The Petty Girl, work of one of the most respected and best known pin-up artist George Petty. Artist became famous after a series of pin-up painting of women was published in the Esquire Magazine from 1933 until 1956. During this period his work was very popular, the “petty girls” were everywhere, calendars, billboards, advertisement, magazines, etc. So, we can say that he started the pin-up trend which you can find even today in different mediums such as photography, film, modern painting, illustration, etc.

The most interesting fact about his works was that he often depicted these women with the relative lengths of their legs being longer — and the relative sizes of their heads being smaller than those of his actual models.

George Petty never discussed about his inspiration sources, but from his latest works, critiques say that an influence of some popular French painters at that time, can be noticed.

So what I think is that George Petty needs to be studied before working on any project that involves pin-ups cause he is the exact right source of inspiration and study.

Here are some of his most famous works:

I must recognize that I once had a fetish for clouds. Anything I made had to have at least a little cloud on it. I don’t know why I did it. It helped me when I saw I was not alone, there is nothing wrong with me, it’s just a innocent design trend. I propose here a list of 10 great clouds themed websites, maybe you know most of there form the css galleries. If not, enjoy:

 

 

 

 

Pretty nice websites, huh?

If you want to create something similar, you will need to grab some Photoshop “Clouds” brushes. Internet’s garden is large when it comes to Photoshop Brushes. Where we can find these, the new “first stop” for such resources is www.brusheezy.com, yeah, stupid name, cool brushes. Ok, you won’t have to browse it this time, cause i already did it and make a bucket of clouds resources here for you. Just see what it fits for your needs and enjoy.

 

7x Cloud Brushes by leboef

 

 

9x Clouds Brushes HighRes by leboef

 

Cloud Brushes by ZavierZhX

I think these brushes here are enough for a play around. If you feel like you need more than these ones, you can browse the web for more resources, and what I recommend is www.deviantart.com, www.sxc.hu for high-res stock images, again www.brusheezy.com and I am sure there are many more, but i think this ones are the most popular and important. You will sure find what you are looking for.

You can also learn more about this “fetish” for clouds in web design, by reading the article on Design Meltdown and see the other sites that they are refering to. Design Meltdown is also a great inspiration gallery, a learn center, a resource point as well and why not a mush have bookmark.

It seems that clouds are not just an nice web 2.0 trend or element, it’s an old symbol in art as designer jason lui from China says: It is easy to find the symbol that representing clouds or mist in traditional Chinese paintings, furnitures, sculptures and architectures. This symbol expresses the ideal prospect of ancient Chinese thinkers: relax like celestials in the heaven and over the clouds. Like monks living in the deep forest: calm and peaceful. For this design, I used this symbolic mean and let people have a peaceful morning with refresh coffee, to be a short period celestial, before they get into the busy works.

Hope you found this post useful and you’ll come back for more.