La Mente di Darwin has launched!

This certainly is a busy year for Charles Darwin. Man gets around.

My Darwin Took Steps image has been busy as well. Shaking with excitement, I went to the post office to pick up a package this weekend: La Mente di Darwin is here!


A few months ago I was contacted by science-philosopher-now-author Andrea Parravicini about using Darwin Took Steps on the cover of his first book, La Mente di Darwin. Negotiations with Negretto Editore went smoothly, despite the image having appeared on two other publications this year, Open Laboratory 2008 and Secular Nation magazine. Advice: always be upfront with this type of thing with all parties.

Thank you to Andrea Parravicini! I wish I knew Italian.

The book has launched and is available for sale here. From what Andrea has told me, it generated some good buzz at the Fiera Internazionale del Libro in Torino. Cheers!


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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 ***
Andrea Parravicini also signed my copy, which is awesome.

Art Monday: if this blog was a colouring book

If this blog was a colouring book, y'know, the kind of 99 cent one you find buried in a grocery store, it might look like this:
Darwin Took Steps.Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil III.Sara Chasm. These should print out half the size of a sheet of paper if you click to enlarge and then save them to your computer. If anyone colours them in, I'll publish them to a future post, preserving all anonymity as requested. Just send me an email.

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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 ###

New items in the Repro Shop

Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil III is now available as a greeting card, matted print, canvas print (my favourite!) and more. The quality at RedBubble is great. Just let Scicurious at Neurotopia tell you. (Thanks to Mr. Sci too!)
Darwin Took Steps is possibly my most popular image right now. I've added a few new selections of the pencil drawing version of the shirt, below.

The colour portrait of our man Charles is also available in a variety of colour shirts, as seen on Open Laboratory 2008. The shirts are sweatshop-free and a portion of the proceeds go toward the Beagle Project. V-neck, girl-fitted sleeves, short- or long-sleeves.

You can find the rest of the items in the shop here.

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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 ###

Open Laboratory 2008 launch!

It's here!


A big gaudy tail feather in my cap.

Thanks to Dave Ng of The World's Fair for a fun collaboration, and making my artwork look so good. Dave and I backed-and-forthed with the cover a bit, along with input from editor Jennifer Rohn of Mind the Gap and series editor Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around the Clock. Dave did the heavy lifting, I just smeared the background around and tried not to crave chocolate-favoured coffee while I did it.

There's a ton of exciting entries I can't wait to read. My first book cover, and second publication within just a few weeks! I plan on waltzing around town with this book, letting people judge it by its cover.

Remember too, purchase of Open Laboratory 2008 goes to supporting next year's ScienceOnline unconference. This book is crafted for the love of reading science online.

You can find badges supporting the book, as well as a list of the editors, and blogs that are doing a shout-out all at A Blog Around the Clock.

Whaddaya think? Do we need a brief "making of" post?

(The Darwin image featured here is available in a variety of t-shirts from RedBubble. A portion of the proceeds goes toward The Beagle Project.)

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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 #
## 2009 Calendar available for a limited time

Art Monday: Deviants on Darwin

The massive art-sharing site DeviantArt is a place of wild abandon and artistic freedom...and a lot of Shonin and Shoju manga. I've had a gallery there almost as long as I've been blogging.

I wasn't planning on writing too much more about last year's Darwin piece. I may have some more news concerning its use, but that's all. However, while I was busy liveblogging a new Darwin painting and enjoying other people's posts on Darwin Day, I didn't realise that one of the DeviantArt high-muckety-mucks named Stykera had selected it as a Daily Deviation for Darwin Day.(click on the nice man to go to it's place in the DeviantArt gallery. Once there, click to enlarge)

It was a torrent, at least by my standards. Suddenly, since it was included as a Daily Deviation;
-it has received about 5700 new pageviews,
-been commented on over 400 times (ignore ones authored by "Nobody"; seems to be a glitch)
-I've received another 400 inbox comments,
-456 people have favourited the painting and added it to galleries,
-66 people have downloaded the image and
-some mudslinging by creationists has been ably handled by some real science-lovers on DeviantArt!

All while I obliviously worked on the new piece. I feel like there was a concert in my painting's honour, complete with a love-in of "Happy Darwin Day" and a chair-busting brawl while I was out buying milk.

Lucky for me, science, and our man Charles, there are some very enthusiastic science-loving articulate and patient artists who gave the creationists a dressing-down while I fiddled with my paintbox.

Wading through all the comments is taking me a while, but here's some of the fine folks whose galleries I'd invite people to visit and comment on. These able people - before now, all strangers to me - rushed in to stack barricades of science books against the tide of baffling ignorance. Not all are atheists - but they understand evolution by natural selection.

Stykera, Azkardchic, Not-Bernard (he really was amazing and patient with a particular commenter) Oddspelling, Alyxium, thewizardess, Archimedes-Theory, and Se1ene.

Thanks to all DeviantArtists for their support and wishing a merry Darwin Day!
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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 ##
# 2009 Calendar available for a limited time

Coming soon...

Art and design by Dave Ng of The World's Fair, art by Glendon Mellow of The Flying Trilobite.
Editor, Jennifer Rohn of Mind the Gap, series editor Bora Zivkovic of A Blog Around The Clock. Winning contributers listed here, cartoon & poem here.

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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 ### 2009 Calendar available for a limited time

Secular Nation podcast now up!

Now you can listen to David Driscoll of Secular Nation magazine interview me about Darwin Took Steps, education, ScienceOnline'09, Toronto and being a young freethinker here. (- -really? young? thanks David!)

As an artist, I'm pretty pleased with the reception this painting has received so far. It seems to resonate with some pretty diverse folks. Not bad for something I speed-painted in three hours! (I think the drawing took about four.) I have plans for a younger Darwin piece for Darwin Day this year as part of the Blog For Darwin. Staircase not included.

It continues with a reading by David and editor-in-chief Tom Melchiorre of an interview with Dr. Massimi Pigliucci concerning Charles Darwin and Darwin Day. Darwin Took Steps is available as cards, prints, canvas repros and sweatshop-free t-shirts in a variety of colours & styles.

Half the proceeds from the sales of my Darwin Took Steps swag goes toward the Beagle Project. Tangled Up In Blue Guy Mike has written to Al Gore to bring the noble ship some attention. Artist Diana Sudyka of Tiny Aviary has contributed some crackingly good prints for the cause. Many others are working on much more.

Let's get that boat in the water!

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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 ### 2009 Calendar available for a limited time

Secular Nation Podcast featuring Flying Trilobite

***Edit! Scheduled date and time have changed! Watch the sidebar for details. (We don't want to overshadow Obama in that timeslot. He's a nice guy.)

In an upcoming podcast, I'll be speaking with David Driscoll on the Secular Nation Podcast.

My Darwin Took Steps image is featured on the current issue of Secular Nation magazine, thanks to editor-in-chief Tom Melchiorre.

Check it out, it should be fun. I'll have to gargle and speak in a whisper until then, but if you missed me at ScienceOnline '09 last weekend, you'll be able to hear my heroic tenor tones wax philosophical about art and science on Friday.

If the Darwin Took Steps oil painting is to your liking, don't forget to check out the reproductions available in my online shop. I think there's still time to pick up cards, prints, canvas repros and sweatshop-free t-shirts in a variety of colours to give to your evolution-loving and rational friends for Darwin Day (Feb 12th).

And half the proceeds from the sales of my Darwin Took Steps swag goes toward helping build a reproduction of the legendary Beagle that took Darwin on the voyage that changed everything. These Beagle Project people are serious, committed and inspiring. Why not help build an educational and scientific mission to resonate in our day as Darwin's voyage resonated in his?
Catch you on the podcast!

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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 ### 2009 Calendar available for a limited time

Darwin Took Steps featured on Secular Nation magazine cover

Starting the new year with stairs from a venerable mind.

Darwin Took Steps, has been featured on the cover of Secular Nation Magazine, the Jan-Mar 2009 issue!

A big thank you to Editor-in-Chief Tom Melchiorre for asking to reproduce this oil painting of our man Charles and promoting the importance of the theory of evolution by natural selection in this important year. And thanks for the great cover design from this terribly biased illustrator.

The version used on the cover is the one I sometimes think of as "Darwin Took Steps mark I". It's the original photo of the painting (with some Photoshop tweaks) when it was still wet and featured on The Eloquent Atheist for Darwin Day last year.

Remember, you can help support The Beagle Project by purchasing Darwin Took Steps t-shirts, Darwin Day cards, and prints on canvas or archival paper from my online reproduction shop.

I hope to have some more news shortly about Darwin Took Steps appearing on another publication in the near future. This is my first print-and-published work for a magazine, so I'm feelin' proud.

Support Atheist Alliance and pick up a copy of Secular Nation for a Darwin Day whirlwind.

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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details. Please visit my blog, gallery and reproduction store.
2009 Calendar available now!

Darwin on a pink tee!

In time for the festive Newtonmas to Darwin Day season, there's new items in The Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop! Personally, I'm giving some for Krismas.
The popular Darwin Took Steps image is now available in colour on American Apparel shirts. As before, a portion of the purchase of my Darwin-tees will go toward supporting The Beagle Project, so you wear a surreal image of the controversial biologist-adventurer with pride.

Darwin Took Steps shirts are available in a wide range of colours, as well as four styles of shirt. Just click the t-shirt button and take a look at the choices.
Sweat-shop free, and starting at $23.94 U.S.! RedBubble accepts Australian, U.K., American and Canadian currencies too.
This year I have also put together a calender, a first for me. If you're a fan of my artwork, or surreal scientific illustration, this is the best way to pick up a dozen prints of my work in one place. Here's a some shots of the calender, $22.99 U.S.:

Hmm. I'm kind of digging that white background. Maybe a re-design in the New Year? You can also visit the RedBubble-hosted store and click through to see every month.

Order soon to guarantee it in for Christmas and New Year's!

I've also added cards, prints and canvas-reproductions of my popular Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle in each configuration!

With such a dizzying array of holidays coming up, give the gift of Flying Trilobite.

(Product shots from RedBubble! Thanks RedBubble, you're super-keen!)

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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details. Please visit my blog, gallery and reproduction store.

Make your holiday special...

...say "I love you" with extinct arthropods.

"But honey, all the atheists are doing it!"

The original Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil painting on shale, is now available as a greeting card, matted print or canvas print in The Flying Trilobite Reproduction shop. My shop is through RedBubble, and they accept 'Murican, Canuck, Bloke, and Mate funds, so that's nice and easy for about half of my readers. I'm mighty pleased with the reproduction quality.

Here's a shot of a few of the cards. Purchase of any prints, cards or shirts of my Darwin Took Steps I hope will make for a memorable Darwin Day 2009 and a portion of the profits goes to helping The Beagle Project. Nifty!

- - All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details. Please visit my blog, gallery and reproduction store.

Darwin kickin' it on the Edge...r

Darwin is my Charlie!

Yesterday, I spotted our energetic and vigorous friend over at The Edger.

Tyler Handley has written a terrific post taking a stab at defining types of atheist art, with his article The Art of New-Atheism. Tyler has included a link to The Flying Trilobite art gallery over at DeviantArt, under the heading, "Art that is made for the purpose of representing a passion for science and its promotion".

Hmm, is that a decent description of what I do?

Later, under the heading, "Art that is made for the purpose of iconically depicting giants of science, skepticism, and atheism", Mr. Darwin and his stairs made an appearance.

I'll quote my comment on the article here for discussion, (and a bit of promotion for The Beagle Project and the support I'm offering from my Reproduction Shop), or please follow the link, and see the rest of the images Tyler has compiled.

Here's my comment:

Thank you for including my Flying Trilobite gallery and Darwin Took Steps piece
in this important post, Tyler.

I hope you don’t mind if I add that proceeds from the sales of Darwin Took Steps shirts, prints and cards goes to the Beagle Project in support of their noble and educational work.

This is an interesting topic I wrestle with daily. I am sorely tempted to create some overtly atheist art; for me, I find it hard to think of anything other than satire or horror of religion. So instead, I focus on the wonder of science. Do other artists have this problem? (emphasis added)

It's pretty exciting for me that my Darwin Took Steps was included on the same discussion as Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot photo. It'll sink in eventually.

Even Jesus riding on a dinosaur can't take that feeling away.

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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details. Please visit my

blog, gallery and reproduction store. Support The Beagle Project!

Support The Beagle Project with Flying Trilobite Reproductions

The Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop is now open at Redbubble.com.

Following in the footsteps of the stellar Diana Sudyka, I will be donating a portion of the sales of a re-scanned Darwin Took Steps to The Beagle Project. Let's get this boat in the water, eh?!

I've re-scanned the image (originally it was still wet - oil paints can take months to dry) and added a bit of text. Here's a sample:


Darwin Took Steps is currently available as a gator-board mounted print, and as greeting cards. I thought this would be nice to send as a Darwin Day 2009 card. More formats may appear in future: Redbubble.com has some nifty-keen stuff, so drop me an email or reply if you would love to have a staircase-headed Charles in another format.

(Edit: I've added a variety of t-shirts based on the original pencil drawing, as well as cards, matted prints, and the colour image without words.)

Purchasing this image will also save me from having to hang-glide to The Beagle with cucumber sandwiches with crusts cut-off for the crew. No one wants that, right?

The link for purchase (in multiple currency choices!) is here. Jokes about "flying trilobite reproduction" may also now ensue.

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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details.

Darwin meets Blue Guy

The oil painting I produced for The Eloquent Atheist, entitled Darwin Took Steps, has found another champion today, in the form of Mike H. of the prolific Tangled Up in Blue Guy blog.

You can see the Tangled Up in Blue Guy post about Darwin Took Steps here.

And hey- he's also pointed at the banner that I produced for Of Two Minds! Any chance you're moonlighting as a scientific illustration talent scout, Mike? Perhaps if I need an agent one day...

With both of these pieces being worked on throughout February, it's been a busy month. Thanks Mike, for the comments. Feedback on my artwork is always welcome. (Thrown vegetables or muttering "derivative" are less welcome, but interesting.) In addition to the link in my gallery, you can also see my popular pencil drawing, or read the 'making of' post.

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By the way, this Friday will mark one year since The Flying Trilobite began. Look for a misty-eyed reminisce-a-thon on Friday. And cake! Maybe pie!

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(Edit: March 8 2008: Darwin Took Steps also featured on The Dispersal of Darwin ! )

Getting out there

In my last post, I included the making of a new painting, called Darwin Took Steps. I had offered to share this artwork with the editors of The Eloquent Atheist, in part to reach a broader audience than The Flying Trilobite's alone.

The subject matter was intended to be a part of Darwin Day, and so I registered at the organizers' site along with the other participants. It's always fun to see your name on the same list as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.

I tried to promote the piece on Facebook, changed my profile picture to one of the sketches, and made comments on the walls of a few groups, pointing the way to The Eloquent Atheist to aid in traffic there. Hopefully they'll have me back again some time.

By the end of the day on February twelfth, my Darwin painting had been re-posted on two other websites - in Spain! It was done without my direct permission, but it was done respecting the Creative Commons licence: in this case, it was cited as being a painting by me, it was not altered, and no one was profiting by it. I was and still am pretty excited!

On first site, the painting was posted by one of the DeviantArt contributors I have corresponded with, who goes by the name of Koolasuchus. In case you're not familiar with the "suchus" part, it is Latin for crocodile, and Koolasuchus often includes drawings of these in their DeviantArt gallery.

With the second site, It turns out that Koolasuchus also is a regular contributor to an aggregate site, also in Spanish, called Evolucionarios. The site looks great. Unfortunately the only other language I am fluent in is ASL, with a smattering of French from my Canadian upbringing.

So, Darwin Took Steps did what I set out for it to do; it put me out there. My thanks to all those parties who liked the piece, commented, re-posted it or checked it out! Next year is the two hundredth anniversary of Darwin's birth, so I'll have to start cooking up something grand to go alongside this year's painting.

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If you've read this far in such a self-indulgent post, allow me to tease you with another piece I am working on that should be up soon. Normally, I feel it is bad form to mention a piece of art for a contract until it is completed and approved. However, since Shelley Batts' confirmed it over at A Blog Around the Clock already, I figure it's cool.


I am almost finished a piece for Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle and Steve Higgins of Omnibrain. These two neuroscience students and ScienceBloggers have teamed up to create a new blog, to be called Of Two Minds, and launching March 1st. I will be doing one of the rotating banners again, and I'm pretty psyched.

It's a good start to 2008; two more painting contacts for others. And March 7th will be my one year blogiversary, so you know I'm cooking up a special illustration to mark the day that the flying trilobite army burst onto the scene!

Making of "Darwin Took Steps"

For Darwin Day 2008, I decided to work on a surreal portrait of Charles Darwin, which is to be published today at the online literary 'zine, The Eloquent Atheist. There should be some writing accompanying it from one of the Darwin Day organisers, Dick Renfro. (Edit! Here's the link!) I always enjoy seeing another artist's process in creating a work, and I have found some scientists who read this blog are also interested in seeing the greasy nuts & bolts that go into a painting.

I am not a biologist, but I am something of a biology/palaeontology groupie. Darwin's work is so important not only for explaining a process of evolution by natural selection, but also for how it exploded the traditional chain of mythologies humans lived with as explanations for so long. The modern Bright movement and sites like The Eloquent Atheist seek to show how a life without religion and the supernatural can be intellectually and emotionally fulfilling.

In my continuous struggle to improve my own madartskillz I am also trying to create works reminiscent of Symbolist and Surrealist masterpieces replete with symbols drawn from our modern scientific worldview. Why use Odin to symbolise wisdom when you can paint Darwin?

Making of Darwin Took Steps

1. Thumbnail sketches
These were just thumbnails, showing an elderly Darwin pondering what to write next. The one near the top right has a "tangled bank" of branches floating above his head. From the start I knew I wanted to depict Darwin in his later years, as it is a more generally recognised image. I discarded both of these ideas in favour of the staircase idea.

2. Beginning the drawing.

For the drawing, I drew upon a reference from National Geographic's November 2004 issue. (Cover title: "Was Darwin Wrong?". The answer inside, almost a page tall: "NO.") One of the goals for this painting was to see how quickly I could do it, and still be proud at the end. In this instance I gave up drawing freehand and used a projector to create the sketch above, which is something I rarely do. That took 20 minutes. Refining a drawing that size without the projector can take another 2 to 3 hours. Materials: 2mm pencil on vellum-finish bristol paper. (Must perform life drawing for three hours in penance for using the projector...)

3. Staircase and a false start.

The staircase is an older idea of mine I used on a piece called Disease. It was developed as a cd cover and never published. I like the image though, and thought it would be appropriate. The column in the background is supposed to suggest the path leading unexpectedly to D.N.A, beyond Darwin's scope. I checked the drawing in a mirror a lot, to see if there were any gross abnormalities that stood out. Noticed a staircase coming out of his head. During this phase, I was listening to Jakalope in my studio, which is actually a freakishly large closet off our living room.

4. Completed drawing.

This is the drawing as complete as I decided to make it for painting. I used a .3mm mechanical pencil, HB lead on vellum-finish bristol. Love that Strathmore. In total, the drawing itself took about 3.5 hours. I jettisoned the d.n.a. column idea, and left the staircase leading up and away, the edifice not yet finished. I had fun with the little 'chi' lines in the beard. After tweaking the contrast in Photoshop, I printed the drawing out onto a couple of sheets of canvas paper from my laser printer to paint on.

5. Prepping for 'speed-painting'.
I decided to work in our living room, claiming the coffee table as my territory. I use Turpenoid Natural rather than other solvents. It smells of pine and is not full of nasty toxic hydrocarbons like most odourless solvents. The pliers are to get my oil tubes open. (Seriously, are all tubes made by people who've never had to open them more than twice? The caps are all different by brand, but they all get stuck.) I wanted this piece to have an older, sepia-feel to it, so linseed oil rather than a paler poppy or walnut was just fine. I am armed with Bavarian Dutch Chocolate coffee in my Jack Skellington mug.

My palette consisted of Naples Yellow (which I am addicted to), Quinacradone Orange, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Monochrome Tint Warm, Burnt Sienna (which I hate), Raw Umber, Payne's Grey, Zinc+Titanium White and Lamp Black. A lot of people swear you shouldn't use white or black (and you should mix your own from blue and brown), and I say, stop living in the Impressionist Era! It's so over! Lamp black is warm and deep, like pvc goth-gear in a tube.

I set the timer to stop me every hour. My aim was to finish the painting in 3 hours.

6. Results after 1 hour.

Usually I start with the eyes. I worked out the face, mainly with a cad-yellow underlayer. Monochrome tint and white for highlights. I was listening to Darude, The Chemical Brothers, and a Nine Inch Nails remix album. The faster the beats, the fresher my brush strokes. This is deep in the Ugly Phase , where I just hate how it looks. No time to fret; hour two!

7. Results after 2 hours.

Started using a phylogenetic tree in the background, painting with quinacradone orange underneath, and iridescent gold oil paint on top. Renaissance masters usually painted a red basecoat under gold leafing to add luster. I am using some micron brushes my wife put in my stocking at Christmas. They are really tiny synthetic brushes, and the filbert is now my bf4evr. Some artists say oils must be painted with rough hog's bristle brushes, and then I just yell, stop living in the Impressionist Era! Old master used soft brushes for detail, and so do I.
It's not done. I need to move toward hour 3.

8. Results after 3 hours, colour corrected.
The final piece, colour-corrected in Photoshop.

I fretted about how dark it looked on some monitors, and after submitting the image to editor Michael W. Jones at The Eloquent Atheist, emailed a second colour-corrected version, seen above.

Complete! ( edit: Here is the full-colour-corrected image and how it appears in my online reproduction store, a portion of the profits going in support of The Beagle Project.)

Assigning a number to any amount of steps would be arbitrary, but I chose 5 for a reason. Four for the support of evolution by natural selection (Darwin drew upon examples of 1. biogeography, 2. morphology, 3. embryology, and 4. palaeontology), and the fifth step for natural selection itself, or the elevation of reason over dogma, as the viewer likes. The steps of learning never end.

Please check this out on The Eloquent Atheist today, and leave comments! Constructive feedback is always welcome. I will edit this post later today to provide the link once it is up. Merry Darwin Day!
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All original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow. The contents of this blog are under a Creative Commons Licence. See sidebar for details. Please visit my blog, gallery and reproduction store.

Merry Darwin Day!

Sometime today my Darwin portrait, Darwin Took Steps, will be posted on The Eloquent Atheist! I will update this post and add the painting to my deviantArt gallery later on. I'm pretty excited to have another piece featured in The Eloquent Atheist.

If you haven't stopped in to that online 'zine, you really should. Make sure it's during a time of day you have to spend just idly reading. Great poems, essays and prose to be found. And the occasional piece of art from freethinkers.

Also today, sometime before noon eastern standard, I will post a "making of" post of Darwin Took Steps. Why not see the evolution of a painting today as well? Okay, okay, it's really development, not evolution. I suppose it's good ontogeny does not recapitulate phylogeny when it comes to art. I'd start out in crayon, move my way through finger paint, awkward comic book figures with too many muscles, out of proportion life drawings, then to sunken oil paintings, and finally Darwin would just pop out.

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Other Darwin Day happenings:

-Go to the offical organiser's site, Darwin Day!

-A nice round-up (kid friendly, too!) at The Free Range Academy!

-Can't miss the wild and woolly folks at The Beagle Project!

-Pharyngula should be talking about evo-devo sometime today.

-Carl Buell's 2006 Darwin Day illustration is a classic: check it out on Olduvai George's Flickr site!

-There's always stuff going on at Richard Dawkins' site. Check out the cards!

I'm sure a lot of the science blogs in my blogroll will be involved. Please feel free to post a link to your own art/writing/Darwin Day happening on my comment thread. I'll update this with the link to The Eloquent Atheist as it comes up.