Gurney Journey

 Albert Collins (1883-1956) was an Australian painter who worked in watercolor.

He was also a radio actor, known for playing the character of "Joe" of the Children's Session in the long-running serial "The Wide-awake Bunyip," which later was called the "Muddle-Headed Wombat."

In Australia an unusual society of octopuses has congregated in Jervis Bay, which observers have dubbed "Octopolis." 

Marine biologist Peter Godfrey-Smith reports that he's noticed a lot of "ornery" behavior that resembles fighting, boxing, bullying, and even shooting shell projectiles underwater. He's not completely sure if this is just territorial squabbling or something else. 

More at Earth Touch Network.

In his book Water-Colour for Beginners Sir Frances Russell Flint warned that a painting will lack color harmony if it has too many colors in it. He said: 

"You must aim at getting tone and harmony in your work, although it may not be easy. All pictures may be divided into masses of bright color or light, medium-strength color, and shadows. It may be difficult to trace the exact places where they occur in a picture, but they are there all the same. It is obvious that when you are working out of doors on a bright sunny day all the colors will be strong and bright in tone, and even the shadows and middle tints will be strong too. The opposite occurs on a dull day, when the whole scene is changed to one of low tone, when both colors and shadows will be soft and subdued. In each case the colors will harmonize and all complement each other in tone. Mix the colors of these two scenes together and the result is a discordant picture which will be unnatural and unbalanced."

One positive outcome of the growth of generative AI is an awakened interest in art styles: how to learn about them, recognize them and name them. 

Here are some examples of AI-generated images inspired by chainmail art, courtesy Twitter user Anonymouse, who has compiled helpful lists of styles of art and photography to use as inspiration.

Anonymouse has got about five collections so far on various Twitter posts. In his collection #2, for example, he's got ASCII Art, polar panorama, mosaic style, and Fresnel Effect.

Another rich vein of styles is Aesthetics Wiki, which defines and illustrates everything from Barbiecore to Dark Gatsby. This online community seems to be fueled as much by cosplay, anime art, and toys as it does by AI, but apparently the team at Midjourney took a lot of inspiration from these communities when they were developing their tools.

Every art school—and especially every design school—should offer classes that explore these art and photography styles, putting them in context without judgment. 

Have you found other resources for learning about art styles? Please share them in the comments.

"When not in pursuit of the hunt, Munnings was in demand elsewhere, traveling up and down to London and Suffolk after their marriage. Florence, left in Cornwall, was neglected. Her friendship with a young captain in the Monmouthshire Regiment, Gilbert Evans, drew closer in these years – to the point in April 1914 when he realized the potential seriousness of their growing affection and decided that his only recourse was to leave England by joining a Royal Engineers Survey of Nigeria. Amid suspicions that she was pregnant by Gilbert, she took her own life on 24 July 1914. Munnings thereafter left Cornwall, and never mentioned her again."