Great New Artists

Who says advertising design can’t be cute? Not iG Parental control! Their naked stuffed animal campaign is one of the cutest ad campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. It features the line “Children can learn many things on the internet” and uses stuffed animals ( a cow and two bears) to demonstrate the danger of children stumbling upon porn sites.

It’s only a little disturbing and actually it sounds worse than it is. I don’t think too many children will be asking where the bears clothes went anyway. It’s a clever way of avoiding racy pictures or boring text ad techniques to advertise a much needed but highly specific product.

I have to admit something: I’m a fan of Tay Zonday. I can’t figure out really what the big deal with him is except that his voice is so wierd! Alright so that’s not exactly a review but still…it’s true.

The actual musical value of the songs he…creates?…doesn’t carry a lot of weight on the side of great musical talents of the 21st century they’re obviously words written around canned music either from a synthesizer’s pre-recorded music or from the internet I vote for the synth myself since he is rather a good keyboard player. But when he does stop with the crazy music he is quite intelligent and I’ve often wondered why he’s not doing voice-overs for movie trailers yet. 

Stephen Chan is a liverpool based illustrator/graphic designer who graduated in 2006. His blog lists his current work as well as updates viewers on happenings in his work-life like contest entries and so on.

His work is a combination of Japanese and UK influenced illustration/design which has been used for magazines, packaging and identity as well as entered into many contests. It’s clear he’s a work in progress kind of designer and he knows it, while his work is not always the most dynamic he is always working and sometimes that’s all you need to be successful in art.

When you come from a country as beautiful as Malaysia it’s probably pretty hard not to take up photography at least for Kaism it was. His shots show the beauty in vast landscapes as well as delicate close-ups of everything from tiny flowers to sculptors he happens to meet.

He works in black and white as well as color proving that he not only has an eye for color but for geometry as well as light and shadow. He also shows off his panoramic work done in Photoshop.

I have a tendency to think everything looks better in black and white but subject matter is key and Kaism has proven this through his Oct. 08 shots he took in China.

When I first got on YouTube I wasn’t a very big fan of vlogs in general (very strange thing for someone on YouTube) but then I discovered that some people were actually making quite good ones. Here are a few of my favorites:

1. missxrojas–Not as avant garde “art form-y” as some but she says a lot of good stuff and proves that other people can speak eloquently about their life and make total strangers care about them.

2. vlogbrothers–a YouTube project started by writers.

3. communitychannel–a vlog which I discovered more recently than the others and one which most uses the indie-film influences which are increasingly popular these days.

4. hotforwords–watch it, you might learn something.

The point is that I think people are really harnessing and have harnessed the concept that YouTube has opened the door to more creative freedom which we didn’t have before it came along. That’s why they’re here.

January has been a successful month so far here so I thought I would do a little time-out housekeeping-type post for all my lovely readers.

So far 2009 has seen a lot of new artists from YouTube and other sites on the internet but I thought it would be in keeping with my more academic nature if February took a slightly different track. I feel it is neccessary to understand old art in order to truly appreciate new art so the month of Feb will be dedicated to some of those old favorites with short descriptions of why they were so great.

Hopefully the rest of 2009 will get back to my roots here at Great New Artists and find some more great painters &ct. making great new art for everyone. Since the summer is usually pretty heavy with this kind of thing floating around we’ll keep our eyes peeled for that around that time.

Everybody on YouTube allegedly loves Lisa Nova. I’m not sure I do. I subscribed because I saw her on YouTube Live months ago. It was the second time I have subscribed to her but I’m not so sure I’m sticking around. Sure she’s funny sometimes and she made the Twitter video which I do kind of love. But I’m suspicious that the only reason I love her is that she looks vaguely like Jennifer Saunders…I’m becoming increasingly suspect of that by the minute.

However her Twitter video deserves an article here. It plays off of the “tweeting” aspect of Twitter which kind of gets lost on a lot of people I think. I can totally identify with the Twitter is down part–only I have to transcribe that feeling to when I couldn’t watch YouTube.

Speaking of youth…Olga Kay is one of the best jugglers I have ever seen…actually I shouldn’t say that because I haven’t really ever paid much attention to jugglers myself but if I were to do a comparison I would say that she is it.

The real reason I love her is that she carries with her so much vibrance and youthful energy that it makes me want to take up juggling or make more videos. I love people who make me want to do something…in case you haven’t noticed since I say that in almost every post. She’s got a great sense of humor and she is really supportive of other people that she thinks are great too so I think everyone should be supportive of her.

Not since Free Hugs have I seen a YouTube video that made me cry quite as much as The Beckoning of Lovely. It all started when Amy Krouse Rosenthal made a video called 17 Things I Made in which Amy chronicled some of the things she has made including the ordinary and not so ordinary.

Through this video audiences learned that she is a writer, a mother and a maker of things including an 18th thing which she promised to make on 08/08/08 at the Millenium Park Bean–That’s where The Beckoning of Lovely began.

The Beckoning is not over yet as you will see at her blog and on the videos so this is only the first in a series I will do on her work in the coming days. I may even do a Suite 101 article about her later.

After today.com has informed me that they will no longer pay me per post I have decided to leave. The moderators of today.com always say they want to get more bloggers and let their bloggers make good money here but the closer you get to the $50 you have to have to get a check the lower your pay per post rate goes until it hits 0.

I have not seen one penny from any of this writing I have done so my question to them is what would be so wrong with letting me build up my revenue a dollar a post why did they have to take it away if they’ve never even paid any of it out? As of now it’s just a number on my account and I refuse to keep devoting time that I could be using to write good articles for http://www.suite101.com who actually pays their writers.