I Aim To Misbehave

CSI: NY Appreciation Week

My enormous obsession for Schitt’s Creek manifested in two weeks’ worth of posters. 

SCHITT’S CREEK CELEBRATION

These whimsical wooden automata are the creations of contemporary Japanese woodworker Kazuaki Harada. We’re particularly fond of the dancing ham and veggies. After first spending a year studying under English master automata-maker Matt Smith, Harada began crafting his own automatons in 2002. His playful pieces vary in both size and complexity, but all are operated by the turning of a single handle and are created in the spirit of simply delighting people. Why else would you create an automaton wearing nothing but socks, with the ability to boil a pot of tea on his own belly?

Visit Kazuaki Harada’s YouTube channel to check out many more of his marvelous wooden automatons in action. You can also follow him on Instagram and check out pieces he has for sale via his online shop.

Over two years have passed since we first discovered the awesome otherworldly animal sculptures of Canadian artist Ellen Jewett (previously featured here), who describes her work as “natural history surrealist sculpture.” These chimeric creatures are a dreamy combination of animals and plants, sometimes incorporating structures and objects of human origin as well.

“Her artwork is deeply informed by an extensive background in anthropology, medical illustration, exotic animal care, and even stop-motion animation, all of which accentuate the biological structure of each piece, while freeing her imagination to pursue more abstract ideas.”

Jewett prefers to work with natural, locally-sourced materials and actively avoids using any sort of clay, paints, glazes and finishes containing toxic properties:

“This, unavoidably, excludes most of what is commonly commercially available, and has sent me on a journey of unique material combination and invention. This exploration is a large part of the unconventional look and feel of my work. Where possible I source the natural, the local, the low impact and, always, the authentic.“

Visit Ellen Jewett’s website to check out more of her fantastic sculptures, some of which are available for purchase here and here.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away Monday blues weren’t a problem because of these awesome Star Wars cosplaying doggos.

Head over to BarkPost for even more geektastic puppers showing off their favorite Star Wars characters.

Photos by/via /r/photoshopbattles, Chubbs the Wampug, BarkPost, Corgnelius, Cuije Photo, and Imgur respectively.

Welcome to another fine and furry Caturday. Today the Department of Awesome Macro Photography is celebrating our feline friends by enjoying the work of a Norwegian photographer who goes by the username Tina’s Perspective on Instagram. In addition to a wealth of other gorgeous macro shots, Tina sometimes turns her lens upon the beautiful peeper of her pet cats, Zelda, Zonic, and Zorro.

A post shared by Tina’s perspective on life (@tinasperspective) on Feb 13, 2016 at 2:20pm PST

Follow Tina’s Perspective on Instagram to check out many more of her wondrous macro photos.

Today the Department of Creative Cross-Stitchery is catching up with the latest work by Swedish designer Ulla-Stina Wikander (previously featured here), who creates textile sculptures by covering vintage household appliances and other everyday objects in colorful embroidery.

“I find it interesting to see how these objects transforms in a new context; the obsolete, the things we do not want any longer, the old and forgotten things,” the artist says, in a statement. “I give them a second life and although I cut the embroideries into pieces, I still think they look very beautiful, when the objects has been ‘dressed up.’ ”

Follow Ulla-Stina Wikander on Instagram to check out even more of her elaborately embroidered artwork.

Remember LJ icons?

They were TINY. 100x100 pixels. That’s, like, digital scrimshaw. And people were obsessed with making good ones - and there were CONTESTS, super cutthroat ones, and trends would sweep the icon-making world every week or so and as soon as you mastered a technique it would be passé, and there were whole communities dedicated to tutorials and icon-making resources, and it was all its own WEIRD LITTLE WORLD.

The Sahara sand viper (Cerastes vipera), is a small, venomous viper endemic to the deserts of North Africa and the Sinai Peninsula and it has a very special skill. It can hide itself by burying itself in the sand. They do this in order to wait for prey. They wiggle their tails to attract a potential meal and then lunge out from under the sand to chomp them.

Photographer Zac Herr had the brilliant idea of giving a captive-bred Sahara sand viper the opportunity to show off its special skill in a pool full of rainbow sprinkles instead of sand. pacinthesink provided the snek and jdrrising recorded the results:

A post shared by Josh (@jdrrising) on Nov 5, 2017 at 7:19am PST

And Zac Herr photographed the sneaky snek after it was done:

“The best part of this picture is that the snake has no idea how comical it is.“

Prints of these awesome sprinkle viper photos are currently available via Zac Herr’s online shop.

Video by jdrrising, photos by Zac Herr

All cats are awesome cats, but some cats are so awesome that looking at them will make you forget that it’s Monday. One of those superlative cats is Quimera, a really really ridiculously good-looking two-faced tortoiseshell cat.

Follow Gata Quimera on Instagram for more photos of her gold and blue-eyed feline loveliness.