Astrid Nielsch

January, named for the two-headed god Janus - who looks back to the past and forward to the future, is an excellent time to explore expressions of time in fantastic art

Astrid gathers together a wide ranging and truly eye-opening collection of artistic expressions of Christmas - pensive, acerbic, ironic, humorous and haunting.

Astrid examines the evolution of the Angels as the subject of fantastical art.

Astrid shows us the way to Shangri-La, and other mystical, hidden places

The story is about a little princess whose parents want her to marry a prince, but all the princes are just not very interesting to her, they are nice but there’s no spark... and that’s when she falls in love with another princess.

Need some scary, macabre, bizarre inspiration for all hallows eve? Look no further!

We've been having some pretty wild weather here in the Wairarapa lately, which meant that I've been sitting without power for over 24 hours earlier this week. While sitting around waiting for the contractors from the power company to turn up and put me back on the grid, I've managed to read myself through a substantial chunk of Stieg Larsson's "Millenium" trilogy*: finally! I should say!

In my last blog, I have been looking at representations of Witches, which are depicted as old women: and I have remarked on the...

Not all witches are always out to suck a child's soul - or fatten them up and eat them

For being such an eclectic bunch of people, the exhibition seems surprizingly congruent, and everyone's work looks pretty fab

Hello! My name is Sunila Sen Gupta, I'm a 45 year old biologist turned illustrator and graphic designer in training, based in Switzerland. I am self-taught in illustration and have been working professionally for ten years now.

Nothing spells "Fantasy" as clearly as the image of a dragon does. And isn't it strange that every one of us will have a...

A couple of weekends ago, I had the pleasure to attend Au Contraire!, the New Zealand national Science Fiction, Fantasy and Geekery convention here...

"Hello, My name is Milivoj Ćeran, I live in Zagreb, Croatia. I'm a professional illustrator specialized in fanastic art." Q: What made you want to...

Before the unthinkable happens and I miss my deadline for this blog post, why not do a meditation on - deadlines. There is art...

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I recently signed myself up for a Horticulture Certificate with the Open Polytech, and...

Time to leave the hustle and bustle of the future city behind, and delve into the deeps of the fantastic imagination. I'll be looking...

First of all, I must apologize for the interrupted service on this blog – I have been in and out of hospital for the...

From Metropolis to Blade Runner, the city of the future has been a subject for science fiction artists and film makers, who have vented...

Who isn't fascinated by the images of outer space, which have become available over the last few decades from ever more powerful telescopes: the...

In my last blog, I featured the work of artists who have, in their own different ways, imagined what it might be like to...

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to look at an alien sky? The sky of a planet whose atmosphere has a...

I've wanted to leave the realms of fantasy behind this time, and move on into the vastness of open space, but then this came...

Well it looks like I put my foot right into it in my previous post! Several people objected to my definition of the term...

Before I get properly rolling with this blog, I thought it might be worth taking a moment to stake out the territory I plan...

Kia ora and welcome to my new Visual Arts blog on Amazing Stories! First up, let's have some Hobbit art. Let me state this outright: I am not going to try to determine who is the "greatest artist" in the fandom. I am not particularly interested in who is the most technically proficient, or the most outrageously inventive. Who gets the biggest fees, the most prestigious projects, has the greatest fan base, or who, by whose definition, is the “most famous”. I like to feature art I like.