Artwork Mondays: Life With Diatoms

Usually on Artwork Mondays, I endeavour to put up new pieces of my work. Today, I thought I'd re-post a piece from my first month online, entitled Life With Diatoms.

This is a painting in oil, with some acrylic paints used for the enlarged diatoms. Here's a short breakdown of techniques and materials.

I usually enjoy painting on a dark ground; in this case a carbon black acrylic over double-primed gessoed cotton canvas.

As oils age, they become more transparent, and darken. A darker ground, usually a brown, grey or black was common in the Renaissance, and fell seriously out of favour with artists such as the Impressionists, who were trying to transmit the brightness of light. When using a dark ground, it was common to leave a lightened area under any foreground figures, so they would retain a glow compared to their surroundings.

It's never a good idea to mix water-based acrylics on the same canvas as oil paint. I confess I broke those rules here. I used some wonderful Pebeo dyna-colours for the greens in the diatoms.

Dyna colours have a paint made from reflective mica flakes, coated with obscenely thin layers of titanium dioxide. The thinness of the layer can be manipulated to allow only certain wavelengths of light through. When mixed with a base colour, as these have been, you can get crazy combinations: a fuchsia pink with a blue sheen that catches the light, and so on. Other brands, such as Golden, refer to these as "interference" colours - they work best when mixed or applied over top and the difference is Pebeo's are pre-mixed with a colour.

For Life with Diatoms, I used yellow-green dyna, and green-yellow dyna, as well as a gold in oil paint mixed into the algae and the red hair.

Once the painting was done to my satisfaction, I poured stand oil over it to give it a glossy, honey-like sheen. Stand oil is linseed oil that has been heated, and has the consistency of liquid honey. It's tricky to use: it pools, and leaves dry spots; it takes months to dry to the point it doesn't pour in slow motion off the edge when upright; it collects dust on its surface like no tomorrow. Bloody hard to photograph without moving twin light sources off to the side, as well.

The model for this painting was my wife and muse. I haven't often posted paintings of her which I have painted, since they feel a bit more personal than most. This is not the first time I have painted her with diatoms, however. That was in another work, entitled, A Diatomaceous Soul, which I have not (and will not likely ever) show online. I am aware that the anatomy of the face and shoulders aren't perfect, neither is the stomach. This piece was expressive, and I wasn't overly concerned at the time with high-realism. It captured the glow of her face the way I see it, and her beauty in repose. I can say I have another piece along these lines started; it is one of those rare times the whole painting sprung visible in my head before completion.

The association in my mind of my wife with diatoms springs in part from the diatoms' glittering beauty in their opalescent structures, and in their ability to create so much of the oxygen we all breathe. For myself, I cannot live without either.

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Follow some of the links about diatoms at Wikipedia. Then marvel that these wonders are all around you, on tree bark, ocean rocks and in the soil.

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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.

Artwork Mondays: Inspiration + Drugs

So here's the thing.

While in University, and continuing to today, I'll show somebody examples of my work for the first time, and I will hear, "Whoa, so just what are you on, man? Must be some good s--t!"

Yeah, the good s--t is my brain. My creativity. My diverse range of interest and my hard-won madskillz with a pencil. My brain dwarfs other brains. And I can tell you why.

I've been attempting to write this post for a long time now. It's a hard one to write without sounding smug and preachy or after-school-special. So I'm just throwing it out there in plain language and not worrying too much about it.

I don't drink alcoholic beverages, and I don't do recreational drugs, and I follow no religion. Period. Never have, and likely won't. Over the course of an entire year, I maybe polish off one glass of wine divided up over New Year's, a random evening and my wedding anniversary. I should probably drink a bit of wine for the health effects. Keep meaning to do that.

Let me cut off some common assumptions at this point: I really really don't care if other people drink alcohol. It is not something I do, but I am not passing some kind of moral judgement on people either. In a free and open society, I am free to not drink and think you're cool. No need to explain to me how it's really good I don't drink, and you admire it, or to accuse me of accusing you of wrongdoing. Telling me my coffee-drinking is "at least something, kind of wimpy, but something," makes me laugh.

I don't drink or do drugs for a bunch of reasons, but here's one of the largest. As I emerged like a delicate, lumbering butterfly into my University years, I was asked "what I was into" more and more. And in my first year survey course of Western Art, we began talking about Hieronymous Bosch. Bosch did fascinating things, unreal visions of heaven and hell with the most unlikely structures made from the tools of alchemy. And a theory we were presented with, very popular and assumed to be true by my peers, was that ergot of rye in the fields near the artist were causing Bosch to experience the effects of very mild LSD.

Everyone nodded. Of course. It was instantly assumed this is where his genius and creativity stemmed from.

It was an outrage! An outrage because what if it wasn't ergot of rye? A great disservice to a great mind. It was an outrage because in my view, it smacked of complacency by my fellow art students. Wanna push your art further? Drugs. Worked for Bosch.

If it was true, than my mind would be unremarkable without intentional damage inflicted upon myself. No thanks. I needed to hold fast against the weak undercurrent of peer pressure and create fantastic, unreal images in the face of pure sobriety.

I'm not the next Hieronymous Bosch. I'm doing what I do. My body suffers from asthma, and I have some medications I take regularly, daily, along with a love for coffee. Throwing more into the mix will not help. One day, will someone cite my puffers as the source of my creativity? I hope it is not the case.

And I spoke above of my thoughts on alcohol, how do I feel about drugs?

I think they are kind of lame. (There I go, sounding like an after-school special.) I am especially weary of marijuana. It is so present and so popular now, you can't escape it at parties. And users always want to tell me all the scientific facts they know, about how it's no worse than alcohol, they only use it sometimes to fall asleep, I've studied it way more than you, blah blah blah. You know why it bugs me? Because alcohol stays in your glass and on your breath, but marijuana goes into everyone's lungs. Smoking marijuana is lame and selfish.

I am writing this post not to judge others, but to judge myself. Perhaps it is not an achievement to be visually creative without drugs, and this is seen as nothing more than a fearful person stamping their foot saying "I don't wanna". In my view, my brain dwarfs many other brains. My synapses are intact, my dendrites and neurons hum happily. This creativity is mine, and not the product of liquid or inhaled inspiration.

I'll reiterate, I really don't judge others by what substances they use for fun. Friends say I'm fun at parties. I simply get cross when someone gets pushy or insulting by wondering what drugs/alcohol/religion I am on, and won't believe I can live without those things.

Please feel free to disagree on this touchy topic, and make comments. I am away from the internet while on vacation, and will respond when I return.

Oh, and cheers!

This week I am re-posting a few pieces previously posted due to the topic. In order, these pieces are entitled, from the top, Anthropomorphic Gestation, Knowledge Pupates, & Asthma Incubus.

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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.

Blog Banner Art for Of Two Minds

Today is the launch of Shelley Batts, Steve Higgins and Pepper's new ScienceBlog, titled Of Two Minds. Last year, Shelley asked me to make a new blog banner on her old site, Retrospectacle, which you can see the steps I took in drawing and painting it, here.

These two have some crazy fun reporting about science, neuroscience, parrots, things being poked in the brain, and superheroes. Ya gotta check it out.

I am sharing blog banner duties with Len of Monster By Mail, so you may see two different ones at the moment. Click the 'refresh' button, and the page will reload and show the other banner. I contributed the one with the tragedy & comedy masks, for which I originally used Shelley and Steve's faces as a starting point. Squint your eyes all up, you'll see it.

Shelley and Steve have also made a neat little banner tab on their top bar, so you can see the previous banners they had on Retrospectacle and OmniBrain, including my 'valkyrie' banner. (Shelley is actually using my original thumbnail sketch for that banner as a tiny avatar when she posts. It was so rough and hasty, I am alternately cringing and proud by turns.) You can also see why Shelley suggested this particular font; once the final stages of the banner came together (and I sent some continuous tweaks and fiddles to it late into the night) Shelley suggested we use Blackadder ITC.

Above is a shot of the banner, and you can see it in my gallery; but it really looks much better over at Of Two Minds, so please head on over and read about x-ray vision, a pain index, and magnetic people.

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I am available for commissions to do blog elements as well as portraiture, concept design, surreal paintings and scientific illustrations. After perusing The Flying Trilobite Gallery, please contact me, Glendon Mellow, by email if you are interested.

Retrospectacle: "making of" retrospective

Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle and Steve Higgins of Omnibrain will be closing up their blogs, and merging into one metabrainy blog. Both are neuroscience students, and are part of the ScienceBlog network.

Readers of The Flying Trilobite may recall that I was elated (frantically excited, honoured, scraping & bowing) that Shelley had asked me to design a new blog banner for her last year. It is still featured in rotation with a banner by Carl Buell, scientific illustrator par excellence.

Sometime this weekend, Steve and Shelley will be announcing the new blog title, which they threw open to their many readers in the form of a contest. I contacted Shelley when I read the news, and I may be once again contributing a banner. Here's hoping! Carl Buell has offered again as well, and Steve has some quirky banners of his own on Omnibrain.

So, since this may be the last weekend of Retrospectacle, I thought I would post here the process I went through to come up with the banner. This was already featured as a post on Shelley's blog, but I thought I would import it here, for my old & new readers. Hey, it's almost like an insight into my heavily-caffeinated brain. From September 24, 2007.

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Step 1. Thought about wing, an ear, and started with the Valkyrie type image. Thought about how cool it would be if Shelley was leading a gang with multiple-species, parrot-wing helmeted scientist-warriors.

Step 2. Drew a wing out in water-soluble pencil crayons, fudged the wing colours to bring in the red of an African Grey's tail. Worried about purist owners of African greys slamming the heresy.

Step 3. Copied a photo of Shelley from her blog, heightened the contrast, and clipped the sketch from step 2 onto it. Shelley mentioned making it dark, (my favourite) and I threw a black background on it. Also hand-drew a 2 minute version with blue around it too embarrassing to see the light of day.

Step 4. This is where I stay up late, drinking coffee, listening to fast gothy electronic music like Jakalope. Used my favorite tools, 0.3mm lead pencil on vellum-finish bristol. Used Shelley's face for the Valkyrie, since Retrospectacle is personal. I am really happy with how this drawing turned out. I like the Valkyrie-type idea. They were strong mythical female warriors in an age dominated by men. The wings also suggest Nike or Athena to me, for Victory & Wisdom. Scanned image in, printed it out onto canvas-paper so I can paint it without harming the original drawing.

Step 5. After painting on top of a couple of versions, I had trouble with the pale face and shadowing away from the ear. I decide to see what it would look like if I invert the whole thing. Showed it to good friends who will criticise me if I am on the wrong track. More coffee & fast electronic beats.

Step 6. Painted the ear & wing in oils, scanned it, tried a few concepts. This symmetrical one seemed too busy and impersonal. Played with various levels of cropping to see if the whole face was more important than the feather details.

Step 7. The final product. I picked this one since the face is up close which seems more intimate. Added effects using Photoshop to give it depth and draw the eye from the image on the left to the title on the right. Used font named 'Kartika' and put a spiral for the 'O' to reference the cochlea. Finished all the coffee in the house.

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I wish Shelley and Steve all the best on their new adventure in brainy blogging. 'Can't wait for the new title! I've got some ideas already.

The Flying Trilobite - Highlights of 2007

This has been an important year for my artwork. I began taking my paintings and drawings online last March, and this blog quickly saw a lot of changes in layout and tone. Yes, it has always been to promote my artwork and find future contracts and a wider audience; it has also allowed me to meet a number of talented artists, scientists, writers and bloggers from around the world -check the sidebar! I feel welcomed by the people who've taken an interest in my mythical flying trilobite fossil paintings, and interacting with people in comments and on their own blogs has been a rewarding experience so far.

In this post, I thought we could look back at what I consider some of the highlights of the year, and my fledgling career.

Page 3.14 profiles Glendon Mellow
May 2007, Virginia Hughes of SEED magazine interviewed me for their Page 3.14: Best of ScienceBlogs and Beyond. This was pretty exciting; a peak moment of my year, for sure. I'd been online only two months, and the attention from Ms. Hughes and SEED gave me me a boost. Ever since a zoology-major asked about the tardigrade in one of my paintings, I have planned to get my paintings in front of as many scientists and science-enthusiasts as possible. My work is niche, and this is the niche. The painting featured was the Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil from my banner. Oil on shale.

Retrospectacle banner for Shelley Batts

There are a lot of of interesting sites on the ScienceBlog network of sites that SEED magazine runs. One of my favourites has been Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog. After making on a comment on one of Ms. Batts' posts, she checked the link back to me and asked me about doing one of her new blog banners. The other, featuring a nautilus and African Grey parrot was by Carl Buell, (scientific illustrator of great repute)! Working for Shelley was a pleasure, as was reading all the comments that followed on her site after she posted a making of the blog banner, with narration by yours truly. I went for a "Valkyrie" motif, to incorporate the wing of an African grey while highlighting the ear, and spotlighting a portrait of Shelley. A spiral in the title completed the reference to the cochlea.

A large portion of my visitors continue to come from Retrospectacle. My first professional work since taking my art online this year! The banner is a mixture of mechanical pencil, oil paint, and digital manipulation.

The Eloquent Atheist features Symbiosis
One of my personal favourites of all my paintings is one I did in university, called Symbiosis. It contains the aforementioned tardigrade (also known as a "water-bear"), a microorganism that can survive hundreds of years when dried out, only to start swimming again when placed in water. It also depicts some of my DNA-candles, and a figure in green writhing/dancing/falling in the foreground. It was the painting featured in my university's graduation show, and I've submitted to a competition in the past, though it was not picked.

It is fairly obvious from looking here at The Flying Trilobite that I consider myself a Bright, an atheist, a person who understands science and the power its rational checks and balances has for revealing the world as it is to us. I came across an exceptionally well-done site, called The Eloquent Atheist, and asked if they were interested in featuring any of my paintings. After some discussion with one of the editors, Michael W. Jones, an engaging writer himself, The Eloquent Atheist profiled Symbiosis, as the online-magazine's first visual art feature. Oil on canvas.

These may be the highlights of my art being showcased this year, and there is so much more. I have enjoyed comments and correspondence with the artists I have met on DeviantArt, and the illustrators Gina Mikel introduced me to on the sciart listserv.
I'm thankful in particular to some of the following:
This post from Tangled Up in Blue Guy , and being a part of Dale McGowan's Ten Wonderfull Things for a little while!
All the wisdom and shenanigans from Leslie Hawes, Fresh Brainz, Traumador the Tyrannosaur, Jesse Graham, Nancy Eldridge, Shelley Batts, PZ Myers, Metamagician & the Hellfire Club, Carl Buell, Jacqueline Rae, and Luna_the_Cat! Deep thanks to anyone who added me to their blogroll or linked to me this year as well. It is inspiring.

For 2008, I hope to produce more work of quality than ever, and to gain some more freelance contracts; sometimes the best work is though project collaboration. To all the commenters and regulars who have commented and encouraged and thrown eggs at me this year, my sincere thanks.

Banner for Retrospectacle

The artwork is done, the neuroscientist is happy, and the banner is up! This was a great opportunity for me, and the first piece to come to fruition and publication since I took my artwork online last March. Thanks to Shelley Batts of Retrospectacle: A Neuroscience Blog for contacting me and making the process so enjoyable.

If you are not familiar, Retrospectacle is part of the ScienceBlogs network run by Seed Magazine, an editor of which did a profile of my art on their Page 3.14 back in May this year.

Here is the finished piece for Retrospectacle:
This looks cooler on the site...follow the link!

As I mentioned in my last post, Ms. Batts wanted to have a rotating series of blog banners running through her site. She already had her cheeky "50's advert"-style banner, and now she had enlisted the likes of your trilobite-truly, and also the esteemed Carl Buell! Mr. Buell is a prolific scientific illustrator, and you can see some of his stellar artwork at Olduvai George. I had actually linked to one of his pictures in an earlier post, my review of Paul Quarrington's boy on the back of the turtle. The link was to one of his drawings of Carl Buell's drawings of a probable ancestor to whales, pakicetus. Mr. Buell's banner is the one featuring the shell and African Grey; a tough act to follow, but I'm happy to be in such great company.

Shelley Batts also suggested posting an "Evolution of a Blog Banner", and has posted it on Retrospectacle. I won't repeat the whole thing here, but I will post the drawing I did partway through my art process. Please follow the link and take a look. As usual, comments on my work are encouraged.

Richard Dawkins Portrait Revisited

Back in June (has it been that long?) , I began a portrait of one of the sources of my artistic inspiration as an adult, Richard Dawkins.

I did not pick Prof. Dawkins because of The God Delusion, although I do think that is a tremendously important and well-written book. I picked Richard Dawkins mainly because of River Out of Eden, The Ancestor's Tale, and Unweaving the Rainbow.

River Out of Eden, as I've mentioned before, was the first book by Dawkins that I read. I was struck by how intelligently the armchair logic strung together, and how much sense it all made. The world could make sense, with the right mindset and tools to investigate. Even the mistakes along the way could be valuable. It is a beautifully written book, and there is more of the sublime in wondering about 'Mitochondrial Eve' than the Biblical Eve, in my opinion. It's a short but nourishing read, and if you are wondering about Dawkins' "voice" in his books and are feeling trepidation about The God Delusion, start here, and you will quickly find that there is nothing 'shrill' or 'strident' about his writing.

Back to the portrait. It has stalled somewhat for me at the moment. A while ago, I reported that is was in its Ugly Phase, which most of my paintings go through. I was trying out a new material to draw and paint on, and I am not happy with the result. Oil paints sometimes suffer from what is known as "sinking", when they absorb into the surface enough that the normally glossy oil becomes dull in some places, giving it a patchy look. There are retouching varnishes on the market that can fix this problem, but I feel I may have to abandon that painting and print out another copy of the drawing above to carry on from.

After reading an article in Art Scene International, featuring the stellar Donato Giancola, I tried a few tips. Drew out the portrait as you see above, and then painted a clear gesso primer over top so that if I felt it was not going well, or I accidentally gave Richard Dawkins a huge handlebar moustache, I could use a small bit of solvent and scrape back the painting to see the original drawing underneath.

Scraping it back to the see the drawing underneath didn't really work. *sigh*

So, at least I have the scan. I am currently working on another piece that is occupying a lot of my attention (I'll be sure to crow about it if it works out), and I am trying something new. I drew the piece out on my favourite Strathmore Bristol vellum finish, scanned it, and printed the piece (with heightened contrast) onto canvasette paper (aka canvas paper). Now if I mess it up, the drawing still exists. Much better.

Richard Dawkins' books on evolution contain so much beauty and wonder in them that I know I will attempt this portrait again very soon. Besides, there are other scientists and sources of inspiration I'd like to paint as my own little egotistical tributes. Hmm, I can already think of a diptych companion to Dawkins...perhaps Sagan...

Open that sketchbook!

The Flying Trilobite is my filter for what I am most engaged by. This includes fascinating scientific work, interesting books, and painting and drawing.

Not every artistic specimen is Fine Art. On the sci-art listserv, there has been an interesting thread going about how private should your sketchbook be? I am usually fairly reserved with my own - signing sketches with ' Glendon Mellow Mr. Smarty-Artsie ' is not quite my thing.

Sketches differ from drawings in that drawings are finished pieces, with graphite or pencil, pastel or charcoal, grease pencil or skritchy quill, and sketches are the roughs, the studies. Sometimes my original pieces have an energy I like more than the final. This is what I am struggling with in my Richard Dawkins unauthorised portrait - I need to regain the energy of the sketch in my painting.

Here's a few of mine:

A winged pumpkin & a bubbly mermaid on the next page.

Michelle's foot.

Our hermit crab Shiny's first shell. Featuring some bling. Saucy!


Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil. I drew this on an Air Canada flight, Toronto to Calgary at about 38 511 feet, 459 mph. I like the thought of that. Hurtling through the air. Jerry Seinfeld said something about that once - that when you're in a vehicle, you're moving, but you're sitting still. I like the thought: I may not be da Vinci, but I can draw an extinct arthropod while that high up, at that speed.

A few sites by other people with great sketches:
Leslie d'Allesandro Hawes
Jesse Graham's Art
Jacqueline Rae's Art
Machaeroides88
xxhauntedxx
Digital Graphite

Want to add another link for sketches you like, or have done yourself? Please add it in the comments section!

Ugly Phase

Most of my paintings go through the Ugly Phase. I have to dive right in and push that oil paint until I start to become satisfied with it. Right now I can't bear to look at it without correcting every little thing.

When I can't stop looking at it without finding more to do, that's when I start to enjoy the process of painting. The end result of a piece thrills me when I feel it has come out well. The process of getting there is more a wracking exercise in frustration.

At this point, I feel Lim Leng Hiong of Fresh Brainz is right; Professor Dawkins looks somewhat stern in my rendition. I think I'll go with it. Combatting irrational creationists is a stern business.

A Peek at my Dawkins Portrait

Just a tiny peek.

This is a portrait I am doing of Richard Dawkins. Much of my work for many years has been inspired by his science writing, particularly River Out of Eden. I hope to have the finished work completed soon. (Soon being a loose and playful term.) It is an unauthorised tribute.

I welcome comments.

"Painting is the art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critics."
-Ambrose Bierce

Asthma Incubus

I suffer from asthma. Lots of people do. I grew into mine, and it worsened a bit since I got older. Over the years, I have received a lot of advice on possible remedies for this from people using anecdotal accounts of "alternative" medicine.

This pencil drawing is a self-portrait I did a few years ago, called Asthma Incubus. In part, it was inspired by Henry Fuseli's classic Nightmare, (below, complete with swooning woman). I have often thought of the fractal growth of both lung bronchioles and tree branches & roots as sharing a common feature of providing oxygen and sustaining life. I wanted to show how it felt to have a symbolic demonic presence clutching at my chest. An incubus was a folkloric creature that sat on people's chests and either caused paralysis or suffocation. As a side note, I was also blacklight-sensitive blonde when I drew this.

I used to work at a coffee shop in the Beach area (or "Beaches"...a point of contention with the locals) here in Toronto. It's geographically a great area: a boardwalk, lots of parks, some streets paved with red bricks. Both my parents grew up there. It also has much higher incidents of asthma than some other areas of the city. Now, the beachers are a strange bunch. A running joke about the area is that a beacher is a WASP, who jogs while smoking a cigarrette and has a dog. In my experience, an inordinate amount of them are beguiled by alternative medicines and New Age-y experiences.

One case that comes to mind was a typical day at the coffee shop. I pulled out one of my puffers, as it was smoggy. One of our customers, a great person, suggested I start using phosphorus to treat it. I replied, "Thanks, I can ask my doctor about it, ". The customer then said, "Well...western doctors don't always trust things, you know, they only like what the pharmaceutical companies tell them. Don't worry, phosphorus is all natural."

Even back in my early twenties, I was still not the skeptic I am today. However, this was my health! I replied, "Thanks, but I should check with my doctor. What if it reacts with my other medications? Besides, mercury is all-natural too, but it's still poison." He shook his head, and went to sit down while I made the latte.

Another painting, from the Symbolist era which has long fascinated me is Ferdinand Hodler's fin-de-siecle masterpiece of dread, Night.

I believe that the medical profession makes mistakes, and I also believe it is at it's most successful time in history. I began seeing a respirologist about 8 years ago, and my twice-annual trips to the emergency room have stopped. We have tried a number of medicines, and I am able to be more active and sleep better. I know my own case is of course, anecdotal by its very nature of being one isolated case, but alternative medicine could do some actual harm. I'll trust my western-trained doctor, thanks.

I find the site The Skeptic Dictionary to be a well informed site for people looking into whether a claim has the double-blind, empirical evidence to back it up. There's a lot of unproven nonsense making people money out there, mostly riding on the placebo effect. I was impressed with the award-winning high-school essay from the Alliance for Science competition about why we should choose doctors who understand evolution. It's an important point. Read the essay, it will give you pause. The fight to keep evolution in schools is not just a topic pertaining to dinosaurs and early humans. It matters right now, for your own health.