French crazy 3-D ads inspire to travel more

You're walking down the street and you see a giant 3-D mouth singing opera. Maybe you see an enormous, realistic rugby player taking a shower. Perhaps a gigantic Marilyn Monroe dress blowing in the breeze grabs your attention on your way to a bus stop that plays disco music if you touch the weird medallion-adorned hairy chest of a swarthy dude.

Well, if you're in France and you encounter any of these scenarios, you've probably come across the latest outdoor campaign from SNCF French Railways and agency TBWA\Paris. These crazy larger-than-life ads aim to inspire people to travel to places they are passionate about. 

If you are not in France and you see these things, you may want to seek therapy.

How to make the real Italian coffee with a moka pot

I've fallen in love with Italy ages ago and have been there ages ago as well as already previously explored how Italians drink coffee and why there's not Starbucks in Italy. However, this time I wanted to explore more about moka express pots.

When it comes to coffee, there are hundreds of different machines and ways to brew at home, yet I still use a machine first introduced 80 years ago. I've seen this pot in real Italian houses, hence, I've purchased this myself as well as bought it as a gift to my coffee lovers friends.

It’s estimated that 9/10 of Italian households own this device and it’s also very popular throughout the rest of Europe and Latin America. The craftsmanship and design is simple, efficient and affordable. I’m talking about the Bialetti Moka Express.

Budgie or Food Art by Anna Keville Joyce

It’s likely that most of us were berated as children for “playing” with our food, but what if the sculptures and paintings we made with broccoli and spaghetti sauce hinted at our future career paths?

Food stylist Anna Keville Joyce creates truly spectacular imagery by using everything from crushed-up toast to slivered veggies, creating all manner of textures imaginable. After seeing the pieces she crafted with items that most of us have in our fridges and cupboards, it’s going to be difficult to see groceries as anything other than potential art supplies.

This art series that Anna created is in tribute to her pet bird: when Budgie passed on, Anna turned to art therapy to deal with her grief. As she works with food as a creative medium, it only made sense that she worked with the materials she knows and loves, and the result is astonishing. A flamingo crafted from crushed-up Fruit Loops cereal stands tall among paper-thin radish and kiwi slices; the plate becomes a canvas rather than just a serving implement.

Finger Painting by Iris Scott

Finger painting is now fine art at the hands of New York based artist Iris Scott. Why paint with one point of contact (a brush) when you can paint with several? In the same way a pianist utilizes all of her fingertips to hit the keys, Iris Scott is spearheading a movement that we left behind as kindergarteners.

Painting with her fingertips began in 2009, the artist took off a year after college to live in Taiwan. During this year abroad Iris stumbled up the technique by chance....she simply ran out of clean brushes and it was too hot to go clean them down the hall.  Iris was working on a painting in a nicely air-conditioned room when she realized that in order to switch to color yellow she needed to go out into the heat to clean her brushes. Not tempted by the idea, Iris added several yellow touches with her fingers. “I knew within 10 strokes that finger painting with oils was what I would spend the rest of my life doing,” she says.

Can someone please buy me one of these? Please...

Water Wigs by Tim Tadder

Inspiring photographer Tim Tadder and his series of Water Wigs photos.

These shots made his bald (or bald-capped) subjects look as if they had hair made of water, and required incredibly precise timing — and this video shows just how he did it.

Taking a look at the shapes of the “hair” in the resulting photos, it’s pretty easy to figure out how the pics are taken. Tadder’s assistants carefully place or drop differently shaped water balloons onto the models’ heads as he attempts to capture the ideal water wig shot.

Capturing the photos at the perfect time and freezing the action properly, however, is far from easy. His technique requires that the studio be completely dark (even a small flashlight can cause problems) and as much as we’re sure his models enjoyed having balloons thrown hard at their heads, Tadder eventually decided to start taping thumbtacks to their bald heads or bald caps to facilitate the perfect pop.

Each pop is unpredictable, and more often than not leads to an un-usable shot, but when he gets it right, the results are pretty darn cool.