Doing Nothing

It's Columbus day and I just had a ball doing nothing at home. I don't know when I started picking up the bad habit of doing nothing, but I suppose it is always good to relax every once in a while.

Link of the day: www.99rooms.com
What is it: an internet-based art project that combines slightly creepy but gorgeously rendered graffiti with some interactive flash animations. The link I posted takes you to the beginning of the 99 rooms, but you can find more info here. Each of the room features wall art and some sort of sound effects, whether it be eerie music or the hissing of pipes. The rooms themselves look like what you would actually run into at old warehouses. In fact, they remind me quite a bit of the art warehouses I visited in Shanghai.

The above pictures were taken at the old DDM Warehouse. From their website it appears they might have moved to a new place.

Artist of the day: Diego Velásquez (1599-1660)
Who is he: one of greatest painters who ever lived. So it may seem like I have been praising all the artists I've written about so far, but in terms of painting, Velásquez is indeed a master who left his mark on artistic history. When I first learned to paint, I was taught to paint "as flat as I can for as long as I can." This can be said to describe how Velásquez painted. A few strokes suffice to bring out the three dimensional nature of his subjects. Velásquez was unparalleled in his command of color and brushwork. Of course, he was much more than a master of technique, he also possessed the ability to capture the character of his sitters. If El Greco gave visual form to the soul of his subjects, Velásquez captured the psychology and life of his.

Pope Innocent X, Diego Velásquez, 1650, oil on canvas, Galleria Doria-Pamphilij, Rome

Juan de Pareja, Diego Velásquez, 1650, oil on canvas, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC