O.L.D.'s blog

In 2010 a Shenandoah Valley resident unknowingly bought Pierre-August Renoir's “Paysage Bords de Seine” at a flea market, for the bargain bin price of $7. (The Huffington Post spoke with the dazed buyer nearly a month ago, when she realized her luck.)

At the time, "Renoir Girl, as she asked us to refer to her, was hoping to earn anywhere from $75,000 and $100,000 for the painting, based on an auction house estimate. Her plans for spending the money included a trip to the Louvre Museum with her mother, whose hunch led her to verify the painting's authenticity, she told us.|Read more »

A woman who bought a $7 box lot at a flea market may have unwittingly scored an original painting by Pierre-August Renoir. An auction house believes the landscape to be Renoir’s “Paysage Bords de Seine,” which it values between $75,000 and $150,000.

The Shenandoah Valley resident, who wishes to remain anonymous, was drawn to the box for the Paul Bunyan doll and plastic cow included with the painting. “I’d never seen a Paul Bunyan doll before,” she told The Huffington Post in a phone conversation, identifying herself only as “Renoir Girl.”

She liked the painting’s frame too, she said, and planned to reuse it. After a year and a half of shuttling the small landscape and the box’s other remaining contents in a white trash bag between her garage, car and kitchen, she began the operation of removing it. It was after she’d ripped the backing paper off the frame that her mother advised her to verify the painting’s value before throwing it away, especially in light of the plaque with the name "Renoir" on the front.|Read more »

Clamor occurred in the world after two Italian scholars announced on July 5 that they have found 100 early works, mainly drawings and some paintings, now thought to be by Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (1571-1610), during his youth. Caravaggio was a student in the workshop of the Mannerist painter Simone Peterzano from 1584 to 1588.

The discovery may represent a turning point in the study of the famous Italian painter. For over a century art historians have been searching for the works of Caravaggio’s youth. The results of the study would throw a new light on the works of Caravaggio’s maturing process.

For two years, art historians Maurizio Bernardelli Curuz and Adriana Conconi Fedrigolli compared the drawings of the Fondo Peterzano with the mature works of Caravaggio, painted during his stay in Rome and then in Naples, Italy. The Fondo Peterzano is a collection of his teacher’s school works, preserved in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, Italy.|Read more »

Kieron Williamson sold 24 paintings in about 15 minutes for the cool sum of £250,000 ($386,000), the Daily Mailreports. This by itself wouldn't be incredible news, except for the fact that the artist is only nine years old.|Read more »

This looks really interesting. Can't wait to see it.

Artist Chooo-San discovered her talent for body art during a gap year studying for university admission exams. While taking breaks from her studies, she would often draw eyes on her hands. Soon, her doodles started getting better and better, so she moved on to create even more bizarre body modifications. Using only acrylic paint, the young Japanese girl can turn herself into a creepy mutant with several pairs of eyes covering her face, or a robot with integrated batteries and LCD display.

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The internationally acclaimed, 68 year old Norwegian Artist, Odd Nerdrum, was sentenced on June 27, 2012 to two years ten months in prison by the Norwegian appeals court for tax evasion. According to the sentence, he would not be allowed to paint in prison, as it would be considered a commercial activity. The increased sentence follows a year long controversy surrounding faulty evidence in the district court verdict of August 2011 in which Nerdrum was sentenced to two years.

The charge held against him was "gross tax fraud" for a sum of around $2.6 million. It was acknowledged by the court that the artist had paid the taxes in full. Nerdrum claims that he, in fact, paid twice - and the Norwegian tax authorities actually owe him money.|Read more »

Artist Fredrick Shockley uses O.L.D. model Rani to create his next art piece. http://onlinelifedrawing.com/fash/availablecontent

Well known prankster in his community, Paulo Henrique dos Santos, 35, from Brazil, painted himself green to look like The Incredible Hulk. The problem was that he used paint reserved for ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines to do so. He was in for a huge shock when he tried to remove the paint and it wouldn’t come off. It was only after being scrubbed by a gang of friends and his mother for two days that he finally ‘Hulked’ down.

Kids, well in this case, EVERYONE, don’t copy what you see on TV.

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Great video on how to draw hair by idrawgirls.com