Welcome to part two of our fanbase artist showcase.  We often get emails from artists wanting to have their works showcased on the site and therefore we have started this monthly feature to give back to our incredibly talented community. Please enjoy the part two of these features and if you would like your work to be featured, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Steely Hieroglyphics from Frank Plant

Frank Plant is an American sculptor based in Barcelona. Using welded steel as his principal medium, Plant has created these studies of compositions of everyday objects and activities. Frank is a teacher at the Metafora Tallers de Art Contemporani in Barcelona and his work is in both private and public collections across Europe and North America.

Chernobyl in HDR from Timm Suess

Timm Suess is a Swiss photographer who took his first photograph at the age of 5. Tim is fascinated with the battle between man-made structures and nature’s decay process and shoots all his photos purely in digital and using natural light. He believes that, “You only have one chance to take a picture – if you miss it and go back, it will be gone.”

Urban “Multiscapes” from Pim Palsgraaf

Pim Palsgraaf is a 30-year old artist and sculptor from The Netherlands with a love-hate relationship with the industrial surroundings of his studio in Rotterdam. The “Multiscape” sculptures above show the outgrowths of urban architecture as tumors draped over stuffed animals and symbolize the opposition of culture and nature.

Thinking Green Creatively from David Macaluso

David Macaluso has been utilizing used motor oil into paintings as his personal brand of recycling since 2005. This on going art project is currently part of an exhibition exploring fossil fuel addiction at Athens Institute for Contemporary art and focuses on the critical environmental and energy issues of our time.

Half Moon Bay from Ksenya Serova

Ksenya Serova has always been fascinated by the places that we abandon and leave behind. And as a result of that fascination has managed to photograph a great collection of photos of abandoned places on her site.

Sarah Turner’s ReDesign: Drink Bottle Lampshades

Sarah Turner’s eco lampshades, made from waste drinks bottles and recycled card, were recently exhibited in a competition at the Ideal Home Show, London.  With some clever cutting Sarah has mastered the art of turning waste drinks bottles into decorative shapes, which form the basis of her beautiful ceiling, table and floor lamps.

Greg’s First Art Car

This is “That Car,” a 1990 Mazda Miata. That Car started off as Greg’s Summer Artcar, a temporary interactive children’s project based on the designs of Susan Sturgill. After 2 years of 2 dimensional, interactive designs, created by 100’s of children, Ramona Moon introduced Greg to the magic of gluing. That Car has been featured in USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Burlington Free Press, Columbus Dispatch and more. It is now part of the permanent collection of the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft.

Over the past year and a half the WebUrbanist readership has continued to grow at a very healthy pace. The site that started as a hobby has fast become one of the most-read online publications and along the way has even been selected by the Google Reader Blog as a staff favorite. The site’s readership is partly composed of the general web audience that loves the site’s niche-leading content focused on urban art, design, and culture, and is partly composed of artist themselves. We often get emails from artists wanting to have their works showcased on the site and starting today we will be doing regular features on artists from WebUrbanist’s fanbase. Please enjoy the first of these features and if you would like your work to be featured, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Summer Colors from Tom Mohn

Tired of this unrelenting winter weather already? Enjoy these pictures of fireworks captured using an old 35mm SLR Minolta camera on a bulb exposure (about 1-3 seconds). The photos are taken through a rainbow window prism filter (which accounts for the radial color spikes) and a Jupitor Scope.

100% Non-Toxic Handmade Bamboo Furniture from Facundo Poj

Miami-based Argentinian designer Facundo Poj is a trained master builder and has a Masters Degree in Urban Affairs and Environmental Problems. All of Poj’s designs are created with sustainability in mind.

Displaced Furniture from Ian Gonsher

Ian Gonsher is a Rhode Island-based furniture and housewares designer as well as an instructor at Brown University. Gonsher sums up his philosophy succinctly as, “To be competitive, you have to see what others might have missed.”

On the Grind from Adam Ryder & Brian Rosa

On the Grind is a project by Adam Ryder and Brian Rosa that explores the landscape immediately surrounding high-tension electric transmission lines in Rhode Island. The goal of the resulting photos is to showcase the diversity surrounding these structures.

Amazing Freestanding Typewriter Sculptures from Jeremy Mayer

Jeremy Mayer has a very simple mission, to “disassemble typewriters and then reassemble fill-scale, anatomically correct human figures.” But don’t be deceived by that straightforward explanation. Mayer’s sculptures are created without using any glue, welding, or soldering, and the end results are truly fantastic works of art.

Dynamic Light Graffiti from Magnus

Magnus has managed to create and photograph some truly great (albiet transient) works of abstract light graffiti in a collection called LED and Time.

One Billion Dollars from Mike Marcovici

In case you’re frantically looking for the location of this sculpture so you can pull a bank job, stop now, while definitely impressive looking, the money above is actually fake. When asked for more detailes, Mike did say that he is looking to recreate it with actual money in a vault… somewhere.

Massive Beach Paintings from Andres Amador

Andres Amador’s Art for the Senses includes these amazing large-scale beach paintings. The paintings are several hundred feet across and are a collective effort of sometimes up to a dozen people.

Vintage Object Recycling and Reassembly from Cat Bishop

Vintage and recycled assemblage artists Cat Bishop has found a niche for herself of which she can’t possible tire ‘since the components and possibilities are endless.’ ‘On a good day,’ she says, ‘the pieces tend to assemble themselves’ and on a bad day, she manages to teach herself something news.

Urban Art and Inventions from SpY

SpY is an international artist from Madrid whose works consist primarily of playful repurposing or reappropriation of everyday urban elements to make an observation of the urban environment and a statement on the inertia of the urban dweller.

(source: jennifer barnard)

Why have your child or a young relative grow up with the overly complicated, often violent, generic and mass produced toys on the marketing when you can keep it simple, fresh, and unique with finger puppets and toys you can make at home? With no moving parts, no choking hazard, and cheap and easy construction, finger puppets are a great gift and way to pass the time for all youngsters.

Abbey Christine’s Pop Culture Puppets

(source: abbeychristine)

Sure, the junior senator from Illinois is now the president of the US, and the woman who was once viciously attacking him every step of the way is now his secretary of state, but that doesn’t take away any of the charm from these finger puppets. Sure to bring a smile to any history class or political discourse, Christine’s pop culture finger puppets are both entertaining and a cool educational tool.

Lalootka’s Attic

(source: lalootka’s attic)

The latest creations from Lalootka’s Attic are quite predictably adorable. Photographed above are (right to left) hamster, pigglet (because of the Year of the Pig), dog, cat, and black sheep. Next time you’re trying to explain or otherwise reenact George Orwell’s Animal Farm you know how to take the pessimism down a notch.

Hannah’s Monster Mash

(source: hannah hoosier)

Who says monsters have to be scary and creepy? These monsters made by Hannah Hoosier for her numerous nephews and for her own 2 year old son are both cute and completely goofy. If you’re interested in creating similar works, she recommends Moxie’s tutorial.

3 Themes, Sets of 5

(source: eclectic-elements)

Eclectic Elements has a collection of 15 animal finger puppets bundled in sets of 5 and spread over three themes: zoo, farm, and rain forest. Each set is hand woven and comes with a 2x2x4 pouch while each animal is between 3 and 4 inches tall. Because all the animals (and the pouch) are handmade (in Peru), each creation may vary slightly from the next.

(sources: foster, bambino, rknickme)

There are an unimaginably large number of extremely talented artists creating extraordinary works of art from ordinary objects. Here we explore one such group of artists whose ordinary objects of choice are thumbtacks and pushpins.

Push-Pin Mario World

(source: ranadok)

These images are from the third iteration of a project that took approximately two and a half semesters to complete. The final version uses an astonishing over 17,000 pins and was created almost entirely by student members of the CIS Student Association at the University of Fraser Valley.

Thumbtack Buddies Series

(source: ladyraycello)

While the thumbtack buddies are not overly complex pieces, they accomplish their job perfectly. Undeniably adorable, with a cheerful disposition, and created with bright colors that will lift your mood, these pieces are a bundle of joy. All the anthropomorphic creatures that compose the series are available on etsy.

Eric Daigh’s Portraits

(source: daigh)

Not much to look at if you get too close, Daigh’s push-pin portraits come alive as you step away. Full of color and exquisitely composed, each portrait takes in the range of 10,000 push-pins and weeks to compose. While other artists prefer all sorts of subjects, Daigh limits himself strictly to portraits and believes that anything else wouldn’t be compelling enough.

Abstraction of a Thumbtack

(source: wrpindle)

Scant on details about this incredibly curious sculpture, the artist doesn’t offer much insight into the intentions behind the piece. While there are plenty of creations made from thumbtacks and push pins, scarcely do we see a replication of the object in other mediums to illustrate a point.

Thumbtack Obama

(source: zoomdoggle)

Jake from Zoomdoggle has recreated the now-iconic Obama image using over 20,000 thumbtacks, approximately one for each delegate. Whether you support(ed) Obama or not, you have to commend Jake’s effort, and while the outcome was not perfect, it is definitely amusing to watch the work in progress.

You may be wondering, as you read this article, “didn’t their mothers ever teach them not to play with their food?” But reserve judgment until you see the absolute masterpieces that the following artists have managed to create from simple foods you can find in the kitchen. By the end, you’ll be wishing you had disobeyed that rule more often!

Joost Elffers and Saxton Freymann: Food Play

(via: flickr)

If there were ever two people who didn’t listen to their mothers they would be Elffers and Freymann. The collaborators have written over a dozen books together, all of them tackling the subject of playing with your food and turning everyday fruits and vegetables into incredibly cute animals and anthropomorphic characters. All their creations are appropriate for all ages and may help you feed your kids broccoli and other pesky greens!

Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle – Microsculptures

(via: artnet)

The husband and wife team of Javelle and Ida have made a name for themselves with their spectacular series of diptych photographs. Through these photographs they have managed to create a whole new micro universe in the vein of candyland (or foodland, or dessertland). The entire collection currently stands at 60 such photographs varying from work, leisure, sports, and war-related scenes.

Carl Warner – Foodscapes

(source: carlwarner)

Photographer Carl Warner’s tools are similar to those of Ida and Javelle, but rather than focus on the foreground, he goes to great lengths to use fruits, vegetables, and anything else he can find in his kitchen to create stunning landscapes… or foodscapes! The photographs look absolutely stunning, and for someone who was unaware that this is ‘food art’ they might not even acknowledge that everything is in fact made from edible items. Beware, however, you cannot eat these sets because of the excessive amounts of glue and pins needed to put them together.

Amazingly Creative Bento Art

(via: justinspace)

While the concept of Bento, a common Japanese cuisine that comes in a single-portion home-packaged take out meal, is very much like the lunch your mom pack for you before you left for school, the similarities end there. The Japanese have taken the art of Bento boxes to incredible heights. The results are nothing short of complex and visually appealing displays that are often so beautiful that you just don’t want to eat them and wish you could preserve them forever. In fact, in Japan, contests are often held where people compete for the best designed arrangements, which range from celebrities, pets and animals, characters from popular culture, and more.