Matthew J Richards Plays His Banjo Ukes

I love this little video where Matthew compares the sounds of 4 different vintage banjo ukes in his collection. Such a lovely instrument! Thanks Matthew!

Very Old Game Boards

These game boards are from the early to mid 1800's. The swans and elephant are hand-colored etchings mounted on linen and the game-board showing a mine w/tunnels is a lithograph. Beautiful graphics, don't you think?

Follow this link for explanations and examples of even more games dating as early as 1588-BibliOdyssey.

Except where noted, all these board game prints were sourced from the British Museum Prints Database .

The Art of Amy Crehore

The Bouncing Jug

Jaques Tati - Clip from the film Mon Oncle (1958) -"The struggle of a simple man with a highly modern kitchen and a bouncing jug"... thanks Callash

Happy Valentine's Day 2010

Happy Valentine's Day 2010
Originally uploaded by stevechasmar

Paper moons
on flickr -collection of
Steve Chasmar

Mark Frauenfelder reports from TED Conference

Ukulele Virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro got a standing ovation for his performance at TED yesterday. Mark Frauenfelder of BOINGBOING lists these quotes from the musician: "The ukulele is underdog of all instruments." "If everyone played ukulele, the world would be a better place." "What the world needs now is more ukulele." "Ukulele is the instrument of peace."
Mark says, "One of my favorite presentations of the day was by Dr. William Li, a cancer researcher from the Angiogenesis Foundation. The good news, Li says, is that 'we can eat to starve cancer.' Lots of foods contain naturally occuring inhibitors of angiogenesis, and many are even better than drugs for blocking angiogenesis (see image above)."

Read more at BOINGBOING , plus Mark will do an interview with Jake Shimabukuro soon.

Also, here is the TED conference LINK . I am following TED NEWS on twitter.

I'm looking forward to designer/illustrator Marian Bantjes speaking at TED on Friday from 2:15-4 pm. She was included in "The Scarlet Lettering", a letterpress project from the Cloudy Collection. There are still prints available if you follow the link. You may remember that my art was part of the very first Cloudy Collection card set (monkey image)!

The Art of Amy Crehore

Vintage Ukuleles -My Inspiration!

Uke design copyright 2010 Amy Crehore

I can't stop now! I have a few more vintage instruments to enhance with art - including a "minty" (in more ways than one) green Montgomery Ward duco-finished uke from the 1920's. It was found carefully preserved in the original mail order box. (It matches my "Demon" uke.) Can't wait to paint a design on that one.

Above, is a little sketch I came up with for the headstock of a blond-color vintage banjo-uke that someone kindly gave to me after my art show last year. The tuners were missing and it needed some clean-up. It's a Slingerland style-uke that has now been restored to a nice shine. An authentic set of vintage tuners were found to fit it. Luckily, my luthier loves removing rust from brackets,etc. (This one matches my Slingerland black "Tuxedo" uke.)

In fact, this weekend would be the anniversary of my "Dreamgirls and Ukes" show in L.A. .(A lot of the paintings and ukes from this art show have now found happy homes, but there are still some pieces available -if interested, feel free to contact: amy@amycrehore.com with inquiries.) I am also working on a couple of brand new canvases and a letterpress print right now. Lots to do!
The Art of Amy Crehore

Boys' Choir Meowing

Boy's choir singing classical music in feline vocals