Mystical Photographs of Illuminated Forests in the United Kingdom by Ellie Davies

The London-based abstract photographer Ellie Davies fascinates us with surreal portraits of forests that glow magnificently with mystical fairy lights and ominous waves of mist.  He creates her enchanting shots in natural areas throughout the United Kingdom. Therefore, with the woods as her canvas, fireflies appear to brighten desolate clearings, and cascading showers of stars dust intensely lit patches of trees. Ellie Davies makes the pensive illusions by combining photographs of the natural world with pictures captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.

She says, I like to explore images that juxtapose human and natural elements, calling devotion to the sharp divide between personal identity and interconnectivity. Though, she does this by positioning out-of-place elements within the context of her landscapes. The majestic forests are potent symbols in folklore, fairy tale and myth, places of enchantment and magic as well as of danger and mystery.  In more recent history they have come to be associated with psychological states relating to the unconscious. Therefore against this backdrop, my hard work explores the ways in which identity is formed by the landscapes we live and grow up in. Source: My Modernmet

An Artist Creates Intricate Scenes by Snipping Away at Paper

Artist Maude White snips away tiny bits of paper to expose extraordinarily intricate scenes. Maude White actually based in Buffalo, New York, brings inspired animals and imaginary panoramas to life with her lacy, hand-cut designs. Though, she calls her technique “paper carving.” In her work, most of creations are cut from plain white paper in crisp straightforwardness, but she also crafted a handful of projects from faded road maps. From her lacy flimsy pages, birds spread their wings, elephants dance, and dragon’s rear to life. 

She says that since she was a child, it has been looking for concealed beauty in unexpected places.  I was so impressed with underneath objects, or through them. I have always strong self-aplomb that if you really do hard enough, you will see somewhat precious and new, or, maybe, a bit extremely ancient and sacred.” She found that the faultless medium for conveying these hidden messages is through creating with paper. I feel that there are very few things in the world as dependable and constant as paper. Because paper is everywhere, and it has been telling countless stories for centuries.Source: My Modernmet

Japanese Craftsman Masterfully Restores Old Book into Like-New Condition

If you have ever bemoaned that a treasured a book was falling apart, then you will relish seeing how this Japanese craftsman masterfully restored a tattered 1,000-page dictionary near perfect condition. Well, this is an episode of the Japanese show called Shuri, “Bakaseru” means “The Fascinating Craftsman” featured Nobuo Okano, an artisan who specializes in old books. Thus during the ten minutes long segment, the craftsman demonstrates how the well-loved English-Japanese dictionary was brought back to new life. It has had fairly a history and served the owner from his junior high years through his adult life. Now that his daughter is entering college, he wants to pass the book along to her.

Okano starts the restoration by cleaning all of the old glue from the book’s spine and repairing pages of maps included in it. Though they cannot be returned to a untouched condition, they are glued to paper and now have a solid base. Then, he comes the most tedious part of the whole process. Okano unfolds hundreds of bent page corners with a tweezers, separately ironing each of them flat shape. Once that’s he done this part, the book is looking much in a better shape, but there’s still much work to do. The tips of the pages are stained with purple ink, and so he uses a guillotine book cutter to trim those unsightly edges. Moreover constructing a fresh cover is the last step, and he embellished it with the salvaged title piece of the original book. The process ends of episode expressions the happy and thankful customer giving the dictionary to his daughter. If you want see the video below to see just how Okano completed this incredible restore, please click on the below link.

 Source: My Modernmet

Flowing Glass Sculptures Inspired by the Ocean and Undersea Creatures

The talented artist K. William LeQuier makes spectacular, free flowing glass sculptures by using an exclusive style he's developed more than a decade and a half. Well, in the mid-1970s he learned about glass blowing and for years he created glass vessels. Then, in the early 1990s, he started to experiment with sandblasted surface designs, where he create he could carve glass into a myriad of textures using a sandblaster and a diamond saw. Nevertheless labor-intensive, this work resulted in unanticipated and thrilling results that gave him a new direction to explore. Though observing stacks of salvaged glass shelving, he recognized he could make multi-layered constructions that looked like free flowing strands of carved glass. These pieces would be inspired by momentary events in nature like a wave crashing or a jellyfish swimming through the ocean.

Thus, every sculpture starts with a rough sketch. From that, he creates a template to scale.  He says; thin strips of adhesive rubber are arranged one at a time on each plate of glass. When the plate is sandblasted, the rubber acts as a resist. The rest of the plate is cut away leaving only what was protected by the rubber. Further, after each plate is sandblasted the plates are then well glued together with a distinct UV curing epoxy." Sanding is done with a belt sander and details are carved with a diamond tip. The artist makes the base and armature on which the sculpture rests all by hand. My work is actually inspired by the drama of everyday events in the natural world where weather and time are catalysts for change.

Source: My Modernmet