Art Monday: turning point?

Apologies for the length of time this painting takes to download. Should be nice and pretty when you click to enlarge, though. Enjoy it and then prepare for some indulgent introspection on my part. 2009 is half-over. It has begun as a great year for me. My artwork has been published on two book covers and a magazine cover. Another text (currently available online) features 5 of my images and an interview. I travelled to ScienceOnline09 and met amazing people. Participated in SciBarCamp here in Toronto, met more stellar people. Completed another blog banner I'm quite proud of. Asked to be an inaugural member of Art Evolved. Been interviewed three times. Yeah. It's been a fantastic year so far!

So now where do I go?

I've re-enrolled in school for the fall, so that will keep me busy. I continue to work in management full-time. Lately I've been playing with commercial properties, doing a bit of fan-art involving Transformers and Marvel comic characters. Started work on the next Art Evolved gallery about anomalocarids (you think "primeval predator", I think "high fashion"). I have an idea for an original painting I'd like to auction off and donate the money. And Major Billy Barker & his Pterosaur Squadron up there has surprised me in how interested I am in continuing the world on that little canvas.

With the amount of projects burning to go forward past the sketch stage, I could easily be as busy creating art as a full-time job. At the moment, it's an alluring thought, but not enough to pay the bills. (Yet?)

Where am I going? Am I spinning my wheels or is this taking me somewhere?

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Major Billy Barker & his Pterosaur Squadron

Major Billy Barker & his Pterosaur Squadron
(click to enlarge, or visit my gallery for a larger view)

The paint is still wet, thus, the photo at a weird angle to prevent glare. I'll see if I can get a better shot up for my next Art Monday. Oil paint on canvas. This is my submission to the third Art Evolved group gallery, which happens to be launching July 1st, Canada Day.

In my generation, a lot of history learned in school was rote memorization. Dates, names, places. My high school had a vast amount of letters from former students to their teachers in the World Wars that we read each Remembrance Day. Perhaps the advantage of the internet is the ease at which you can learn now. No trip to the library, not knowing what you are looking for. Click, click, and there it is. Perhaps this is Gen X apathy, I'm not sure.

Sometimes as an artist, rarely, I get an image full-blown in my mind. That was the case here. Composition, lighting, hues. I needed some details for the biplanes.

So I did a bit of online poking to look up biplanes, and found the story of a true Canadian adventurer, perfect to add to my (perhaps audacious) idea. Major William George "Billy" Barker was a World War 1 flying ace and Victoria Cross recipient who flew Sopwith Camels against German Fokkers. Although I could not find any information indicating he fought against the infamous Red Baron, Manfred Von Richtofen, I thought the drama of these two excellent pilots would heighten the alternate history in this concept painting. Of course, our Canadian hero Major Billy Barker has a trick up those RAF sleeves: his fighting pterosaur squadron, made up of Quetzalcoatlus northropi.

The Red Baron will live to fight another day. Some theories have it that he was shot and wounded by other Canadian pilots though that remains controversial. Whatever the case, I love that the idea that popped into my mind led me to reading about Major Barker in time for Canada Day, and Art Evolved.

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Art Evolved Pterosaur Gallery
Major Billy Barker on Wikipedia
Major Billy Barker & his Sopwith Camel at Ace Pilots
The Red Baron on Wikipedia
The Red Baron & his Fokker at Ace Pilots
Quetzalcoatlus

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Interview at A Blog Around the Clock

Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock is conducting a series of interviews about the attendees of last January's Science Online '09 unconference.

You can see my interview here, and the rest in the series by clicking here. What do I want to be when I grow up? It even includes a picture of me not moving and smiling at the same time. The series promises to cover a diverse group of bloggers to be sure.


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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Art Monday: guest-post by Jacqueline Dillard

This week, I've invited scientific illustrator and artist Jacqueline Dillard to do a guest post. I'm excited Jacqueline has taken me up on the offer, as she has a fascinating portfolio. This marks the first guest post here on The Flying Trilobite.
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Greetings!

My name is Jacqueline and I will be filling in for Glendon today. I don’t have quite the blogging experience that he does, so I fear that my entry may look a little more like a short essay than anything else. Glendon advised me to just write a little bit about a few of my drawings, like my scientific illustrations or some of my personal art pieces, which got me thinking about the differences between science illustration and science art. I’m sure this is a topic near and dear to both of our hearts, so I figured it would make a fine subject for my post.

I believe the main disparity that can be drawn between science illustration and science art is that science illustration is used to show the importance of art to scientists while science art is used to show the importance of science to artists. An illustration is often purely descriptive and completely devoid of any artistic freedom (lest you summon the wrath of the fussy researcher you’re working for!), yet it still maintains the ability to impress the patron. Unfortunately, most researchers don’t have a scrap of artistic talent (there are of course exceptions to the rule; see Jonathan Kingdon and Ernst Haeckel for a few great examples) so when they are confronted with an image of, say a full reconstruction of an organism they only knew from fossilized bones, it can be quite a moving experience. When I completed my skeletal illustration of the whale-ancestor-like artiodactyl, Indohyus, everyone in the lab was shocked to see that its proportions were much more whale-like than was expected. The astonishment experienced by these paleontologists may be comparable to the wonder felt by artists (or anyone else for that matter) when they are presented with drawings that elucidate the hidden aesthetics of the natural world. With a little artistic expression and a highly magnified reference photo, something as simple as a paper wasp can become a beautiful and seemingly alien creature. There’s nothing quite as great as hearing other artists rave about the shapes, textures and colors used in a drawing, not knowing that it wasn’t the artist’s interpretation, but rather millions of years of evolution (wonderfully color coordinated evolution at that) that gave us the subject matter for these compositions.

Well, that’s all I have, hopefully I haven’t disappointed all the dedicated Flying Trilobite fans out there!

-Jacqueline Dillard
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Original artwork in this post on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow Jacqueline Dillard.
Jacqueline's gallery can be seen here.

This Art Monday, a guest artist-blogger!

Oh, I suppose you want me to tell you who?

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Art Monday: WWI pterosaur sketchy sketches

The last few weeks of Art Mondays have mainly been sketches and unfinished drawings. This week is a bit more of the same. I fins that sometimes, inspiration for new and varied pieces falls into my mind in a torrent, and I struggle with my pencil to keep up.

Perhaps it's the season. I walk to my day-job, about 40 minutes through a beautiful park, past galleries and boutique clothing stores in one of the hippest areas in Toronto. Trees are full, the air is warm and we haven't had a smog day yet. It's a good time for thinking.

Next week, Art Evolved is launching it's third gallery of prehistoric art, and the theme is pterosaurs. There's been a lot of debate about physiology flying back and forth on Art Evolved. Unsure of my exact position in scientific illustration, I pondered whether to go for a full-on restoration illustration, or something unusual and fantastic like my first two entries.

It's a rare thing, when the whole idea appears before your mind's eye, full-blown, down to the brush strokes. This happened here.

A little research, and I am falling in love with the idea. I plan to keep it loose, and go for a more sketchy painting style in this one.

In brief, I wanted pterosaurs, specifically Quetzalcoatlus northropi fighting alongside the RAF against the Red Baron. I'm not a World War 1 history buff by any stretch, though lately I've been reading little bits. I came across the name of Major Billy Barker on Wikipedia, and knew I had the right hook to the painting. Barker was Canada's own flying ace, with 50 confirmed aerial kills, and he pioneered the leader-wingman strategy for pilots. A real character.

And the best part is, the pterosaur gallery is launching on July 1st; Canada Day. Sweet.

I used to hesitate to put sketches like this online. They contain a lot of useful information for me to use, but they are by no means drawings in their own right; and that's an important distinction. A sketch is a rough idea, an analogue to a hypothesis in science. The drawing is the capital-T Theory, fleshed out and a piece of art in it's own right, paint not necessary.

Hmm. This post is like my art lately. Wandering all over the place. Ok. Time to get back to the aerial battle and oil paints.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

I'm a student again.

I am officially returning to York University to complete my Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in September.

In 1997, my fourth year of my undergrad, life had some upheaval. A bad break-up. My parents, split since I was 8 years old, decided to finally divorce and sell the house, leaving me paying rent. YorkU had one of its now-infamous strikes, which lasted about seven weeks and went to the end of the school year. I remember after classes were over, we were asked to "meet the professors" in the common area outside. 40 000 students milling about looking for hundreds of professors in a rabble.

One course teacher was on loan from another institution, and a number of us couldn't find her. A huge portion of our mark rested on the final studio assignment. We dropped the course, not knowing what else to do. I left, missing a 3rd year studio course.

I tried to go back the following fall and take a computer painting class, but the gruel of paying my bills, rent and student loans was killing me, and I dropped it. I spent months eating plain pasta with soy sauce and leftover low-fat muffins from my coffee shop job. I biked over an hour to get to that job, and was built like a rock. My family never had much money, and the idea of finishing my degree drifted away.

I'm proud of some of my choices. I've helped my wife get through her education and she is now a certified teacher with a specialty working with children with special needs, mainly in the autism spectrum. I have a good day-job at a company that treats people well, and I'm proud of my work there.

But the unfinished degree has always rankled. Like part of my life has been on hold. And I always enjoyed school, got good marks and felt like I applied much of what I learned. Studio courses at York require such a high time commitment you may only take 2 each school year. Hopefully, in one more calendar year, I will have my BFA and be annoying and put it after my name everywhere. "The Flying GlendonMellowBFA Trilobite Blog".

I enrolled about 30 minutes ago. I'm scheduled for a half course in Drawing and Narrative, and another in Painting 2-d & 3-d. Already a weight is cast off my shoulders.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite
Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

A graffiti prezzie!

Artist and nature illustrator Carel Pieter Brest van Kempen who blogs at Rigor Vitae: Life Unyielding gave me this via Facebook's graffiti application for my birthday earlier this month:Hee! Wait - what's in that luggage? Not clothes...?

You can find Carel's book of astounding art here. Check out that juicy hippo maw!

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Except this piece above, this art came from a Master to whom I bow my head.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Art Monday: TriloBot, transform!

A glimpse of my Transformers fan concept: TriloBot.

It's an Autobot.

A ways to go yet, I may try to paint this one completely digitally...possibly alter the pose to look more like swimming. TriloBot is holding some coral in his hand. He was an analogue to a marine biologist back on Cybertron, and now spends his time on Earth helping guard the oceans from the depredations of the Decepticons and overfishing.

Perhaps I'll work up an old "techspec" too when I finish the piece.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow under Creative Commons Licence.
Transformers licence belongs to Hasbro Inc. though; this is purely meant a s a fan fun exercise.
Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***