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Grime in 1:20 Scale: Gritty Dollhouse-Sized Urban Architectural Models

14 Mar

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

urban architectural models

The kind of graffiti-covered, poster-plastered, weathered and visibly aging architecture that once characterized many big cities and has now largely been demolished is recreated in miniature by artist Joshua Smith. Every aspect of Smith’s tiny urban environments is crafted in loving detail, with absolutely nothing overlooked. Photographs of each miniature will make you wish you could examine them in person with a magnifying glass, appreciating the realism in every sidewalk crack, weed, pebble and fallen leaf.

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A dumpster at the Oakland Docks is packed full of tiny trash, some strewn around its base, a plastic bag fluttering on the barbed wire fence behind it. Melbourne’s Liberated X Bookshop and Shoe repairs features some fantastic Bladerunner-inspired wheat pasting, peeling plywood and the world’s tiniest padlocks. Big Bang Fireworks Company, based on 15 Pell Street in New York City’s Chinatown looks like you could slide those windows open and find a tiny family dining inside.

chinatown

dumpster

urban architectural models 9

urban architectural models 10

Based in South Australia, Smith previously worked for sixteen years as a stencil artist, and has now shifted his focus to model-making. The artist recently granted an interview to ArchDaily about his modeling process.

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“The longest build, which was my Kowloon Miniature, took three solid months working on average six to seven days a week and eight to sixteen hour-long days,” says Smith. “I strive to create a reality. I take as many reference photos as possible to mimic every single streak of rust, grime and chipping of stonework. I want viewers to be fooled, if I are a photo of the completed work in sunlight, to think it is the real thing.”

Take a closer look at some high-resolution images at Joshua Smith’s website.

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Time Machines: Langdon Clay’s Gritty Cars Of New York City

12 Dec

[ By Steve in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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Photographer Langdon Clay captured New York‘s bruised & battered road warriors at rest, evoking a dirtier and more dangerous era of the city that never sleeps.

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New York City in the 1970s was a city on the slippery slope to disaster; a major metropolis whose decline into bankruptcy, pervasive corruption and rampant crime portended a grim dystopian future fit for the likes of Snake Plissken. Armed with only his trusty Leica camera and rolls of Kodachrome film, Langdon Clay ventured into the Big Apple’s littered streetscapes, finding a fitting iconography for troubled times amongst the oft-filthy and snow-encrusted parked cars sheltering under the unforgiving glare of sodium-vapor streetlights.

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Langdon Clay, a native of NYC born in 1949, grew up in New Jersey and Vermont before moving back to the city of his birth in 1971. Like many photographers of the era, Clay cut his teeth on black and white composition but once immersed in New York’s unique urban milieu, inspiration struck. “I experienced a conversion of sorts in making a switch from the ‘decisive moment’ of black and white to the marvel of color,” relates Clay, “a world I was waking up to every day. At the time it seemed like an obvious and natural transition. What was less obvious was how to reflect my world of New York City in color… I discovered that night was its own color and I fell for it.”

Checkered Past

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From 1974 through 1976, often in winter and always after dark, Clay roamed the streets of New York and nearby Hoboken, New Jersey seeking out likely land-barge subjects. Most – though not all – of his photos depict used and abused Detroit iron of the Malaise Era with a few stubborn survivors of the Space Age tossed in for good measure. Of course, no expose of New York’s cars would be complete without a Checker or two: the pair above includes one once-ubiquitous New York cab and a rarer, privately-owned Checker Marathon.

Apple Spread

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We’re not sure why it took Clay forty-odd years to publish his collection of mid-seventies car photos… perhaps, like fine wine, a significant passage of time was required to imbue his subjects (and their surroundings) with the flavor of their long-passed era. In the event, “Cars – New York City 1974 – 1976”, published by Steidl, features 96 photographs spread over 132 pages.

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Time Machines Langdon Clays Gritty Cars Of New York City

[ By Steve in Art & Photography & Video. ]

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Gritty Cities: Oil Painter Captures Cityscapes at Dusk & Dawn

04 May

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

construction

Artist Jeremy Mann works in early in the day or evening, and it shows in the dark, smudged and ultimately riveting way in which he captures streetscapes of major cities from New York to San Francisco.

urban rooftops

Wiping, smoothing and layering oil paints with rollers, sponges and brushes, his works, like urban environments, are executions of complex and chaotic addition, evocative yet forever incomplete pictures of a place. He often applies broad marks with an ink brayer and wipes sections away with solvents. Getting increasingly experimental, he has even tried applying and moving paints with doorstops, window wipers and liquor bottles.

urban street

“Even that banana which turned out to actually be a good blending tool, painting with lettuce, though, I can tell you might be useless,” said the artist in an interview. “In this process of experimenting with tools, an artist inevitably discovers new techniques as a result of accidents and learning how to recognize those accidents as worthy or not, and then harness them or bury them.”

urban street shot

His paintings are as much about capturing the spirit of a place as its details. Rather than appearing as normal paintings, the pieces start to blend and blur, looking more like photographs shot on a rainy day with all the reflections of puddles, drips, and reflections enhanced. If anything, his recent works also seem to be growing more obscured and abstract over time, perhaps in part as his pallete of artistic tools expands.

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As art writer Christopher Jobson explains: “Mann applies and wipes away areas of the canvas to recreate these hazy environments, adding layers of paint back on top of the slightly smeared works with more detailed strokes. This layered effects makes the works appear like double exposed images, two scenes gently blurring into one. The resulting paintings are dark and atmospheric, urban streets seemingly drenched in rain and mystery.”

oil urban landscape

Mann’s work goes beyond just urban landscapes, and some of his pieces can be seen come June in the John Pence Gallery (you can also see more of his work on Instagram and Facebook).

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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33 Gritty Photos of Graffiti Street Art

12 Dec

Urban photography is a great way to get out and find some unique images, whether in your own city or abroad. Cities provide a multitude of interesting subjects. In this week’s image collection I’ve found a bunch of gritty photos of street art, also known as graffiti.

In some cities like Melbourne they encourage this graffiti and businesses or the government actually sponsor the artists and provide a space to create murals and street art.

Enjoy this series of grungy, gritty, street photography and art.

Photograph Justin arrives by Shady ezz on 500px

Justin arrives by Shady ezz on 500px

Street Tagging by Lin Zee on 500px

Photograph Colors and the City by Xavier Liard on 500px

Colors and the City by Xavier Liard on 500px

street art by Samir Salim on 500px

Photograph around the corner by Dragan Todorovi? on 500px

around the corner by Dragan Todorovi? on 500px

Graffiti Invasion by Liban Yusuf on 500px

Photograph Dónde está el 7º cielo?? by Gemma B&N on 500px

Dónde está el 7º cielo?? by Gemma B&N on 500px

Graffiti? by antoni targarona on 500px

Photograph Fisheye: Melbourne Street Art by Tom Cunningham on 500px

Fisheye: Melbourne Street Art by Tom Cunningham on 500px

Pump Dream by Fred Adams on 500px

Photograph Vanishing Point by Len Saltiel on 500px

Vanishing Point by Len Saltiel on 500px

Ace of Spades by Fred Adams on 500px

Photograph Colors And Lines by Burak Arik on 500px

Colors And Lines by Burak Arik on 500px

Work or Cupcake by Kent Atwell on 500px

Photograph graffiti by Vladimir Perfanov on 500px

graffiti by Vladimir Perfanov on 500px

painting the town by Shady ezz on 500px

Photograph { Walk along } by Thai Hoa Pham on 500px

{ Walk along } by Thai Hoa Pham on 500px

physical graffiti by victor cucos on 500px

Photograph Dark Room III by Xavier Liard on 500px

Dark Room III by Xavier Liard on 500px

Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned.. by Mathijs van den Bosch on 500px

Photograph woman on the wall by Gabor Nagy on 500px

woman on the wall by Gabor Nagy on 500px

Lost shoes by Joanna Lemanska on 500px

Photograph Graffiti face by Brian Behling on 500px

Graffiti face by Brian Behling on 500px

dark tunnel by Gianluca Sgarriglia on 500px

Photograph blue eye by Sergio Spiegel on 500px

blue eye by Sergio Spiegel on 500px

Urban Graffiti @ by Philippe PONSIN on 500px

Photograph graffiti tunnel 02 by Paul Hinderer on 500px

graffiti tunnel 02 by Paul Hinderer on 500px

Mid-Levels Street Art by Postcards from the World on 500px

Photograph Reckless Abandon by Nick Cox on 500px

Reckless Abandon by Nick Cox on 500px

NY Style Pizza, Jing’an by Craig McCormick on 500px

Photograph Graffiti Lane by Paul Hinderer on 500px

Graffiti Lane by Paul Hinderer on 500px

Surprise! by Brian Sanders on 500px

Photograph Ghost train by Xavier Liard on 500px

Ghost train by Xavier Liard on 500px

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The post 33 Gritty Photos of Graffiti Street Art by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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Gritty City: Dark Oils Capture Essence of Bustling Urbanity

19 Jun

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

gritty city aerial view

Buy shipyards, city streets, rain-streaked skyscrapers and other iconic staples of cities come alive in this portfolio of shadowy oil paintings.

gritty moving cars towers

gritty sidewalk intersection

gritty city shipyard

Valerio D’Ospina captures movement in the strokes of his brush, but the blurred results also take on that uncanny real-yet-indistinct character of a dream or memory, a little like the work of Alexandra Pacura.

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Born in Italy, Valerio studied in Florence, painted in Paris and eventually moved to Pennsylvania – his range of industrial subjects reflects studies of historic Europe as well as the infrastructure of the United States.

gritty city skyscrapers

gritty city street

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He was trained to teach, but has since turned toward full-time creation. From his bio: “After this teaching experience he decided to focus exclusively on painting, receiving positive feedback from private collectors and galleries from around the world.”

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Posts Tagged ‘Gritty’

Grime in 1:20 Scale: Gritty Dollhouse-Sized Urban Architectural Models