I’ve always been a fan of the Heavy Horse sculpture that stands on the West bound side of the motorway on the way out of Glasgow, it’s particularly impressive when illuminated on a clear night.  There are a huge number of fantastic photo’s featuring the sculpture out there on the web although I particularly like this one from David May’s Flickr photostream:

I was certainly aware that Andy Scott has completed a number of other high profile sculptures, but to be honest I hadn’t actually seen other examples of his work until I started writing this article and conducting the obligatory google searches.  One of the first sites I came across was Andy’s own website where you can download a number of pictures depicting his work, such as this fine example, ‘Arabesque’:

Andy has completed a number of fine sculptures but just to give you a sense of scale I thought I might share this image that happened across on Zimbio.com

According to Zimbio, this is the worlds largest example of a horse sculpture.  It represents one of two heads Andy made, two Kelpies, which were subsequently placed at the entrance to the Forth and Clyde Canal.

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Kelpies themselves are an interesting string to Scottish folklore, but I’ll let you read about them yourself before I digress any further:

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Skot is another artist found through DeviantArt where he goes by the name Lord Hoki, living on Austrailia’s East Coast Skot works in a variety of media creating a range of drawn, painted and sculpted objects.  Much of his DeviantArt account is taken up with his Hoki range of work such as those pictured below:

Above is just one of a wide range of character sketches featured in Skot’s DeviantArt account.  Aside from the sketches there are also fully worked up paintings (see below) in what is probably best described as, full 21st century technicolour:

I really love the blending and highlighting used in this painting, the background providing a wonderful richly textured contrast with the smooth features of the the face itself.  It could be that I’m attracted to these works thanks to the eyes – eyes being something of an obsession for me – and what eyes these are!  I almost feel like I could fall into them, a real focal point of many of these Hoki works.

If you like these characters painted, then you may well like them painted on t-shirts (below), wear an original work on your chest … I’d pay for that!

It only seems right that the Hoki’s be brought to life in an altogether more 3-dimensional fashion, and so it is we discover Captain Hoki:

The Captain here is a sculpture in papier mache that really fits in with it’s 2-dimensional forebears, the nose and eyes being the main feature with colouring and details in keeping with the designs I’ve already featured here and the others in Skot’s gallery.

Given what’s gone before you may well be forgiven that Skot is something of a one trick pony, yet nothing could be further from the truth and so, before I finish this post I’d like to share a few of Skot’s other works with you.

A pencil sketch entitled “My Dad”, we presume it is … his … not mine!

A couple of bird boxes made from reclaimed and recycled materials … makes me think that the birds we get around where I am are a bit rubbish.  Having said that the Buzzards, Grouse and Barn Owls are pretty cool … oh! and we don’t get deadly spiders, snakes or other nasties!!

As ever I can’t recommend enough that you check out this artists gallery which is available here.

I first became aware of Helen’s work a few years ago when I began dabbling with papier mache and was just beginning to see the possibilities it offered beyond what we traditionally think of when we hear about this much under-rated material.  I had tried my hand at making a mask with mache and Helen (a mask maker) happened to comment, something that led me to view her DeviantArt gallery.

Helen seems to have become a mask maker of some repute, something that is certainly confirmed from what she has featured online, these masks are created most usually from papier mache or leather.  In honesty it’s the papier mache work that interests me most given my own experiments with that particular medium, and her talent here can be seen in these two designs:

Akhenaten, the heretic pharaoh.

Gilded Pleasure

 On the latter mask, above, Helen says this:

I’m not sure what it says about my maskwork, but whenever I try to create something pretty, it usually ends up looking sinister.

Something which I admit made me laugh!  Indeed not all of Helen’s masks are sinister, or even black for that matter.  From what I’ve seen though it’s when Helen is working with leather that a form of organic beauty comes to the fore and it’s in working with leather where her skill for mask making is most apparent.

Social Butterfly

If this, and it’s counterparts, don’t fall into the ‘pretty’ camp then I don’t know what does.  Helen herself sees much more of the gothic in these than I believe there is, yet as she created them I guess we should cow down to her opinion on the matter, either way these are fab … to see more like these follow the links at the end of the article.

Steampunk inspired mask

Steampunk is something of an artistic movement that has gathered pace in recent years and has now pervaded almost every genre you might think of from it’s early literary origins and it’s something I’m a bit of a fan of myself, perhaps that’s why I’m a fan of this piece.  Yet it’s the little details that really set this mask apart with the attention to detail around the edges and the textured finish given to the mask.  Subtle, but it works so well.

I’m not quite sure if this counts as a royal endorsement but Prince Charles, below, certainly seemed to take a shine to her popular ‘welsh dragon’ mask! 

Come on Charlie, put it on ... you know you want to!

Not content with mixing with the royals Helen has also been commissioned to do make masks for the theatre and this music video for Ebony Tower and their White Rabbit track:

Something a bit different, but check out that mask!

Whether you’re a fan of masks or just seeing great pieces of work created by a true artisan then I strongly suggest you visit either Helen’s deviantart account, or better yet, check out her website (where you can also make purchases if you’r eso inclined).

For those who don’t know DeviantArt is a massive online artists community which spans the globe and contains the work of many thousand artists and crafters, amateur and professional alike.

I recently came across Karolina’s work while browsing through the submission feed and I’ve got to say it simply knocked my socks, her gallery is fabulous.  Karolina is an artisan hailing from Poland and whilst I can’t necessarily read her comments about her work it doesn’t mean I can’t fail to appreciate her work.

Just check out some of these sample pieces from the range of pieces that Karolina makes:

Karolina makes wonderful brooches which seem to be largely based on birds and bugs, I must say I’m developing a particular fondness of the bugs and strongly suggest you go and have a look at the ladybirds in particular.

Clearly taking a great deal of inspiration from the natural world around her, unless I miss my mark, Karolina also creates a range of beautiful ceramic pendants in the form of leaves and flowers like this one featured below.

Finally from this small selection of her work is an intricately sown necklace featuring another of her ceramic creations.

Aside from these types of items Karolina also creates a range of ceramic tiles featuring floral designs that are also worth a look and a range of photography which shows a keen eye for a good picture.  It’s this good eye for a picture which really makes her work stand out as she presents it in an attractive and informative fashion, highlighting details and elements of her work in an eye catching fashion.

It’s great to see well presented work on the web, it bothers me when people who have put a lot of effort into making something fail to put in an equal effort into presenting it.  Not the case here, check out karolina’s gallery, do it now!

You may also find Karolina at her blog, http://karolina-g.blogspot.com/.

~00OO UPDATE OO00~

You can buy Karolina’s work from either of these sites:  Decobazzar.com and Wylegarnia.com. 

These sites are in Polish, don’t let that put you off though, you should be able to get google to translate them for you, just enter the url into the google search bar, also you can use xe.com to convert prices.