found: Negative Space

Using negative space in artwork is a technique that either works or it doesn't. What the artist does is focus on using the empty spaces around the main subject to create something unique, engaging, and beautiful.

I've always been drawn to artwork that's thought-provoking and inspiring, while maintaining a sort of simplicity and minimalism. Just take a look at the above piece and take away your own meaning from it. When you dive deep into the meanings behind any work of art, the outcome can be some pretty powerful stuff. Here, the main subject is the man sitting while smoking a pipe, and what's evolved from him - from the negative space above him.

I love thinking about how something inspiring can come from this - from the nothingness new thoughts, ideas, and feelings start to emerge. It's the nothingness from which everything else sprang from.

That same idea that applies to these simple works of art can also be applied to our lives. Except, in life, what's in that negative space isn't directly in front of our faces, we have to search for it.

These pieces were created by graphic designer Tang Yau Hoong, take a look a some of my favourites...

P.S. Get inspired! Click here to see more of his work.

found: Private Moon

How romantic would it be to have your very own private moon?

The "Private Moon" project was started by Russian artist Leonid Tishkov and has since travelled all over the world - Paris, Italy, New Zealand, Taiwan, and more. But what's more than that is the story that goes along with it.

"Writer Chesterton once said that there couldn’t be a personal faith as there couldn’t be a personal sun or a personal moon. In Russia everything is the other way round: we are faced with life one to one, and we are completely lonely in the face of the problem of time, that is, the problem of life and death, the problem of losses and gains, the moon, the sun, and everything in this life. We could, conceivably, turn to someone for support. But we are still lonely… However, that shouldn’t make us grieve or suffer. Loneliness of this sort means that we exist, we are here, we are at the center of the universe and we are comparable to the Moon, to the other celestial bodies.

“Private Moon” is a visual poem telling the story of a man who met the Moon and stayed with her for the rest of his life. In the upper world, in fact in the attic of his own house, he saw the Moon falling off from the sky. Once she was hiding from the Sun in a dark and damp tunnel. But the passing trains frightened her. Now she came to this man’s house. Having wrapped the Moon with warm blankets he treated her with autumn apples, gave her a cup of tea, and when she got well he took her in his boat across the dark river to the high bank overgrown with moon pine-trees. He descended into the lower world dressed in the clothes of his deceased father and then returned from there lighting up his path with his personal Moon. Crossing the borderline between the two worlds across a narrow bridge, immersed in a dream and taking care of this heavenly creature, the man became a mythological being living in a real world as in a fairytale. Each photograph is a poetic tale, a little poem in its own right.

So it turns out that the Moon overcomes our loneliness in the universe uniting many of us around it."

Beautiful. I think this private moon has now stolen my heart.

found: Imagination Coming to Life

Hands down, kids have the most imaginative minds. I remember when I was little... mud pies were decadent cakes, jumping off swings made you feel like you were really flying, and climbing to the very top of the tree was the exact same as sitting on top of the whole world. Something so simple was easily turned into something magical. And the smallest moments were made into the biggest adventures.

They say that the creative adult is the child who survived over time. And I really feel like that's true.

This video really melted my heart. It's a little longer at just over 10 minutes but it's really worth watching until the end. Not gonna lie, I may have even teared up a bit.

Who says we have to grow up?