Photo: Dave Kinsey

California-based artist Mike Stilkey paints images on the bindings of books. From an interview with the webzine Fecal Face:

Why did you choose to paint on books? It seems like it would have been a challenge to go from working on paper to painting on something so dimensional. What was that transition like?

It was sort of an accident. I was painting on book pages for forever, and actually published a book in 2005 titled “100 Portraits” in which I drew one hundred portraits on old book pages. At the time, I was drawing on books, records or anything else I could find at a thrift store. Eventually, I started drawing on the books themselves. I was going to do a project where I just drew on the covers of the books, and as I finished them I would stack them against the wall. It dawned on me that it might be a good idea to paint down the spines of the books instead of just on the covers. The first one I did I didn’t really think much of, but I brought it down to BLK/MRKT, and I remember Jana going crazy over it. We showed it at the second Artists’ Annual group show where it got quite a bit of attention, including attention from Kim Davenport, the director of Rice Gallery in Houston

You can read the full interview and see large images of his work at the link.

Link via io9 | Artist’s Website

Remarkable talent, don’t you think? Kieron Williamson of Norfolk, UK didn’t draw anything a year ago, but now he’s had first gallery exhibition:

Spurred on by images on the Internet and in art books – and the postcard-perfect outdoor studio that’s all around him in Norfolk, on England’s east coast, Kieron Williamson has churned out a succession of landscapes and village scenes that have critics decades older raising their eyebrows.

“I was the youngest in the class,” recalled Kieron of his only formal training ever. “Everyone else were grownups.” Asked whether that bothered him, he told Roth that during class, he simply “didn’t think about ‘em.”

Link and link via J-Walk Blog

This painting, commissioned by a jam and preservative maker, was painted using only the products made in their factory!

Artist Lindi Kirwin was commissioned by F. Duerr & Sons a British Jam Maker to create a work of art to raise money for charity.

Sadly seeing as not many people have ever painted with jam and mint sauce before they have no idea how long it will last, so the winner will also get a full sized canvas print just in case.

Black current jam trees, marmalade pavements, mint sauce buildings and a tartar sauce sky all feature in a mouth watering new painting set to raise funds for The New Children’s Hospital Appeal.

F. Duerr & Sons, makers of jam, marmalade, sweet spreads and condiments commissioned local artist Lindi Kirwin to capture the iconic Central Library building in Manchester using the products available from their factory.

Named ‘Manchester Preserved’, the vibrant and creative interpretation, created at Lindi’s studio in Vernon Mill, Stockport and due to be unveiled at Broadstone Mill, Stockport, is being auctioned on ebay. Duerr’s hope that the painting will raise more than £1,000 for the charity.

Link – via lindi-kirwin

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Jake.

Link – via mikediluigi

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by SoccM84.

Using feathers collected during the regal birds’ annual moult from a swannery near to his home, Ian has spent the past four years perfecting his craft.

After cleaning the often dirty quills and individually straightening them out with tweezers, Mr Davie, 44, who lives in a converted farmhouse in Snowdonia National Park, Wales, then begins the arduous process of painting onto the swans discarded feathers.

He said: ‘I already have sketched what I want to achieve before the painting begins.

‘I only have a canvas that is around one foot long and around three inches wide so I have to know exactly the course my painting will take.

Link | Ian Davie’s website (Photo: Ian Davie / Barcroft Media)

When cassette tapes break down, usually they get thrown in the trash. But not for flickr artist iri5. Using discarded cassette tapes, iri5 turns them into works of art in a series called, "Ghost in the Machine," portraying various influential musicians such as Jimi Hendrix (pictured), Ian Brown, and Jim Morrison.

I am an artist who specializes in using non traditional media… old books, cassettes, playing cards, magazines, credit cards… whatever I can find. It feels great to work with strange, older materials. Things that have a mind of their own. Most everything I use has been thrown away or donated at some point. Past its prime, like some of the finest things in the world.

Link – via haha

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by pax.

Mural Mosaic is a project at the Town of Cochrane, Canada, where hundreds of original paintings by artists are combined into a giant mural.

The idea for the project came from artist Lewis Lavoie, who created the first Mural Mosaic by assembling scores of his own personal paintings into the face of Michelangelo’s David (previously on Neatorama here). Since then, he has created the master image and designate panels to individual artists (with some color and shape guidelines – but the artists are free to create as they desire).

This one above is their latest, "Le Cadeau du Cheval / The Horse Gift" (2008), which is composed of individual paintings of famous horses.

Link – via holeinthedonut

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by baweibel.

Artist Brian Despain is a fantastic painter with a unique subject – robots. In this video, Roq La Rue Gallery’s Kristen Anderson and Kenny Montana interview Despain about his art, his inspiration and why he’s so passionate about robots.

– via boingboing

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

Link – via chunnel

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.

William Betts is like the modern day Seurat – In his "Surveillance" series, he makes paintings from digital photographs using his own specially-designed machine to apply dots of acrylics onto canvas. The result is a grainy image akin to the blurry still images of a surveillance CCTV: Link – via The Zeray Gazette

Employees at the Takashimaya department store in Osaka have created four reproductions of world-famous paintings using 320,000 old train tickets obtained from the nearby Nankai Namba station.

Link