Posts by Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met and Manager of My Modern Met Store. She is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art where she earned her BFA in Illustration and MFA in Illustration Practice. Sara is also an embroidery illustrator and writer living in Seattle, Washington. She runs Bear&Bean, a studio where she stitches pet portraits and other beloved creatures. She chronicles the creativity of others through her website Brown Paper Bag and newsletter, Orts. Her latest book is Threads of Treasure: How to Make, Mend, and Find Meaning Through Thread, published in 2014. Sara’s work has been recognized in Be Creative With Workbox, Embroidery Magazine, American Illustration, on Iron and Wine’s album Beast Epic, among others. When she’s not stitching or writing, Sara enjoys planning things that bring together the craft community. She is the co-founder of Camp Craftaway, a day camp for crafty adults with hands-on workshops in the Seattle area.
Drawing
April 8, 2015

Exquisite Photorealistic Portraits Created Using a Ballpoint Pen

Ghana-based artist Enam Bosokah captures incredible likenesses using only a blue ballpoint pen. The stunningly-realistic portrait drawings depict world leaders, writers, as well as children and couples. Bosokah's work showcases emotional scenes in elaborate detail, and it's as if we're looking at cyan-toned photographs rather than hand-crafted creations. The artist's drawings offer a glimpse into his process, and the exquisite images are produced with many layers of pen marks.

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Art
March 31, 2015

Mind-Bending 3D Tattoo Appears to Turn Man’s Arm into a Machine

Tony Booth, a tattoo artist and owner of Dabs Tattoo in Southport, England, has successfully made a man appear as if he's an android. On his arm, at least. This incredible tattoo looks as though it's carved from the skin, and what's beneath it is another layer of hex geometric patterning. It's unlike any tattoo we've seen before. The entire thing took 18 months and multiple tattooing sessions to complete.

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Art
March 23, 2015

Gorgeously Surreal Sculptures Intricately Fuse Animals with Nature

Artist Ellen Jewett fuses plants, animals, and man-made devices to create fantastical portraits of animals. These hand-crafted hybrids, which she refers to as “natural history surrealist sculpture,” mimic the bodies of the creatures, but they deviate from the norm in usual ways. A rabbit's fur is replaced by twisted branches and vines, and accentuated by tiny butterflies. And while three crows have some semblance of feathers, Jewett attached small trees that rise above their forms.

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Art
March 10, 2015

Traditional Rugs Recreated with Technological Glitches by Faig Ahmed

Baku-based artist Faig Ahmed combines the beauty of traditional Azerbaijani rugs with technological glitches in his on-going series of contemporary carpets. Using the artistic qualities of these tapestries, he disassembles their conventional structure to rearrange and fragment it. The result often resembles a rug that doubles as a fascinating modern sculpture. Many of Ahmed's carpets have “flaws” in their designs that create the illusion of a printing or rendering error.

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My Modern Met

Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity—from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening.