Hanukkah Candles with Gold Star of David Small Christmas Stocking by HolidayPlanet
Find other Festive Christmas Stockings at zazzle.com

Festive Hanukkah candles featuring wood grain textures and a gold Star of David. The color scheme is various shades of blue, with black, white, yellow, and gold accents.

Harry Potter fans will revel in Jody Revenson’s Harry Potter: The Creature Vault (Titan, $49.99), subtitled “The Creatures and Plants of the Harry Potter Films”. It brings together, through numerous colour illustrations, the artists’ concept designs based on the directive that “anatomy and movement should be based on naturalism”. Detailed profiles of each creature, such as Inferious, Post Owl and Hippogriff, and each creature’s place or role in the specific Harry Potter films, are supplemented by behind-the-scenes information from the Warner Bros archive.  Read more... (439 words, 2 images, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

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Someone On My “To Read” List Died

I have been busy doing a lot of time-consuming clean-ups and re-designs on my Graphic Novel Publishers blog. Over the weekend I put a lot of work on an entry about Harvey Pekar and Alison Bechdel and finished it Sunday night. Monday, Harvey Pekar died.  Read more... (164 words, estimated 39 secs reading time)

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Post-Impressionism is the term coined by the British artist and art critic Roger Fry in 1910 to describe the development of French art since Manet. Fry used the term when he organized the 1910 exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists. Post-Impressionists extended Impressionism while rejecting its limitations: they continued using vivid colours, often thick application of paint, and real-life subject matter, but they were more inclined to emphasize geometric forms, to distort form for expressive effect, and to use unnatural or arbitrary colour.  Read more... (547 words, estimated 2:11 mins reading time)

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Butterflies and Poppies Pillow designed by 400 Planets Custom Designs

Butterflies and Poppies is one of the unfinished paintings van Gogh did in the year before he died.

After spending the better part of October creating designs for Zazzle’s new treats product line, I decided it was time to do a new design for my main store, 400 Planets. My Fine Art category needed to be updated, so I added a new subcategory for Vincent van Gogh, and chose his Butterflies and Poppies as the first design for this category.  Read more... (443 words, 1 image, estimated 1:46 mins reading time)

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After Luncheon by Morisot Food Tray

Impressionist painter Berthe Morisot became the most expensive female artist at auction in 2014 when Christie’s in London sold her feathery portrait of a young redhead in a straw hat and purple dress for $10.9 million.

The 1881 painting, “After Lunch,” toppled the record set last year by a $10.7 million Louise Bourgeois sculpture—and underscores collectors’ willingness to splurge on major examples by classic Impressionists like Morisot, who is best known for her soothing views of women in domestic settings.  Read more... (190 words, 5 images, estimated 46 secs reading time)

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