Beautiful Italian Artwork from Nicoletta Ceccoli

 

Nicoletta Ceccoli is an Italian artist who is born and raised in the Republic of San Marino. 

Her works are noted for being dreamy and often depicting girls in a twisted fairy tale setup. 

She studied animation at the Institute of Art In Urbino, Italy.

Her work is influenced by Italian, American, English, Spanish and Lithuanian Artists, namely:
Domenico Gnoli, Paolo Uccello, Mark Ryden, Ray Caesar, Remedios Varo and Stasys Eidrigevicius.
Check their paintings below and you can clearly see how they influenced her work in a major way.

Images: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9

4 Easy Steps to Make Cold Porcelain

Here's an update to my Cold Porcelain Blog post a few years back. 

Ingredients: 

2 Cup Glue

2 Cup Cornstarch

2 tbsp Baby Oil

1 tbsp Citric Acid or Lemon Juice

1 tbsp Cold Cream (Non-greasy) or hand cream

Few drops of Acrylic to make it a different color (optional)

Tools:

Mixing Bowl & Wooden Spoon

Stove top & and Old Cooking Pot

Plastic Wrap & Ziplock Bag

First Step: MIX
Mix the acrylic, cornstarch, glue, oil and lemon juice in a bowl using a wooden spoon, until smooth. 

Transfer mixture to an old cooking pot or just mix the entire thing in the pot to skip the transferring part -- silly me. :) 

Second Step: COOK
Turn stove top on to medium low. Careful to not see any clumps otherwise adjust to low setting . 

Keep mixing. Test a bit of the mixture and see if its ready and does not stick. 

You may have to cook longer if it does. 

Third Step: KNEAD
Use the cold cream for your hands before kneading the dough.
Fourth Step: ZIPLOCK in FRIDGE for 24 hours
Place the dough in a plastic wrap and remove any air. Then put in a ziplock bag, nice and tight. You need to refrigerate this dough overnight before you can use it.

Avoiding Cracks:

It is essential to put the dough in the fridge overnight to avoid cracks. 

Plus the recipe does not include water. No water, no cracks. 

Also one major trick is kneading the cold porcelain properly. It's like Play-Doh, you work your hands and fingers into the clay until its completely elastic. 

There are tons of things you can do with a cold porcelain.

I have recently discovered an artist who does great work with cold porcelains. Check it out.

Images: 1 

Featured Artist: Lorena Alvarez

I am so lucky to have stumbled upon the work of a brilliant illustrator from Colombia, Lorena Alvarez-Gomez.

You will love me for showing you yet another talented individual who makes such wonderfully elegant illustrations (aside from her artworks she does photography too).

The merge between traditional drawing techniques and digital media can be seen in her art. You can see her work anywhere now from childrens book (she creates so many cute and interesting characters) to various fashion spreads.

She also is in the 2009 Kokeshi Exhibition

And by the way she makes Plushie Toys too.

Aren't they adorable?

This diorama reminds me of James and the Giant Peach and Coraline.

If she continues on this path she can someday be making stop motion animation. Wow!

Her dream interpretation series in TU magazine.

From one of her childrens book. Very nice.

There's a lot more of these and if you want to see more and I know you want to

please check out her blog, flickr and website.

Kokeshidoll - Flickr - Lorenaalvarez

(Source: Mentioned and linked above)