Palaeo-art is a work of art that brings the prehistoric past to life (as an illustration, this isn't mad science but it may be mad art).

The Online Palaeo Art Community

• Drawn in Time
• The Paleo King
• Art of Emily Willoughby
• Skeletal Drawing
• Secrets of the Horned Dinosaurs
• Paleontología, Ilustración y Biston betularia (Spanish)
• Paleoexhibit
• Superoceras
• DinoArt
• Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs
• Craig Dylke's Prehistoric Art
• Paleo Illustrata
• ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule
• The Flying Trilobite
• Trilobite Boy

From an original post on Suite101 by Jo Murphy. The post and Jo Murphy's bio link are gone since Suite101 revamped the site.

Copy Art Pioneered in Canada Centre Copie-Art Opened in Montreal in 1982 by Jacques Charbonneau

Although it was an international art movement, Canada is recognised for its major contribution to the art form called Copy Art.

According to the Encyclopaedia of Twentieth Century Photography, Copy Art or Xerography was pioneered in Canada, where it is still popular today. Copy Art, uses the photocopier to create artworks by reproducing and multiplying images. The artists play with the process of transformation of graphic images. They experiment with the metamorphosis brought about by the alchemy of light at the heart of the reproduction technology.

Origins of Copy ArtThe electrography process was developed in the USA and Germany in 1938. But this technology became freely available by the year 1960. Copy Art began to appear as an art form by about 1970, and the first exhibition of this kind of art called "Rochester" was held in 1979. Other exhibitions of this type were held in Canada in the same year.

After making its first appearance in France in 1975, copy art became more accepted. By 1983, an exhibition called "Electra" was held in the Musee d'Art de la Ville de Paris. The gallery devoted considerable space to the art form.

Copy Artist Pati HillArtist Pati Hill exhibited in the "Electra" exhibition, working with shadows, grains, and contrasts of black and white as well as textures and micro textures. To create this work, Hill created imagery from feathers, flowers fabrics and plants, says de Meridieu. In a chapter about innovative pioneers in the book called Digital and Video Art, de Mèredieu goes on to talk about Hill as a contemporary experimentalist and her work as extravagant. An example of Hill's technique, she explains, was to photograph every possible (visible, invisible, obvious and unexpected) of the Palace of Versailles.

Centre Copie-Art of Canada

Copy Art continues to thrive in Canada today. The founder of the Canadian movement was Jacques Charbonneau. After discovering the technique, when he was on holiday, he returned to Canada where he opened Centre Copie-Art in Montreal in 1982.

Body Art and Other Offshoots of Xerography

Practitioners of body art, such as Amal Abdenour and Phillipe Boissonnet, reproduced different parts of the body using photo copiers. They were exploiting variations of colour and the effects of contrast and solarisation. Much of this work was achieved by using overlays of transparencies.

Because it so versatile, there have been many different developments and innovations that have evolved from Copy Art. According to de Mèredieu, magazines and fanzines sprang up around artist centres such as art schools and colleges. A centre recognised as famous for encouraging this type of art form was Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Dijon.

de Mèredieu points to the importance of this movement, when she mentions that Klaus Urbons founded a museum of photocopying in Mulheim an der Ruhr in Germany. Here there are displayed old machines, documentation and artist's work. Another example of the value of the body of work, the style and the method, is the opening in 1990 of a major international museum of electrography in Cuenca in Spain.

Rogue taxidermy is the mixed media art of using stuffed and mounted animals which do not have real animal counterparts. Rogue taxidermy is mix and match (with accessories added) to create an artistic rendering of obscure, weird, creepy, mutant, and unique creatures to be put on display.

Many taxidermists do not consider this true taxidermy.

Taxidermy itself isn't for everyone. When it comes to rogue taxidermy especialy, there will be people who get squeamish and don't want to look and there will be people who get curious and just have to look. Then there are the people who think the more hideous the creations are the better they are.

The showmanship of oddities, mutation natural adaptation and displays of curiosity through use of taxidermy with animals. A creepy and odd hobby to some. Dark humour to others. Then there are those who just like to collect them and put them on display.

Beast Blender - where you can create your own curious creation.

If you aren't grossed out by some of the weirder creations... think about it. What if you could create an animal. I think this is part of the attraction of rogue taxidermy. Turning a slow, plodding animal like a turtle into a flying creature with light, colourful wings to take it to new heights and let it become something new, more than it was or could ever have been naturally.

In your mind, combine elements, features and parts of various animals and come up with a new creation, something better than the original version. Or, a creation which shows a sense of humour, like pigs that could fly.

The Legend of the Jackalope

What may be the most famous creation with rogue taxidermy is the jackalope.

According to legend and lore, the jackalope is the product of a male jackrabbit and a female antelope.Thought to be extinct, there are still reports of jackalope sightings. Jackalopes were known to be aggressive, often called the "warrior rabbit", using its antlers to fight.

Jackalopes were said to love music. They could mimic human sounds and noises and would sing along with the cowboys around the camp fires at night.

Jackalopes aren't a real animal, at least not so far. It's thought jackalopes were actual, real rabbits which had a mutation or virus causing bumps to appear on their heads. This could have appeared like antlers from a distance. Up close it would have been a simple explanation for the mystery of the weird looking rabbit.

Jackalopes became a legend as people began to produce "real" jackalopes to impress friends, create stories and generally enjoy tricking anyone who didn't already know the jackalope myth. Using a rabbit body and attaching deer or antelope antlers, people would show off their creation. Some jackalopes were given the bonus of a pheasant tail. Those were the extra fancy warrior bunnies.

Rogue Taxidermy Groups

• La Luz de Jesus Presents Rogue Taxidermy 2012

• Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermy [MART]

A Few Rogue Taxidermists

• Angela Singer

• Custom Creature Taxidermy - Sarina Brewer

• Afterlife Anatomy - Katie Innamorato

Links for Finding More

• Rogue taxidermist in the Netherlands - Boing Boing

• Rogue Taxidermy | Pinterest

• Art - Rogue Taxidermy | Pinterest

• Flickr: Crappy Taxidermy

• Flickr: Bad Taxidermy

• Rogue Taxidermy | Tumblr

• The Rogue Taxidermist: The Quantum Biologist

• Crappy Taxidermy

• Taxidermy - Wikipedia

• Taxidermy Net

Become a Fashion or Costume Designer

Wish you could be a fashion designer? Dream of being a costume designer? You can become an art doll maker and be a fashion and costume designer, in smaller sizes.

Take all those dreams of being a fashion designer, making all the clothes you dream up or see in glossy magazines and put them on a doll of your own creation. You can make art dolls like fashion models. You don't have to make something for children in order to make a doll.

If you love vintage but can't fit yourself into the clothes or spend the money on any extras for your wardrobe. Art dolls can wear whatever you make for them. Look back in history, far back and pick any historical period you like. You can become a costume designer and suit the doll you make to the dress you want to design.

Don't be afraid of the art dolls.

My first exposure to art dolls was from a friend who showed me the art dolls she was making. They were not what I expected. For one thing they were not symmetrical, they were not soft and cuddly or pretty and well dressed. They were ugly. Seriously ugly. I didn't know what to say when she asked me what I thought. She thought they were great and of course, she wanted to hear the same back from me.

Art dolls are not the old fashioned, standard Raggedy Ann dolls. Not every art doll is meant to be cuddled, they aren't all made from rags and given hand-me-down clothes and yarn for hair. If you make an art doll the focus is on the art. Turning a doll into something more than a child's toy.

Of course, you can make any kind of doll. There isn't an unofficial rule that every art doll must be ugly to the eye of the beholder or uncuddly with pointy edges. An art doll can be as snuggly as the art doll maker wants to create. It's all up to the person making the doll.

Originally posted to SuiteU, part of Suite101. SuiteU is being removed from the site. I wanted to save the ecourses so this resource would not disappear.
Drawing 101
By Joan Martine Murphy

Introduction

Most people would love to be able to draw what they see. Many people find enormous pleasure in the art of self-expression. Sadly the idea of learning to draw skillfully is quite daunting for a high percentage of people of the Western World. This is sometimes due to negative experiences that have come from early child hood.

Drawing is a form of communication, which can allow us to express ourselves when words will not suffice. This simple art form affords us the opportunity to express our emotions in a safe and pleasurable manner. Many people for example find that the simple exercise of drawing negative emotions which are then ceremoniously torn to shreds or burnt away - is a useful, safe way to deal with them. The exercise allows the artist to move on to a more relaxed and harmonious and peaceful happiness state.

Maps, symbols, colours, expressions and many other elements of design convey meaning and help us to construct a world of illusion. They help us re-present our reality. This can be useful, informative, recreational and healing. …more