Sunday Safari - Bee Buzz

 Klaus Haapaniemi

 Alain Grée, 1967, thanks to Pour toujours...

Golly Bard, Swarm of honeybees

Paper sculpture by Elsa Mora

Illustrations by Janusz Grabianski and Joanna Zimowska-Kwak, 1989

thanks to Garaż ilustracji książkowych

Illustrations from The Honeybees by Colette Portal and Animals at home, The Bee by Iliane Roels, 

both published in 1967. Thanks to the amazing flickr gallery of Arthur Van Kruining

  Another illustration from the lovely Animals at home, The Bee,

 this time thanks to Joey's Dream Garden (click to enlarge!)

André Francois, ad from Graphis 1961, thanks to the wonderful Sandi Vincent

Seijiro Kubo

Illustration from Anne and Paul Rand's Little 1

I discovered Angie Renfro thanks to Hazel Terry, 

the lovely curator of The Art Room Plant

From the Field

Yellow Warblers

Holly Ward Bimba, the artist behind Golly Bard, paints lovely watercolors inspired

by the nature surrounding her cottage in the rural village of Upperville, VIrginia.

After learning how to work with watercolor from her high school art teacher, 

she studied printmaking, papermaking, and book arts at Syracuse University. 

Watercolor still remains her favorite medium, and she uses it to create 

delicate portraits of wild animals, plants, and other tiny wonders.

Wild Hare and Honey Bees

Web Weaver no. 5

Ant Hill

I love the way she combines her methodic, science–oriented approach to observing and recording

details and patterns, with a spontaneous, whimsical style and wonderful feeling for color. 

Frolic in the Fernwood

Wild Hare and Honey Bees

Black Swan and Water Lily Bog

RIng Necked Pheasant no. 2

Bard is fascinated by natural history, repetition, and cataloguing. She often creates

artworks featuring series of animals, or series of artworks with the same subject. 

Swarm of Empresses

Migration

Fanciful Feather Collection no. 1

Beetles, Weevils and Flies no. 8

You can view the rest of the series on Bard's Flickr gallery. 

Bard has recently designed the Woodland Collection of fabrics. These charming works can be bought 

from Spoonflower, a company that allows artists to print their own designs using digital textile printers 

and eco-friendly inks on natural fiber fabrics.

Distracted by Porno

It's a crazy, scary, surreal time for Italian politics, and like many I am torn between

anger and frustration at the sad state of our democracy and hopes for a real change. 

Outraged by the shameless, vulgar, arrogant machismo of our political rulers, 

last night I consoled myself rewatching one of my favorite icons of Italian style, 

 the always lovely, classy, smart and free spirited Isabella Rossellini 

narrating and playacting the bizarre sex lives of animals.

A few years ago Isabella was encouraged by Robert Redford to create a series 

of very short films intended for the new audience of mobile Internet and You Tube. 

Being a serious animal lover, she came out with the concept for a low tech, 

irreverent, funny and sexy take on educational nature documentaries.

Rossellini then wrote, produced, directed and starred in some very unusual 

but scientifically sound videos about the mating habits of insects.

The highly successful Green Porno project won two Webby awards in 2009, 

and was followed by two more series about sea animals and a book.

Green Porno's offspring Seduce me focuses on the often bizarre rituals 

that precede mating, and features creatures ranging from salmons to snakes 

to cuttlefish. Two series have been produced, for a total of ten videos.

You can watch all of Isabella's animal shorts on Sundance Channel.

The recent Sundance festival also premiered Animals Distract Me, the new 

Rossellini film following her concern for wildlife "as she visits with Mario Batali, 

Andre Leon Talley, Charles Darwin, and a host of urban creatures in New York City". 

The feature will debut on Earth Day (April 22nd) on Discovery Channel's Planet Green.

Ukrainian Dance

Well I couldn't resist, so before moving on to other areas

here is one more post related to the Soviet period and Folk art!

When one year ago I first discovered Vyaceslav Legkobit's

exhuberant creations via Kickcan & Conkers, it was love at first sight.

And though I have already posted pictures from his books whenever I get a chance, 

I feel that the wonderful mr.Legkobit deserves his own personal feature.

Unfortunately, in spite of some help from Google translator, I haven't been able 

to find any biographical info, and I don't know if this artist is Russian or Ukrainian, 

or indeed if he is still alive. In case you can help please let me know,

and otherwise I hope you enjoy the joyful country dancing! 

 From Hto scho malyuє, 1968 

republished in English as Everyone Likes to Draw by Raduga, Moscow, 1975

 From Wolves, written by Stepan Rudansky, 1973 

 From Perepelichka low-Nevelichka, Ukrainian folk tongue twisters, 1975 

  From Zhenchik, zhenchik Nevelichka, Ukrainian folk tongue twisters, 1976 

 From Poems written by Vladimir Voskoboinikov, 1976 

Many, many thanks to kievljanka at kidpix for all the scans.

And for more Folk gorgeousness, check out the beautiful post about 

Signature: Patterns in Gond Art on A Journey Round My Skull.