Diatom Kiss

Diatom Kiss © Glendon Mellow 2009. Under CCL, see sidebar.

Happy Valentine's Day!

This image is from my series, Fossil Boy, Diatom Girl.



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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
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--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Pinterest gets right what Tumblr got wrong

I've started making boards on Pinterest, a fascinating new site that I think is going to be a big thing for artists. 

Attributing artwork is something I believe to of huge importance, not just the letter of the copyright laws, but also attributing art to artists who've dead for hundreds of years. I've written about it *ahem* a few times. (This, this, this, this...)

Here on Blogger, if I want to re-share some artwork, I need to save it to my drive, and re-upload it. There's a bit of work involved. So attributing the art is just a tiny step, and one I think is more likely for bloggers to do since they're crafting a whole post. 

While there are ways to effectively use Tumblr and be respectful of creators, as I've written before, it's easy to lose track of a creator of an image and have it shared and re-shared thousands of time without attribution. The reblog button makes the initial person's mistake too easy to replicate.  In part, I created the Trilobite Boy Tumblr to get a handle on how Tumblr works. You can attach an url that would follow the artwork, but it's not mandatory. So tons of people just blog away, and creators lose all credit for their images all too often. 

Enter the new site Pinterest. 

Pinterest was first on my radar when my wife mentioned it looked interesting for sharing artwork. Then, via Twitter, I read ZDNet's "Why small business can't afford to overlook Pinterest". I maintain a Twitter feed for a national retailer, and thought this was right on the mark. But I like to test things with my own accounts before bringing it to clients. Then, my friend and fantastic artist Eric Orchard started in on it in a big way. He has a good eye for effective media for artists.

Pinterest takes the responsibility of attribution away from the user: I'm using it in Chrome, and I placed a little button on my Bookmarks bar. If I'm on a site, and wish to pin an inspiring piece of artwork onto one of my themed bulletin Boards (say, "science art that inspires me") then I click on the Pin It button, and Pinterest creates a screen that has all the images from that webpage on it. I pick the one I want, click, write a description if I wish, and post on the board. There's the option to tweet or Facebook-stream it too.

But the best part? Anyone else following that bulletin board of mine who decides to pin it on their board, will still have the original link to the original website functional if someone clicks on the art itself. The more artwork is shared on Pinterest, the more potential hits the blog, gallery or website will have.

Pinterest got respect for creators right. And they made it so easy.



You can find my Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/flyingtrilobite

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop 

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Merry Darwin Day 2012!

Appropriately enough, I'm working on some scientific illustrations of beetles this Darwin Day. Can't show anyone yet. 

Please enjoy these images of our man Charles from years' past, and make sure to read The Beagle Project's Blog post about Darwin's birthday aboard the H.M.S. Beagle. 

The images below are from 2009, when I attempted to live blog progress from scratch of a new oil painting of a young Charles Darwin discovering a glyptodont skull in South America during the voyage of the Beagle. At the time (you can find all the blog entries in February 2009) I wasn't happy with how the piece was turning out, and the exercise got weird. Still glad I attempted it - it's good to experiment.

If you look at the first sketch, you can see the ghostly sketch of the Beagle masts rising behind our young explorer.

Quick sketch to get the shadows and composition down.

Focused on the face first. Relatively happy with the pencils.

Tinted in Photoshop, I actually like this sketched image better than the final.

My work station. Love those Micron brushes. 

More or less (somewhat less) complete. 

Make sure to check out my online store for Darwin prints, cards and more!  

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop 

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

ScienceOnline2012 Photos

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This week I'll be continuing to write about ScienceOnline2012, both here and on Symbiartic.  

You can see a few posts already:

New Art Movement? The Science-Artists Feed Keeps Growing

Copyright, Darwin, SOPA and ScienceOnline2012

ScienceOnline2012 Art Show!

ScienceOnline2012 Sci-Art Show Winners

Later in the week I'll be posting about how the sessions went, the art & photo walk, and the impact I think having a bunch of artists in attendance had on a science and science communication unconference. 

For now, some fun photos. 

This year I decided to pack as light as possible for ScienceOnline2012, my fourth time attending. Instead of a regular camera, I brought my iPhone 4. 

Here's a few photos from some of the new friends and familiar faces I met on the trip.  I wasn't nearly thorough enough documenting the experience, and regret missing photos of a ton of people. Like Anton Zuiker for being amazing and helpful; Lisa Grossman for being roomies; Greg Laden for being great dinner company; Brian Malow and Kaitlyn Thaney for letting me prattle on at breakfast about the history of paint pigments; Brian Switek, Karen James, Andy Farke, Southern Fried Scientist and Bluegrass Bluecrab, Lyndell Bade, Kevin Zelnio, Miriam Goldstein, Doc Freeride, Blake Stacey, Scicurious and a whole bunch of others I'll regret forgetting to mention as soon as I hit publish, are all great friends and fascinating people. Thankfully, people like Russ Creech, Jason Goldman and Maggie Pingolt were doing a better job than I documenting. 

Okay. Buncha photos. 

Fanboy moment for me: with Maggie Koerth-Baker of Boing Boing, left, and Annalee Newitx of io9.com, right.
Both of these two have shouted out and shared my work this past year on their popular sites (here and here) and so a bit of their tres coolness has rubbed off on me. 

Michele Banks, aka Artologica and me mugging for the camera.

John Dupuis, the local science blogger I think I see more of when we're both in North Carolina,
with Bora Zivkovic, #scio12 organizer, the Blogfather, and Scientific American Bloggy Bossman. 

A tableau vivant of science artists in their natural habitat: the museum.
My Symbiartic co-blogger Kalliopi Monoyios, Lynn Fellman and Nathaniel Gold.
Under a whale.

Perrin Ireland, Katy Chalmers and Russ Creech, 3 more members of the massive artist cabal at this year's ScienceOnline. 

Me and one of my co-moderators, Emily Bauerfeind of the New England Aquarium. 

Me and co-curator of the science art show, ScienceOnline organizer and MC, Karyn Traphagen. 

More thoughts & photos about the unconference experience soon!



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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop 

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Red Knot in Flight

While I'm working on a series of scientific illustrations I can't reveal yet, I thought I'd re-post this pencil (and the oils below) of a red knot in flight.  

Originally created for biologist and conservationist Dan Rhoads' excellent and vital Migrations blog, you can read more about it at his site, and my two-part making-of, here and here. 

Dan fights the good fight to save birds from the heinous hunting practices of migratory birds in his adopted home of Cyprus. You can sign the petition to stop the practice here.  

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Copyright, Darwin, SOPA, and ScienceOnline2012

(This post originally appeared a couple of days ago on Symbiartic.)


So I’m sitting in an airport on a long layover in the middle of the night, excited to be heading to ScienceOnline 2012 for my 4th time. CNN is on repeat, talking about the SOPA protest blackouts by Wikipedia and others. I’ve for science-based imagery on my mind.






Like many science bloggers, I enjoy a good dressing-down of superstition and religion in the face of facts and reason now and again. On the plane, I was thinking about how the simple symbols can sometimes be the most powerful. I’m not a graphic designer, my work is too messy and complex, but I appreciate powerful designs when I see them.






In my portrait of Charles Darwin. “Darwin Took Steps”, I included the little tree of speciation Darwin had sketched and famously written, “I think.”


It’s an incredibly descriptive little diagram. It’s possible to imagine other ways to depict evolution by natural selection: a wildfire, spiral river-eddies, interlocking Venn circles, perhaps.


But Charles made an awkward, halting little tree that still describes his theory well even after the discovery of DNA and cataloguing the genome.


I was thinking: what if some skeptic, atheist group really promoted it, really rattled religious cages successfully and it became an important, loud rallying symbol? In the news, punk kids wearing it on their knapsacks. Talking head on CNN dismissing stunts an graffiti without understanding it.


Would that be what Charles Darwin would have wanted for his little sketch? By all accounts he tried to avoid needless controversy while preserving the idea. (It could be easily argued that better science ed is a necessary controversy.)


Charles Darwin drew that little tree, but due to copyright laws, there’s no claim he can posthumously make for it. Or his estate. So it could be used by a noisy group he would have disavowed for their tactics and there’s nothing anyone could say about it. Because copyright eventually expires, and the most impact-full images are remembered and echo through culture. The echo might get distorted but we still hear/see it.


Da Vinci, in his attempts at joining noble society would no doubt have lost his temper when Dadaist Marcel Duchamp drew a moustache on a print of the Mona Lisa. But even before copyright laws, our society understand that sometimes preserving images from the past means re-imagining them.


This is why, even as an artist and content-creator, I oppose SOPA. Eventually, all artists have to let their creations live in the world. Punishing the unfettered creativity of the Internet and sometimes, even the artist’s own fans is just fighting against the life-cycle of an image. Creators *do* have the right to nurse their creations along.


Let them go. At your own speed, of course, make your career, control your creations, steer them to the right clients and in service of the right causes and genres.


But one day, they’re going to go off on their own.


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