Deborah Woehr

I just finished watching a video and reading the accompanying article on Yahoo People about this guy named Phil Hansen. Before I saw this, I’d never heard of the guy and didn’t know that he had touched millions of people with his art. He used the Internet in his latest project to connect to his viewers, asking them to call or email him with a “moment that changed their lives.”

Hansen received over 600 responses from people all over the world. They were quite varied in emotional depth. Starting from the center of a 10-foot circular canvas, he painted their words, effectively turning the written word into his self portrait, bordered by four hands. After watching the video, I felt that this was the most touching piece and one that I wanted to share.

Some of his other works dabble in the macabre. My favorites were the portraits he did of the Ku Klux Klan and Rosa Parks, both of which are made up from thousands of verses of the bible, which he copied and individually cut out.

Phil’s website: Philinthecircle.com

I found this site while looking for something completely unrelated. The artist, Joe Bravo, uses tortillas as a canvas to paint some very colorful pieces. His work is receiving some great media attention from Good Morning America, CBS Early Show, LA Times, etc.

Check out his other paintings at Tortilla Art

I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface with Illustrator CS3’s bells and whistles. Last night, I played around with the 3-D feature and came up with text and shapes that resembled Word’s “Word Art.” Next, I tried fiddling with text effects and thought, “Why not try to make a logo for The Writers Buzz.” I’ve been wanting to do this since I started the site, but couldn’t come up with any design ideas that would adequately convey books and buzz.

Right now, I’m staring at the image I created and unsure whether or not I like it. My inner critic has to but in on everything I create. I’m going to have to stare at this for several days. If any new ideas spring into my mind, you’ll see another sample.