E. H. Shepard

An artist and illustrator who is best known for Winnie the Pooh.

After having gone to many fine arts schools by 1906 he had become a very successful illustrator. In 1923 he was introduced to Milne (the author of Winnie the Pooh) and it was then that he created the various human-like animals most of us love today. Milne loved Shepard's work so much he made sure to share a good portion of the royalties and added that when he died he wanted Shepard to decorate his tomb and write the epitaph.

Shepard actually grew to hate Winnie the Pooh because he felt that it overshadowed his other successes.

Christopher Robin was modeled on Milne's son and Winnie the Pooh was modeled on a toy bear of Shepard's son called "Growler".

Salvador Dalí

Encouraged as an artist by his mother at a young age, Dali showed a lot of potential. After he was expelled from his Art School, that's when his work started to become more popular. He worked with artists like Picasso in the early 1920s but was most influenced by the Dada and Surrealists movements.

Lana Crooks

I tried to find a good taxidermy artist to post about but I got distracted by well the fact that the animals were totally dead and real. I wanted to find something along the lines of the animals as art but in a more light-hearted feel. I came across Lana Crooks who was the answer to my blogging prayers!

Her "faux taxidermy" is basically plush animals shaped to look like taxidermy art. Whats so great about that is 1. no dead animals and 2. a much more cuter feel and quite unique.

Lana Crooks herself is a bit of a cooky girl and her art definitely shows it (her facebook is even called Lana "the plushinator" Crooks)! She started as an illustrator but discovered her art of sculpture through fabrics and buttons and now operates in a studio in Chicago surrounded by a menagerie of plush animals and her sidekick cat Tanuki.

Séraphine de Senlis

From rags to riches to back to rags this is the story of Madam Seraphine! She began as a sweet, odd old housemade who would only paint in her spare time when she wasn't working her butt off when a German art collector discovered what she was capable of. He began to push her to make more and eventually it paid off because she made some of the first abstract arts and with beautiful floral arrangements. Unfortunately over time as her paintings grew bigger, more abstract, and exceedingly beautiful... she also went very mad! She began to be more critical of herself and cared too much for the opinions of others (and she had a nasty habbit of spending money like there was no tomorrow). She was sent to an insane asylum and passed away there. Her beautiful art should not be forgotten though. She is probably the first female artist to create works of her kind.

Shelley Evans

Shelley Evans travels all around the globe collecting textiles and making them into unique sculptures called spirit keepers. She wanted to make them look like old relics and they were about as big as my arm (maybe a little bigger). They each gave a different feel according to their colors and structure, the picture shown above is called "capture the spirit" in which the cage on its head is where it keeps spirits.

Shelley was born and raised in Southern California and as a child she spent most of her time making art out of shells and sand from the beaches. When she grew up she decided to travel with friends and was amazed at the world in which she lived in and its different cultures, food etc. The spirit keepers depict her travels.

Josh Blackwell

The plastic bag is something that is used once then considered trash and tossed. Blackwell got the idea to take this trash and make it into art. He wanted to change the way people see certain objects as worthless or valuable.

Josh Blackwell has a Master in Fine Arts at the California Art Institue. He has worked mostly with magazine companys.

John Baldessari

John Baldessari began as a painter, but in 1970 he burned all of the paintings that were in his possesion that he created between 1953 and 1966 and begin a new way of creating art with mixed media. He felt that his paintings were boring and thought that he needed to find a way to make his pieces more understandable by using photographs and words. He was very successful at using mixed media and also as a teacher. His course at CalArts was called "post-studio art" in which he believed that "there is certain kind of work one could do that didn't require a studio. It's work that is done in one's head." Baldessari would often lay out a map of Los Angeles and have one of his students throw a dart at it and wherever it landed was the location of where they would have their trips. They would take with them video cameras and still cameras and just hangout for the day to come back and use what they got on their cameras for their work. His teaching methods served to be successful for his students, but also for himself. It was during his teaching career that he became a very successful artist.