All posts tagged: drawing

After Drawing Women Trapped Inside, Kyung-Me Painted Herself Free

After Drawing Women Trapped Inside, Kyung-Me Painted Herself Free

Published by Jenni Sidey

It’s rare for an artist to spend years honing a craft and perfecting a way of working only to one day pivot 180 degrees. Kyung-Me makes this look both easy and essential.  After Kyung-Me first saw the 12th century illustrations for The Tale of Genji, she “became obsessed with drawing, almost overnight,” as she told me when I visited her studio in Ridgewood, Queens. First, she copied drawings from the work—considered the world’s first novel, and written by a woman—with urban grids drawn in parallel perspective. Then she zoomed in, imagining what went on in the buildings’ interiors—and with the many women who starred in Prince Genji’s story. Related Articles The resulting black-and-white line drawings are only 32 inches wide but utterly expansive—both brimming with detail and extending deep into space by way of one-point perspective. In The Marriage (2022), a cathedral-like room is divided up with ornate Gothic molding that appears to go on forever. In The Profession (2022), the texture of a gridded tatami mat is meticulously hatched: Every warp and every weft …

EU is drawing up secret ‘Farage as PM’ plans | UK | News

EU is drawing up secret ‘Farage as PM’ plans | UK | News

Published by Sam Flores

The European Union is preparing for the possibility of Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister, the Irish Taoiseach has appeared to admit, as Brussels simultaneously piles pressure on Sir Keir Starmer to water down his Brexit red lines ahead of a crunch summit later this month. Speaking to Irish broadcaster RTE, Micheál Martin said: “Every scenario has to be planned for and has to be taken on board, and again, that would be a matter of the first instance for the United Kingdom, for the people of the United Kingdom.” He added: “If Nigel Farage becomes prime minister, Ireland will engage, but obviously his policies are completely at variance with ours in terms of the European Union.” What did the Irish Taoiseach say about Nigel Farage? The remarks landed at a moment when Mr Farage’s political fortunes are at their strongest in years, polling ahead of his rivals for more than 12 months as he rides a wave of local election successes accumulated on May 7th. The Taoiseach defended the beleaguered Prime Minister in the same …

AI Used to Identify Unknown Subject in Holbein Drawing as Anne Boleyn

AI Used to Identify Unknown Subject in Holbein Drawing as Anne Boleyn

Published by Jenni Sidey

Using artificial intelligence, researchers may have identified the previously unknown subject of a sketch by Northern Renaissance artist Hans Holbein, and reidentified the sitter for a related Holbein drawing. The study, carried out by Karen L. Davies and Hassan Ugail, was published in the journal npj Heritage Science. Holbein was born in Germany but moved to England to escape the European Reformation, initially under the patronage of Oliver Cromwell and Henry VIII’s ill-fated second wife, Anne Boleyn. He worked as a portraitist in the Tudor court starting around 1526 until his death in 1543. Related Articles Both of the artworks in question—known as Anne Boleyn and An unidentified woman—are part of the Royal Collection Trust, which owns some 85 drawings by Holbein. Only 30 of these drawings, the study points out, are related to paintings whose subjects are clearly identified. Until now, this left historians to rely on inscriptions from 18th-century copies of Holbein originals to identify the drawings’ sitters. Davies and Ugail, however, used computational facial recognition to suggest that the “unidentified woman” is …

Mount Holyoke’s Corpse Flower Blooms Again, Drawing Crowds to Its ‘Rotting Flesh’ Stench

Mount Holyoke’s Corpse Flower Blooms Again, Drawing Crowds to Its ‘Rotting Flesh’ Stench

Published by Sam Flores

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. (AP) — One person entered the lush, green Victorian-era greenhouse and smelled rotting eggs. Another said the odor evoked the memory of dissecting a dead bird. A third compared it to a stinky diaper baking in the sun. “I was expecting it to smell bad, but it smelled genuinely like rotting flesh,” said Nyx DelPrado, a first-year student at Mount Holyoke College who visited its Talcott Greenhouse this week to see the blooming of a corpse flower. “Its name is accurate,” DelPrado added with a laugh, nose wrinkled, adding that it reminded them of the scent of a dissection. The corpse flower, or Amorphophallus titanum, is a rare tropical plant known for its foul odor. It’s native to the rainforests of Sumatra and blooms infrequently and for only a brief window, releasing a pungent scent meant to mimic decaying flesh and attract pollinators such as flies and beetles. Nicknamed “Pangy,” the plant first bloomed at Mount Holyoke College in 2023, and its latest appearance has once again drawn crowds eager to witness …

Google Warns That Quantum Armageddon Is Drawing Closer

Google Warns That Quantum Armageddon Is Drawing Closer

Published by José Betancourt

Sign up to see the future, today Can’t-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech On Wednesday, Google said it was moving up the date it needs to prepare for when quantum computers will be able to break current encryption algorithms to 2029, catching experts off-guard.  This hypothetical turning point, called Q Day, is an ominous reminder that advances in the world of quantum computing could have seismic implications in our information age that we need to prepare for, and not all of them good. “Quantum computers will pose a significant threat to current cryptographic standards, and specifically to encryption and digital signatures,” Google said in its Wednesday announcement, penned by Heather Adkins, Google’s VP of security engineering, and Sophie Schmieg, a senior cryptography engineer at the company. Classical computers use bits to store information in a binary state, either as a one or a zero. Quantum computers, on the other hand, use quantum particles called qubits that, due to a spooky quantum property called superposition, can be in two states at once. …

France Freezes Sale of M Hans Baldung Drawing With Export Ban

France Freezes Sale of $3M Hans Baldung Drawing With Export Ban

Published by Jenni Sidey

The French government has stepped in to stop the sale of a newly identified drawing by Hans Baldung, according to the Art Newspaper, throwing a last-minute wrench into what was shaping up to be a major Old Master auction in Paris. The small portrait, dated to 1517 and attributed to the German Renaissance artist, was slated to hit the block at French auction house Beaussant Lefèvre, carrying an estimate of $1.74 million to $3.5 million. Two days before the auction, France’s culture ministry declared it a national treasure, triggering a 30-month export ban and effectively pulling it off the market.  Related Articles That kind of intervention is rare but not unheard of in France, where the state can halt sales to give local institutions time to raise funds and keep important works in the country. In this case, the stakes are unusually high. Baldung drawings almost never come up for sale, and this one is being billed as the only surviving silverpoint portrait by the artist still in private hands.  The work itself is modest in size …

Drawing eyes on food packaging may stop seagulls from stealing your lunch

Drawing eyes on food packaging may stop seagulls from stealing your lunch

Published by Daniella Wilson

Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more Stay ahead of the curve with our weekly guide to the latest trends, fashion, relationships and more The increasingly urban lifestyles of seagulls in the UK and around Europe has made them experts at grabbing food from unsuspecting outdoor diners. Herring gulls in particular are gaining a reputation for food theft in seaside towns like Falmouth in Cornwall, where I live. On a day out at the beach last summer, I watched as one rummaged through an unattended bag and hopped off with a packet of crisps. Sadly, the gull didn’t hang around long enough for me to see whether it successfully opened the packaging. Watching this kind of behaviour led me and my colleague Neeltje Boogert to explore new ways of deterring these resourceful birds. Our new research shows that displaying a pair of eyes on food packaging can be …