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Joy

Street artist creates delightful 3D scenes in walls and walkways for everyone to enjoy

David Zinn's characters bring joy to the lucky folks that happen to come upon them before they wash away.

TedxTalks/YouTube

David Zinn creates art from what he sees everywhere he goes.

Street artists are a special breed. While "the art world" can sometimes be a snooty, elite place for those with means, street art is made for everyone. Sometimes that means large public murals, but street art can be small, too. In fact, some of the best street art is so small you might miss it if you're not paying attention. But those who are can discover some delightful surprises.


Just imagine walking down a sidewalk and seeing this little fella at your feet:

Or this young lady:

Or this creature:

That would make your day, wouldn't it? Or at least bring a smile to your face for a while?

Public art is an act of love to strangers, a way of connecting to people without saying a word. It says, "Hey there, fellow human. Here's a little something to make you smile, just because."

That's the beauty of David Zinn's street art. It's meant for the public—just average passers-by—to enjoy, individually and collectively.

Zinn has created an entire world of characters who pop up in unexpected places. For instance, meet Gerald the otter, who is waiting for a blind date in this tree stump.

Zinn uses chalk and charcoal to make his cast of characters come to life in cracks and crevasses, sidewalks and tree trunks. His creations aren't meant to last forever; in fact, as Zinn points out, the temporary nature of them adds value to them.

"Famous works of art hanging in museums get seen by thousands of people every day. But this? You could be among the dozens of people who get to see this while it exists," he told CBS Mornings. "That's pretty special."

Watch how he takes something he finds in the sidewalk and transforms it into a sweet little duo.

Sometimes he uses natural things he finds as inspiration for a piece.

Other times, he uses something human-made, like this upside down terra cotta pot:

Or this manhole cover:

Sometimes the shape of a rock lends itself to a character, like Keith and his emotional support chick here:

Or the space itself serves as inspiration.

Nadine the mouse features in many of Zinn's pieces, probably due to her small size making it easy for her to fit into small spaces.

Usually his pieces use what's already there—like a crack in the sidewalk—to tell a story.

The 3D nature of his drawings make it feel as if his characters are truly there.

"Looks like another long day of things stubbornly refusing to be impossible," he writes in a caption of one of his "pigasuses."

(Speaking of having wings, Nadine found a pair for herself.)

Watch Zinn turn a simple pot into a character with personality in a matter of minutes:

His entire Instagram page, Facebook page and TikTok channel are filled with endless delight. It was nearly impossible to decide what to include in this article because I wanted to include everything.

This is all well and good, you might say to yourself, but how does Zinn make a living if he's not selling this art?

He sells books and prints of photos of his artwork on his online store. He also gets invited to schools and events. He has created a career for himself by rejecting blank canvases, putting his imagination out on the street for everyone to see for a while, then selling versions that will actually last. Pretty brilliant, really.

Zinn gave a fascinating TEDx Talk explaining how he found his own artistic niche. You'll never look at a parking meter or sidewalk the same way again.

This article originally appeared on 02.12.22

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Identity

Autistic artist draws animal-mashups on request and it's mesmerizing to watch

Drawings by Trent/TikTok

Trent takes requests for animal drawings and creates them with no mistakes.

Some people are born with a knack or natural talent for certain things, from sports to music to math to art. At some point, it becomes hard to differentiate between people who are highly trained and people who are naturally gifted, but occasionally a person's innate abilities are abundantly clear.

Such is the case with Trent, a 24-year-old artist who has gathered a huge following with his on-request animal mash-up drawings. Trent has over a million followers on TikTok. He also has level 3 autism, which impacts his ability to communicate and necessitates help and support with day-to-day functioning. Trent's parents are his caregivers, and they use TikTok to help Trent share his art, champion his work and answer people's questions about autism.

Autistic people sometimes have unique talents, which can manifest as special abilities in memory, math, music, spatial awareness and more. Trent's parents say he started drawing at as soon as he could hold a pencil. He used to draw on everything—walls, furniture, toys, as well as paper—and his favorite thing to draw is animals. His parents nurtured and encouraged this love of drawing, and when you see how effortlessly he draws people's animal mash-up requests, you can see why.

In a recent video, Trent drew a "disco zebra with an afro," a "boxing gorilla" (which he interpreted a bit differently) and a "tiger butterfly." Watch:

@drawingsbytrent

Check out Trent’s art and merch in his store! #autistic #artist #fyp #trenttok

No pencil sketches. No erasing. No re-doing. Trent is able to draw what he sees in his mind's eye, using a permanent marker to make a line drawing of it in seconds. It's mesmerizing to watch.

People have asked if Trent ever makes a mistake and starts over. His dad says no.

"We have never seen him, in 24 years, crumple up a piece of paper and throw it away and start over," he says.

Very seldomly, he'll draw a line and then shift his idea, never going back to incorporate that line. But otherwise, he just draws.

Check out the recent drawings he's been doing of groups of animals with different facial expressions:

@drawingsbytrent

Reply to @melissabolos #autism #artist #fyp #trenttok

Trent doesn't always use a Sharpie—he usually draws in pen. (Why use a pencil if you don't make mistakes?)

@drawingsbytrent

Real time #trentsview #artist #artistsoftiktok #asd #autism #fyp #foryoupage

And his drawings can get really interesting and creative as well. For instance, here it looks like he made the animals wear their noses and snouts as hats:

@drawingsbytrent

#trenttok #autisticartist #fyp

Trent has been impressing people with his cartoon animal drawings for many years. This video of him drawing chalk animals on the family trampoline went viral in 2017:

Trent now has a coloring book, a children's book (written by his parents and illustrated by Trent), and greeting cards for sale. The Drawings by Trent website also sells t-shirts and explains the purpose of the online store:

"At Drawings by Trent we want to encourage families to help their children achieve their full potential, educate communities on the important role individuals of all skill and ability levels play, and inspire everyone to discover and use their own talents. Part of accomplishing those objectives involves helping Trent become a productive member of society while doing something he loves (that's what we all want, right?). When you purchase a piece of Trent's art you are not only supporting him, you're giving families hope."

It's great when anyone gets to do what they love and get recognized for it. Check out the Drawings by Trent TikTok channel for more.


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Self-taught artist makes hyperrealistic portraits with just a basic Bic ballpoint pen

Oscar Ukonu/Instagram, Art Insider/YouTube

Maybe it's because I'm a writer, but I'm a bit of a pen snob. Even if I'm just making a list, I look for a pen that grips well, flows well, doesn't put too much or too little ink into the paper, is responsive-but-not-too-responsive to pressure, and doesn't suddenly stop working mid-stroke.

In other words, the average cheap ballpoint pen is out. (See? Snob.)

However, Oscar Ukono is making me reevaluate my pen snobbery. Because while I'm over here turning up my nose at the basic Bic, he's using them to create things like this:

Um, yeah.

Ukonu is a self-taught artist from Lagos, Nigeria, who creates hyperrealistic portraits using just a Bic ballpoint pen. And not the fancy kind—the super simple clear ones with the pointy lids you buy in a 12-pack because you know you're going to lose half of them around the house anyway.

His drawings look like blue-washed photographs, but they're all hand-drawn with a Bic. (Or more accurately, with around 10 Bics, since the nubs start to wear down as he uses them.) How he makes the most average ballpoint pen strokes do what he does seems like nothing short of magic—even when you watch him do it in real-time.

The techniques he uses are pretty standard—hatching (parallel lines), crosshatching (perpendicular lines), and scribbling (basically what it sounds like). But he uses them on a minutely detailed level, working from multiple photos of the same subject, and the result is portraiture that looks so real it's almost surreal.

Artist Draws Hyperrealistic Portraits Using Bic Ballpoint Pensyoutu.be

Ukonu began his journey with hyperrealism when he was in architecture school and fell in love with ballpoint after feeling unsatisfied with the ink pens he was using. "I spent a lot of time looking at different mediums and drawing tools," he told Vsionvry. "But the first time I tried the ballpoint pen that was in 2014, and it just clicked..."

According to his website, Ukonu "explores black identity and pride in an increasingly globalized world, as well as ideas surrounding Afrorealism" in his art. (Afrorealism is a movement that straddles optimism and pessimism about Africa, with a genuine acknowledgment of the difficulties facing the continent and the placement of Africans in the central role of its development.)

Ukonu calls his work "a practice in time and patience" with an average piece taking him somewhere between 200 to 400 hours to complete. That time and patience pays off as prints of his work—not the originals, just prints—can sell for up to $600.

That braid he's working on in the video? That was this. With a Bic ballpoint. How?


And the newspaper wrapped around the woman's head? He has a whole series of pieces that feature that concept, which he calls "THE DISINFORMATION OF A REPUBLIC."



If you're new to hyperrealistic art, it's similar to—and has its roots in—photorealism, a style in which someone draws exactly what they see in a photo. But instead of drawing a direct copy of a photograph, hyperreal artists use photos only as a reference. That's why the video explained that Ukonu used around 20 photographs (out of hundreds taken) to draw one of his pieces. Rather than an exact replica of a single photograph, the final product is a wholly unique image, even though it looks like it could be a photograph.

It's common for hyperrealists to evoke emotional, social, cultural, and political meanings in their works, which shows clearly in Ukonu's art. And the fact that he can create such beautiful images with a cheap, disposable Bic ballpoint is proof that the talent of the artist is more important than the quality of the tools. (A truth that I will keep in mind when I reach for a pen for any purpose after seeing this.)

You can find more of Ukono's work on Instagram and on his website.

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An artist turned the shadow of a teapot into an elephant. Then he kept going.

Vincent Bal is a Belgian filmmaker with four full-length movies under his belt.

He loves making movies. But he was getting bored.

As a child, he wanted to be an illustrator or cartoonist before his life led him in a different direction. As Bal started to get frustrated with the lengthy production schedules and other time-consuming processes of his chosen art form, he started to think about drawing again.

At first, drawing mostly served as his means of escape and relaxation (although it did occasionally come in handy for storyboards, too). "Doodling is a way to relax for me, and I always feel that it’s my hands that do the thinking. It’s all very subconscious," Bal says. "Very relaxing after working on a script which is a much more rational undertaking."

But during a scriptwriting break in May 2016, one of his doodles took a different turn.

Bal had become distracted by the shadow of a teacup on his desk. The negative light from the curves of the cup cast a curious shape on a piece of paper. So he took a short break from writing to add a few lines where the shadow fell — and suddenly, the shadow was an elephant.

Image by Vincent Bal/Instagram, used with permission.

He posted his "shadow doodle" on Instagram, and it was an instant success with his friends — and with strangers all across the world.

"From Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, to Germany, to the States ... I guess we all share a strange and silly sense of humor," Bal says.

So he kept going, challenging himself to post a new doodle every single day.

Almost all of them are accompanied by some kind of silly pun. He calls the project "Shadowology," and he has already started expanding it into posters and prints, with a possible book and stop-motion film to come.

Here are just a few of the delightful shadow doodles that he's done so far this year:

1. This little swan is the jewel of the pond.

2. This guy's foolproof disguise is an all-in-one package.

3. An investigation through a looking glass.

4. Heavy is the head that wears the ... ring?

5. My, grandma! What big leaves you have!

6. International ocean travel.

7. Hieroglyphics.

8. ♫ Robber ducky, you're the one! You make bath crime lots of fun! ♫

9. Even Dracula could use a pair of dentures.

10. You know what they say: The pencil is mightier.

11. And this catdog is just so amazing that it has to be seen to be believed.

"Shadowology" started as a playful escape. But something really resonated with people in the way that Bal created delight out of darkness.

That wasn't Bal's intention, of course; there was no philosophical statement behind his fun and silly pastime.

"I just like to add something positive and light to the world, without it being stupid," he says. "Some people react to my drawings by saying they look forward to seeing them every day because they bring a smile to their face. In today’s world, that’s not a bad thing to do."

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