics.

Every few months I hear someone say that wall decals aren't in anymore. Nonsense. What better way to put a cool image on your blank wall, for relatively little cash, that won't harm your paint job? Long live wall decals!

Fresh photography by Fulvio Bonavia

If you like captivating photography, food, and accessories—particularly when all three are combined—you'll enjoy Fulvio Bonavia's portfolio. Take a look at his "A Matter of Taste" photographs in the "Work" section over here. I'm glad my shoes aren't made of food. As it is, I have enough trouble keeping my foot out of my mouth.

(Images by Fulvio Bonavia)

Paint chip projects by Matthew Sporzynski

A new issue of GD USA magazine, a free publication for the graphic design community, arrived the other day. On the cover was a paint chip ice cream cone by Matthew Sporzynski of Real Simple magazine fame. (See his paper sculptures for Real Simple right here.) These amazing paint chip creations are part of a Sherwin Williams ad campaign; view all the print ads here. I wonder if these are too awesome—Sherwin Williams might end up with a massive paint chip shortage as everybody rushes out and attempts their own creations. And by "everybody," I mean, um, me.

Block figures by Ingela P Arrhenius

While glancing through Grain Edit, I came across the work of Sweden-based illustrator Ingela P Arrhenius. One of her pastimes is creating characters from painted wooden blocks. Completely charming! A bag of blocks...

...becomes little animals and people transported through a mid-century time machine. To meet more of Ingela's characters, visit the wood figures section of her blog.

(Images by Ingela P Arrhenius)

Free Twitter backgrounds by Nate Williams

Welcome to 2010, everyone! Hope you had a refreshing holiday break. I'm still on mine until Thursday, so I'm trying to avoid making eye contact with my computer as much as possible. Heading into Christmas vacation I'd wondered if I had a computer addiction and wouldn't be able to stay off my Mac. Nope. Turns out I can quit any time I want—easily. Yeah, that's what they all say, but I've tested it and it's true. Last week I was hunting through my recipe box for cake and found this Thomas Merton quote printed on a scrap of paper. I have no idea where it came from or when I put it in there. It reinforced my longing to move to a deserted island.

Ironically, before typing that last paragraph, I had set out to write a post about Twitter backgrounds. My island will absolutely not have Twitter access. But if you must spend hours tweeting, you may as well freshen up your page with a cool background by illustrator Nate Williams. Visit his gallery of patterns, click your fave, hit "no" to tiling the pattern, and save the image. Upload it to Twitter and click the check box to tile it.

Charley Harper high res images

While poking around the internet, I came across artwork by Charley Harper, modernist designer and illustrator. Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center has a bio on Mr. Harper, along with a few high resolution images of his work you can download. Not to be used commercially, of course, but you might put a bird on your desktop or make yourself a print. I'm a fan, and use my Charley Harper plates almost every day.

Orange illustrations

At Share Some Candy, a delicious smorgasbord of illustration and design, I stumbled upon Brent Couchman's work. Brent is Senior Designer at Fossil, and has posted a few work samples on Flickr. I hope he won't get mad because his foot is now on my desktop. I borrowed it for wallpaper. See his retro-flavored art right here.

Magical photo retouching

Ready for more stunning work? Erik Johansson is a Swedish photographer whose retouching skills put my jaw on the floor. Most clients ask me to change the wood finish on a product from cherry to oak, or smooth down some stray hairs in a headshot. It's like performing a card trick at a kid's birthday party, while Erik makes the Statue of Liberty disappear. See more of his work right here.

Styrofoam cup art

While happily browsing at Happy Mundane, I bumped into Cheeming Boey's work. Boey lives in California and draws on foam cups with Sharpies. And we're not talking stick figures. Waves, birds, vines, Japanese motifs. I contacted him to get permission to post some photos and asked if he had anything to say about his cups. He replied, "I would like to show people that canvases can be anything... just because it says disposable doesn't mean it has to be." Right on.

To see more cups, click here. Read interesting articles about Boey here and here.

Lena Corwin desktop wallpaper

Sorry for the sporadic posting this week, guys. I'm a bit swamped with work. But that hasn't stopped me from enjoying some quirky desktop wallpaper by Lena Corwin for Design*Sponge (detail above). I keep losing files on this background of little objects, but who cares. It's fun. Get yours here, in tan or blue.

Pretty desktop wallpapers

Stumbled upon artist Yoshihiro Moritake's online sketchbook, where you can download a desktop wallpaper version of each painting. Lovely! Click "Gallery", and then the arrow in the lower left to flip through the illustrations.

And with that, I say goodbye to you for a week. Mr. Jones and I are taking a road trip vacation.

Printable art

Feed Your Soul is a little site offering free illustrations you can download, print, and frame. Contributing artists include Amy Ruppel (designer of Target's 2008 Christmas decorations), Marcy Davy, Gemma Correll, Tara Hogan, Jessica Gonacha, and Samantha Hahn.

For a cheap way to display your pictures, try printing them on cardstock and hanging them on a clothesline like this from Olive at Etsy.

Budget-friendly art prints under $50

I thought it would be fun to pick out some affordable prints to coordinate with my fabric colorways, for anybody who wants to sew something or get slipcovers and pillows from JCaroline Home. I've included some ideas for both grown-ups and kids' rooms. Be sure to poke around the sites where these come from; there are tons more options.

Spa colorway
Clockwise from upper left: Nancy Ortenstone, The Poster List, LuAnn Ostergaard, Corrine Ellsworth, Rand McNally, Stefania Ferri.


Earth colorway
Clockwise from upper left: Rob Dunlavey, Kristen Stein, Matte Stephens, Brent Nelson, Laura George.


Candy colorway
Clockwise from upper left: Matasaburo Kazeno, Ron Jones, The Poster List, Bryan Collins, Lauren Hamilton, Jen Oaks.

Fallen Princesses series

In the Fallen Princesses project, photographer Dina Goldstein explores alternate outcomes for Disney's princesses. What if "happily ever after" didn't pan out? JPG Magazine publishes more of her thoughts and a preview of the series here. Poor Rapunzel.

Artist-designed desktop wallpapers

The girls at Kindred have released another batch of free wallpapers with a summertime theme. Enjoy!

Design candy

I'm enjoying this site called Share Some Candy. It's a "curated collective of inspiring design finds and art." Pretty cool. And for any designers thinking about starting your own firm, the funny Name My Design Company Machine will help you out. It's inspired by the zillions of design studios who have named themselves after colored animals. Seriously. Just start Googling a color plus an animal plus "design." Red dog. Blue cow. Purple elephant. Try it.

A charming tilt-shift video

I'm enchanted by this tilt-shift helicopter rescue film! It's called Bathtub IV by Keith Loutit. (Thank you, Jennifer!)

Giveaway: $100 from Ugallery.com

Ugallery.com is an online store selling original art from top collegiate artists. Ugallery realizes most people can’t afford to pay tens of thousands of dollars for original artwork, so they've created a curated gallery with prices from $20 to $5,000. You can search for art by genre, color, size, medium, and price, and try out your favorite piece on the Virtual Wall to see how it will look before you buy it.

And good news! Ugallery is offering a $100 credit to two lucky How About Orange readers. To enter, just leave a comment here with a way to contact you. Two winners will be randomly selected and sent a coupon code for $100 toward any purchase. Contest ends Friday, 4/3/09, at midnight CDT.

UPDATE: Contest is now closed. Commenter #538, Leanna, and commenter #205, Megan, are the lucky winners. Congrats, ladies!

(Images from Ugallery.com artists)

Quiz: Whaddya know about art?

Test your art history knowledge with this little quiz. It will help you kill about one minute while you're waiting for the weekend to start. (If you need to kill more time than that, see other posts in the time-wasters category. Maybe you could waste up to an hour, even. Good luck.)

Wonderland

I stumbled upon a Korean artist named Yeondoo Jung (via Craftzine) who has turned a collection of children's drawings into whimsical photos. I think they're amazing and crazy and delightful. See them here. Also go see the Bewitched series and make sure to read the captions.

(Images from Yeondoo Jung.)