When done properly, body painting is one of the most fascinating types of art forms. If you look closely at the picture above, you’ll notice that the leopard’s eyes, cheeks, and chin have been painted on the floor. The back of a female volunteer forms the rest of its face, with her bottom used as the big cat’s nose and upper lip.

Born and Raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, Craig Tracy decides what to paint when he sees the model’s body, using their shape as an inspiration for ideas. Sometimes he takes two days to plan before applying the first splash of paint. Once he figures that out, he spends up to nine hours painstakingly applying water-based paint to his volunteers’ bodies before photographing them in unique poses.

“I personally didn’t take Bodypainting seriously for five or six years. The day that I finally asked myself ‘why’, why I liked painting on people so much, that led me to… Well,,, What if I take this passionate interest seriously? That one question and a quick Google search changed the course of my life.” -Craig Tracy

(more…)

A few months back we did a post on Mike Giant, and how he is a major influence in our artistic style. Everything from the way he tattoos to the way he drafts up his drawings with a black sharpie are right on point. Given his success that has come with working with Rebel 8, Giant has not been doing too many shows, and his tattooing has been put on hold, with the exception of a few appointments being taken here and there. These pics are some new work from Giant, who uses hot chicks as his canvas. Is there really a better kind of canvas to use? Seriously. By the way, does it make me a bad guy by saying I want to marry every single one of these chicks?

(more…)

These red wine glasses are based on the 7 deadly sins. Each glass encapsulates a sin, which is revealed through the ritual of drinking. The ‘7 Deadly Glasses’ are about celebrating passion and encouraging the user to be sinful in a theatrical fashion.
Handmade in England. Limited Edition. Available to order here at the designer’s, Kacper Hamilton, website.


(more…)

What better place than the streets of New York City to try and spook the seen-it-all pedestrians into experiencing a new form of street art? Joshua Allen Harris is an artist who has found a way to work with urban conditions, take advantage of cheap materials and exploit available situations to make ingenious head-turning works of art. In some cases, he manipulates the surroundings of a work to play with site and illusion – like splicing a segmented dragon form so it appears to be diving in and out of the metal grates on which it sits, or facing off two monsters that – as air movement varies from place to place – seem to be gaining or losing ground.
(more…)

I find myself constantly looking for new and edgy art. Im not sure if its because Im mad at myself for not having the time to put into my own drawings, or because it just excites me to see the progression that art is taking. 23-year-old London-based illustrator, Dan Stafford, born in Manchester is one of the artist who are helping to lead the charge. Stafford graduated this year from Loughborough University School of Art & Design with First Class Honours in Visual Communication. He is now busily producing slightly mad illustrations for clients such as Who’s Jack Magazine.

Stafford says filmmakers such as David Lynch and Stanley Kubrick influence his art, which is pretty clear in his work, even though there is also a strong Tim Burtonish sense of the bizarre — an aggressive duality of sweet and sinister, meek and macabre. In Stafford’s work, the dark side is mostly up-front in the subject matter while the softer side is represented through the choice colors and the softness of edges.

Growing up an 80′s baby, I really had no choice but to like He-Man. Ok, more like LOVE He-Man. What young boy didnt think it was cool to run around in your underwear swinging a sword at some bastard with a skull for a face? Also, his hair cut was out of this world. I used to sport the bowl cut so hard it wasnt even really funny. Actually my entire crew rocked the bowl, but we had one clear cut leader. He is now formally known as “The Kid”, but back in the day he was known around Northen NJ as the young lad with maybe the most amazing bowl cut ever, and you can bet your ass He-Man was his inspiration. Opening on January 8th, Gallery 1988 LA presents their 4th annual tribute show, this time honoring He-Man and the Masters of the Universe!! I got a sneak peak at some of the entries and damn, I couldnt have done a better job at picking the subject matter for these 2 paintings. Check back in January when we will have a complete review, and some more submissions of the He-Man series.

Birmingham, Alabama-based artist Walt Creel creates illustrations by firing guns at aluminum sheets. He calls his collection “Deweaponizing the Gun”, and sees it as an exploration of guns in U.S., and in particular, Southern culture:

The terms gun and weapon are practically interchangeable. From hunting to war, self defense to target practice, the gun has been a symbol of power and destruction. Art and entertainment have both taken the same approach to he gun. Traveling Wild West shows had gunslingers that shot crude silhouettes and names, but this was done to illustrate the shooters prowess. Some artists have used high speed film to capture a bullet slicing through its target, while other artists have melted guns into sculptures.

(more…)

These are some awesome oil paintings by Shawn Barber from his collection acclaimed as “Tattooed Portraits”. He received his B.F.A. from the Ringling School of Art in Sarasota, FL. Tattoos in general are interesting, the addition of the oil painting style only brings more to the table. Check Barber’s website out here, where he has a lot of other cool artowrk if you dig this stuff.


(more…)

Its always nice when you see a design team really think about ad placement. There are so many times that I see an really cool ad or campaign and think to myself, what the hell were those guys thinking when they placed it here. I saw this set of bus stop ads and I really dug them. So naturally, I figured I would share them with you Zoots. Bus stops are commonly pretty lame. You have your standard bus schedule, a bench, a homeless dude if your lucky, and thats about it. Ohh, lets not forget some of the awesome graffiti that those cool 17 year olds drew. “FUCK” and “SHIT” all over the place. Finally a few people realized that this area could be used as a public piece of art and really took advantage of it.


(more…)