New SONSI site

Currently, I'm the webmaster for the Southern Ontario Nature & Science Illustrators' new website. ("Website manager" doesn't sounds as cool as "Webmaster" - try saying Webmaster like Darth Sidious: Weheb-mahstuh)

We're using Wordpress, which is interesting since some of the functionality is laid out so differently from Blogger. Lots to do, members to add, news to catch up on. Banner isn't quite finished yet either. We're a new group, started by scientific illustrator Emily Damstra.

I can start to appreciate the work Craig Dylke put into Art Evolved's start-up!

It's likely I'll post updates from time to time about SONSI events. The diversity and quality of the artists, illustrators and photographers is quite amazing, so check it out! You may want to add it to your Reader, or follow our RSS feed.

sonsi.ca

- - - - - - - -
Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Are you a science-artist on Twitter?

Are you a science-based artist, illustrator or visual creator on Twitter?  Let me know!  I'm compiling a science-artist Twitter list. 

You can find it here: @flyingtrilobite/science-artists

Either comment below or let me know via direct message on Twitter! 

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators

It's been a happily busy month!

I attended the second meeting of the Southern Ontario Nature and Science Illustrators (SONSI), held at the Wings of Paradise Butterfly Conservatory in Cambridge, Ontario earlier this month. I'm not linking to the SONSI website yet, because we haven't made one. I'm helping artist Jennifer Osborn create it.

After being greeted at the door by scientific illustrator-and-later-voted-SONSI-president Emily Damstra, my wife Michelle, our nephew and I had free rein to roam through the conservatory - before it was open to the public.

Michelle visiting a resident.

Our nephew and I sketching.

Later, while Michelle and the neph took amazing photos of birds, turtles, plants and more, I settled into a presentation by entomologists Dave Cheung and Morgan Jackson. They showed us various ways to take excellent photos of insects, techniques to aid in getting better depth of field and lighting. Very useful for painting, and Dave's digital paintings were pretty awesome. You can see his work at DKB Digital Designs. Morgan's photos and blog are here, if you love insects, you can't miss this. Dave is also our VP.

Afterward, the SONSI group got together, we voted on a slight name change, voted for members, and discussed our goals. I'll be sure to post a link here to the website once it gets going.

And let me say - what a treat! Getting to meet so many talented and passionate people in such a venue was terrific. Thanks to Emily for setting up what promises to be a great group.

And hey, if you live in the Kitchener-to-Toronto corridor of southern Ontario and wish to join, just send an email!

- - - - - - - -
Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Except these photos were mostly not by me, but by my family.

Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

New Going Pro about copyright

I've posted another edition of Going Pro over at Art Evolved. This time looking at different kinds of copyright that are useful for artists to think about.

Click here to check it out. I promise Lego.


- - - - - - - -

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

ScienceOnline2010: Push it til it breaks

(Today, a guest post by my ScienceOnline2010 session co-leader, Felice Frankel!)The process of coming up with a visual metaphor to explain to someone a particular scientific concept can be quite effective, not only for your readers, but for you –– the process can help to clarify the concept in your own mind. In addition, a discussion about the limitations of that metaphor can be just as clarifying (and fun!). We are incorporating this idea in our NSF-funded Picturing to Learn program.

For years, I have wanted to create an online library of metaphors to communicate complicated science concepts and to engage whoever was interested in why and where those metaphors fall apart. We should do it. Who wants to be part of it?

Here a just a few examples from George Whitesides' and my new book No Small Matter, Science on the Nanoscale.

Quantum Apple

...an attempt to depict the counter intuitiveness of quantum mechanics. Not necessarily a deep portrayal to be sure. I just wanted the reader to get a handle about the idea that QM is NOT like the world as we "see" it.

Writing with Light

How some devices are made using "photolithography".

Graduation Chairs

...so much of what we see is dependent upon where our heads are at, at the time we see it. Coincidentally, while I was working with researchers at MIT imaging samples showing "templated self-assembly" of block co-polymers (another example with which you are more familiar would be DNA replication), the facilities folks were setting up chairs for parents which were meant as "guides" or "templates", where to sit during graduation. Again, nothing that profound but perhaps interesting enough to get some feedback. I decided to post the image and ask people to write to me and suggest what they see in the metaphor. The responses were all over the place:

"... an illustration of orbitals and similar constraints on electrons in an atom."

"The image reminds me of columns (or rows :D) of ICs"

"...circuit on the motherboard of a computer."

"...gravestone markers in a cemetery."

- - - - - - - -

We'll see you at ScienceOnline2010!
- - - - - - - -
Today's images Copyright by Felice Frankel.

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

Geology in Art by Andrea Baucon

Paleontologist, geologist and artist, Andrea Baucon has a deep interest in trace fossils, the little marks made by the passing of extinct organisms. Fittingly, he has put together a book tracing geology's path through the arts.
Geology in Art: an unorthodox path from visual arts to music is a large coffee-table of a book, covering the imagery and influence of that natural earth upon which we stand in music, paintings, fiction and even wine.

From the book's site:

"The contemporary art world is analyzed through interviews, in the belief that artists’ opinions and statements are valid source materials for the study of Geologic Art.
With its large format and more than 100 illustrations of art works, this is both a coffee-table book and an educational experience that informs, inspires and entertains Art and Geology enthusiasts alike."

Months ago, Andrea emailed me to ask if he could interview me and include some of my images in the book. I agreed, and I have seen the earlier incarnation as a more scholarly .pdf document. This blows it away. What a wonderfully rich book. I feel honoured to be in the same collection as Andy Goldsworthy and Ryan North's Dinosaur Comics and so many others.

You can preview the entire book on Blurb. My contribution includes an interview along with a photo of my tattoo, both configurations of Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle and in the fiction section, Life As a Trilobite.

(Thanks to my paleo-art peep Peter Bond for posting the news on Art Evolved!)
- - - - - - - -

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

Fanboy Monday: superhero anatomy

When I originally posted this, I was squirrelly about infringing on copyrights, and so I called it a "Made-Up Hominid". I've tried to learn a lot about copyrights, both here in Canada and in the U.S. and a fan homage is another thing entirely. I own some moral rights to the art, but I may not profit from it since the character belongs to one of the comic companies. So. Time to "out" this drawing as the fanboy piece of art that it is. Should be easy enough. After the guess, I'll list the diagram notations that are absent in this picture (you can see the indicating lines) in the comments.

This art was done like, a gazillion years ago. Next week will feature some more new content.

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

Published in EARTH Magazine!

In the September 2009 issue of EARTH Magazine, you can find a two-page profile of Art Evolved by Carolyn Gramling.


There is artwork by myself, Zach Miller, and Art Evolved founders Craig Dylke and Peter Bond. There's a nice interview with Craig and Peter as well. That's our headline there on the cover: Paleo-artists get creative.

My Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil III (that makes up the current banner above) gets over a third of page 65 - seeing my own images in publication never gets old. Finding a feature article in the 7-11 in my Toronto neighbourhood is awesome. Being in there with online friends and artists I respect is shiny.

The issue itself is a treat, including the cover article about mass extinctions. Hadn't though about it before, but crinoids like the ones on the right of my banner have actually made through the 5 worst mass extinctions of all time. Fascinating stuff.

Thanks to Peter and Craig for inviting me into this online adventure at Art Evolved, and thanks to Carolyn Gramling for recognizing the next wave in art about our planet's prehistorical fauna.

- - - - - - - -
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.
- - - - - - - -

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
- - - - - - - -
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?

- - - - - - - -
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!

- - - - - - - -
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 ***

Satan planted Ida *cough*

Hell is a fascinating mythological idea, in much the same way as Poseidon's kingdom is. There are no nymphs or demons, but they can inspire interesting stories. I was not raised with religion, mainly encouraged to read a lot, and so Hell has never made any sort of sense to me except as a manifestation of human fears.

I've read a fair few ideas about it, just as I have about many other afterlives from many other religions. I went through a strong pagan-ish phase for many years, and read as many mythologies as I could get my hands on. One of my favourite science fiction artists, Wayne Barlowe turned his sights on Hell a number of years ago, creating Barlowe's Inferno, and in so doing, took care to state his was a work of fiction.

Of all the hype surrounding Ida, the Darwineus masillae fossil unveiled this week, the um, backlash (like lashing a wet noodle) from Satan-believers strikes me as the most sad. Where is human reason?

From this article:

"... it is also an equally interesting coincidence that Ida was discovered within a ‘volcanic lake’ and was preserved by an ‘unknown force’ because such descriptors blatantly match the profile of Satan.

"Hell is the most volcanic lake in existence and Satan is well known for his interest in paleontology, as it begets the Lies of Evolution.

"The scientists in this survey do not know when to quit, as they have also claimed Ida was a vegan and refused to eat meat, going as far as to state she supported ‘green energy’ too as she lived in trees around the lake, instead of building a house and burning fires to cook her meals."

It's a head shaker. "Satan is well-known for his interest in paleontology". Hm. That's not in the Bible. It's not in Dante's Inferno. (I highly recommend the Robert Pinsky translation.) It reads like it is made-up, which it is of course. I'd love to see the support that states an early primate "supported" green energy.

Instead, check out these excellent drawings of a living Ida. Inspirational.

Enough un-reason. I'm going to get back to what I do. Art in awe of science.

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

Gaps in the artistic record

A brief list of art I'm missing to be considered the following type of artist:

Scientific Illustrator
-Cut away view of fish or of the Earth's crust with little labels
-Skeletal outline for clarity
-Heavily airbrushed, smooth view of pink & blue lungs
-Colourful landscape of organisms that would normally be hiding from each other

Pseudo-scientific Illustrator
-pulsating food morsel/medicine/sport drink going down gridded simplified human body to pulsate stronger in stomach
-simple diagram of human body with labels of animal names or words like "virtue" and "3rd eye"
-elegant watercolours of St. John's Wort and echinacea
-illustration with pyramids and lots of glittery silver

Paleo-Fantasy/SF Illustrator
-Leopard-bikini wearing woman riding mutant theropod with horns
-Innocent waif girl with clunky robot friend
-Herbivore & carnivore dinosaurs looking up in shock at UFO
-Blue shadowy background with PVC-wearing woman carrying two ridiculously huge and complicated guns

Fine Artist
-Object made from my own body or my trash
-Mash-up of multiple impermanent materials: painting on a cake left to go moldy and filmed for YouTube
-Painting "referencing" another artist's work, while allegedly subverting it
-Painting something vague that could be better explained in an op-ed column



Where do I fit, categorically? At ScienceOnline09, I used 5 categories about science-art that differ from these.

Art in awe of science sums it up enough.

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

Blogroll Amnesty Day

Blogroll Amnesty Day is a bloggy community event wherein more popular blogs create links to less popular blogs. You can read all about it at Skippy's.

Here are some blogs I'd like to see get even more attention.

-The Day After - art by my friend Chris Zenga, focusing mainly (but not exclusively on) the walking tedd, Zombie Bears many based on different archetypes. Zenga is a socially-conscious horror artist as well and is donating a portion of his print sales to a good cause. It reminds you to be careful 'cuz when you go out to the bloggy woods today, you're in for a big surprise.
-Relationship-a-holic - I value different points of view, and I've started following this blog to get just that. Still in its nascent stages, I'm enjoying the wit and occasional snark.
- Hammered Out Bits - professional blacksmith (yeah, that's right, I said blacksmith!) Darrell Markewitz and his adventures in artistry. This is as hands-on as it gets. Swords from meteorites!
- orchidart - This is a focused blog and focused artist. Personally, I'm always chasing after ideas and things in science which wow me. Artist Garness looks at a single wide-ranging subject and I find these images quiet my mind. I contemplate how they were painted, and how the orchids grow.
- New Minority - Family-man, atheist and soldier, Jones is a commenter here who looks at the world from a rare vantage point.

- - - - - - - -
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 & Science at ScienceOnline '09 discussion continues...

ScienceOnline this past weekend really has me reassessing what I'm doing as a blogger and with my artwork. The conference as a whole and the Art & Science session in particular seem to be continuing as discussions in the blogosphere.

Here's a few links.

-Conference blog & media link page (new ones at the bottom)

-ScienceOnline'09 Flickr set

-Ryan Somma at Ideonexus has a concise overview of the Art & Science session. In addition to the 5 categories I had outlined, Ryan has suggested an entirely appropriate type of artistic science: "Found Art".

-Lenore Ramm of Eclectic Glob of Tangential Verbosity reports feeling inspired to possibly create art once again

-Brian Switek of Laelaps mentioned cave art in the comments here and explores the connection in "The Plight of the Pleistocene Poet".

-Betül of Counter Minds summarized her excited views of the conference

-Bora at A Blog Around The Clock has posted a few photos of the seriousness and shenanigans on the Friday night.

-Jessica Palmer at Bioephemera (can Tatjana and I refer to her as our ephemeral third moderator? Or am I being lame?) shows how the intersection of real science and artistic fancy can be a ball of confusion, (that's what the world is today). Hey. Hey.

-Eva of Easternblot has left a comment here about that elusive grail of mine, art directing the course of scientific research. That's two examples! (First example found here, in the comment and fascinating paper by Andy of The Open Source Paleontologist.)

I may continue to use this post to collect up various links. Working out what to do with myself and my artwork is another matter.

- - - - - - - -
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

ScienceOnline'09 - thoughts on two cultures

In January, I will be co-moderating with Jessica Palmer on a couple of sessions at ScienceOnline'09.

Here are the first thoughts I published to the wiki for Art + Science: online and offline:

A big topic, so I’ll start where I’m familiar. Science opens up new territories for visual language and metaphor.

Using scientific discoveries, diagrams, principles and images to increase the visual language in art. This is something I strive to do with each piece. When taking history of western art 101, I recall being amazed at the idea that the general public of the Renaissance would have understood the significance of an orange on the table in a portrait. Or that much of Michaelangelo’s work was an attempt to portray platonic ideal forms.

Exploring the same sort of method for my work has led me in attempts to personify ‘extinction’ and ‘mitochondrial eve’ as beings rather than concepts, or Haldane’s precambrian rabbit quote as a puzzle. I regularly depict my wife in paintings and drawings holding diatoms, because they are beautiful, delicate, and (thinking of photosynthesis here) essential to life. An example outside of my own work would be Dali’s Christus Hypercubus (scroll down), or Jessica’s Aposematism. The golden ratio gave us this stunning cover composition in Imagine FX recently. In pop culture, I marvel at Davy Jones’ crew in the Pirates of the Caribbean series as monsters difficult to present to a public unaccustomed to detailed images of nature. I could go on.

The reverse is what’s difficult for me to see: how does science benefit from art? From viewing it, and resolving a problem or…?

Is art a parasite on science, except when used as illustration? Many naturalists are painters as well.

Seed magazine’s article by Jonah Lehrer in issue 13 was interesting. So was this Cocktail Party Physics post.

- - -

Here are some more up-to-date thoughts I've been pondering lately, and I will update to the wiki. I think this is a better synopsis for where my head has been.
- - -

The relationship between the cultures of art and science: does art act as a parasite on science? The benefits of scientific findings to the inspiration of art have numerous examples. Popular culture at large may benefit from art inspired by science. But does science ever benefit from art, other than illustration? Can art inspire science?

Good art usually is connected by metaphor and symbolic representations to its subject matter. Metaphor and symbols are by their very nature, imprecise descriptions of the world. Science, on the other hand strives for accuracy and precision. Is art only capable of being a metaphor for a small aspect of a single phenomena, and not the whole?

How does art inspired by, say, palaeontology differ from art inspired by physics? Will an illustration of a Mesozoic landscape always be inherently more precise than a sculpture inspired by quantum phenomena?

- -
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: a painting's "aura"

Today, I'd like to touch on how the artist feels about their own work, and its "aura", and how that differs for the Fine Artist versus the Illustrator. And no, I haven't lost my skeptical, rational mind.

The idea of a painting's aura is one I remember being presented without judgment by the prof in university. The concept has stayed with me.

It's the notion that original paintings have an "aura" that emanates off the paint & canvas surface. Almost as though the original painting has a soul, or a living presence you sense when looking at it. It adds to their specialness. You have not truly experienced the painting until you've seen it in person. Our teachers tried to impart that this is mainly a macho, modernist idea.

In Fine Art, the modernist period was something fairly specific. To sum it up all too briefly, modernism in painting was "paintings with the subject matter of paint". You weren't painting a still-life of an apple: you were painting red paint. As an example, think of something by Rothko, or Pollock. Giant humongous canvases, covered usually in a couple of dominating colours. There was a lot of baggage that went along with this type of work, including that they should not ideally be viewed as reproductions.

Post-modernism in the fine art world, was (again, gross oversimplification) about deconstructing those modernist ideals of pure paint and pure sculpture, and of overthrowing the unique. A post-modern piece of art could contain both a painting and sculpture adjacent as one piece. Take that, modernist!

To look at one example, modernist Charles Demuth created the painting Figure Five in Gold, (1928). Classic Modernism, interplay of colour over a familiar, somewhat random symbol (5) we all know. It's distinct, and certainly was in '28.

Post-modern painter Robert Indiana created this painting,The Figure Five, (1963) as a way of overthrowing the originality of Demuth's Five. He disrupted the original by Demuth's claim to importance by making it one of many instead of unique. I see it as kind of a fine art world version of "screw you".


So paintings may have an aura you can only feel in the presence of the actual artwork, not a reproduction? Not likely. This smacks of vague New Age-y feelings-as-fact. I wondered about this idea for a long time. An exhibit, entitled 7 Florentine Heads came to the Art Gallery of Ontario, and I remember there was to be a Da Vinci drawing included. When I saw it, I anticipated the moment. I frickin' love Da Vinci, and his interest in science as well as his sfumato technique. I looked at each drawing in turn. Looked at one, read the placard, and saw it was his. I got an involuntary shiver down my back. Was it the aura?

Even back then in my proto-skeptical days, I knew there wasn't. I only felt it's "specialness" after reading who it was by. Looking only at the drawing, I saw another example of excellent work by a Renaissance artist. Context mattered to the aura, it seemed. Which brings me to addressing the photos of posters peppered throughout this post. Is one of the differences between an illustrator and a fine artist -at least, a modernist one- how they feel about a painting's uniqueness and supremacy of being the original?

Recently, the artist (and good friend of mine) Christopher Zenga took his artwork online for the first time. And when discussing how the first couple of posts about his Zombears looked glowing off of the computer screen, Chris remarked to me, that he just sat back and stared at them; he was entranced by his own artwork reproduced in a different medium.

Chris is right. I was elated for months looking at my paintings and drawings online, and knowing others might see something of value there. Do I have a fondness for the originals? Of course. Some are hanging in my living room. And yet there is an undeniable thrill to walk down the streets of Toronto and see a poster up with artwork I laboured over.
Starting with a discussion on the nature of art over at Laelaps, author of Renaissance Oaf Sean Craven has had a lot of excellent points about whether how to judge if a piece of artwork can be deemed "art".

I would put forth there is a difference between art created for the purpose of Illustration, and Fine Art, and a small part of that difference is in how the artist feels toward reproductions. The tingly feeling is enhanced when the image leaps forth to new media and many eyeballs.

The photos throughout this post were taken downtown at the University of Toronto campus, and are of my poster for the upcoming lecture by PZ Myers presented by the Centre for Inquiry Ontario.

- -
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.

Face the muses

In my university days, science and art seemed to be considered non-overlapping pursuits. So I tilted at windmills and would show up at class with drawings of trilobites and extinct fish. The first time I showed up at class with drawings of trilobites, my prof said, "ooo, I don't want any of those in my soup," and the critique was done.

(note to self: cool idea - trilobites crawling out of soup and menacing a professor)

Science is a muse. But why? I need to explore my fascination. I need to explore so I can understand the weird little niche I'm in right now. There is also the more immediate and exciting reason that I will be attending ScienceOnline'09, and co-moderating a couple of sessions.

One session I will be co-moderating -with the inimitable Jessica Palmer of Bioephemera!- is entitled Art and Science - online and offline. I've posted a few notes at the conference wiki, and Jessica and I will be developing and refining the beats of the group discussion over the next while.

I view the world of art mainly through the eye of a painter. I'm fairly specific in my aims most of the time (Payne's Grey here, Quinacradone Orange here). I like using modern scientific ideas and discoveries as visual symbols for ideas like love and death and whimsy, as religious and mythological symbols once did in the Renaissance. So my thoughts about how science intersects art will be starting from a fairly specific place. How far can I expand my perceptions?

Learning from other bloggers helps. Renaissance Oaf continues his series But Is It Art? and has an astute analysis of the importance of the market, whatever the style of art. Bond's Blog pondered the variations in illustrations of one dinosaur genus, and how to move forward with his own rendition. My incomplete image of Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle wound up on Infectious Greed, an economic blog, illustrating the perils of lousy analysis. Cocktail Party Physics looked at the question But Is It Art? and showcased some fascinating examples.

It can be all too easy to get wrapped up in an image and not stop to ponder why it is exciting to me. It's time to face the muses.

- -
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.

Neighbours, don't make Art into Orphans, eh?

Artwork in the land of my southern neighbours is in danger from the Orphan Works legislation. I'm not in the habit of asking members of another country to vote certain ways, but I'm concerned. I'll certainly give some neighbourly advice and point at something.

The legislation would provide the onus to be on the artists' to prove their work is not an "orphan" piece of art by registering everything. If a large ad firm or company used a piece of art without permission and made millions from the ad campaign, the artist would have to realise, and sue. If the company can be said to have "reasonably" searched for the original copyright holder and is not found guilty of infringing on copyright and merely using an "orphan work" than they would be granted permission. The problem is, the little guy or freelancer or up-and-coming-feisty studio would have a tough time defending every time their work was infringed.

I don't have all the answers, but time is running short. Educate yourself if you are concerned. If you are an artist reading this blog, or just someone who appreciates art, you may want to do some research and possibly sign this petition.



I'd like to quote Britt Griswold, one of the professionals I've learned a lot from in online forums (be sure to check out his Sci-Art Gallery!):

Dear Artists,
The Orphaned Works battle is on. The Illustrators Partnership of America, American Society of Illustrators Partnership, Advertising Photographers, and others, have set up an effective way to inform you on what these bills will do and give you the tools to write and contact you legislators. If you wish to protect your artistic work from theft and future legal costs, it is incumbent on you to speak out now.

Steps:
1. Go to this site:http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/

2. Read the synopsis of the legislation at the bottom of the page; house bill first.

3. Read all the variations of the letters you can send (if you can stand it). They will give you a better understanding of how to address the issues.

4. Get mad

5. You can send one of the pre-written letters by email, but this will be less effective than a customized letter that shows you know and really care about this issue. To customize a response, copy and paste the bits of the various letter that address the way you feel.

6. Compose them into a personalized version in a word processor.

7. Either paste the appropriate wording back into one of the customized letter forms provided, or get the fax numbers of your representatives and fax a full letter to them for maximum impact.

8. Do it now.Go here to find your house representative.
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml write them a letter.
Go here to find your Senator contact numbers:http://www.senate.gov/(there is a senator finder at the top of the page.)

Go to this website to find a link for an email or mailing address contact for House Judiciary Committee members.http://judiciary.house.gov/fullcommittee.aspx
Find one that is in or near your State. Write them.

Go to this address for members of the Intellectual Property subcommittee.http://judiciary.house.gov/committeestructure.aspx?committee=3
Find one that is in or near your State. Write them.
- - -
If you read The Flying Trilobite because you love science-inspired artwork, head over to the Science-Art Galleries, and consider a donation after looking at the wonders of the planet recorded by these most talented and informative hominids. (Hat-tip to all the hard-working scientific illustrators trying to stop this legislation. )
- -
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.

The Boneyard XXI - Art Class

Welcome to the 21st edition of The Boneyard, here today at The Flying Trilobite! Today we will be looking at scientific illustration, cartoons, and paleo-related concept art.

The Field Trip

Has everyone got their willow-charcoal for sketches? Craig, I assume your laptop has batteries? Today we will begin our paleo-art lesson by venturing into the field. This is, after all, where we receive our inspiration. Make sure to wear sunscreen.

You cannot paint before you understand how to draw, and you cannot run before you can walk. Greg Laden tells us about a recently discovered Arabian dinosaur trackway. Make sure to follow the contours of the footprints with your eyes, dragging your charcoal lightly across the paper.

Trackways can teach more than contours. For those of you studying scientific illustration, remember not to let your eyes trick you into seeing what is not there. Brian at Laelaps has a cautionary tale about seeing evidence for giants instead of fossil sloth tracks. Giantologists reading this, please pursue the link immediately. To see a rendition of a species possibly related to the track-maker, be sure to have a look at master paleo-artist Carl Buell's Paramylodon.

Does everyone remember their elementary school readings from CRAM Science? Good.

Let the science teach you to be creative. Ah, excellent work, Microecos. The recent paper on azhdarchid pterosaurs by Witten & Naish has sparked a comparison from Microecos from pterosaur to current technology.

Sometimes it can be important to understand the scale of creatures from the prehistoric past. This life-sized statue of a stegosaurus - Jacqueline! Get down from there!

Now before we begin presentations, use your #2 HB pencils, and have your say at DinoBase's own David Hone's blog, and fill out this survey about "the state of palaeontology today". Introduction here, issues here, introduction to the survey here, and answers appearing here.

The Presentation
(In many cases, you may click on the artwork on the posts below to see the paleoart in a larger size.)

Let's begin the presentations at the end. Marek Eby of eTrilobite has captured the melancholy of the K-T event. Further back in time, the irascible Walcott is worried in Walcott's Quarry: The End is Nigh! And support paleo-art dinosaur news by visiting the eTrilobite store, and pick-up some happenin' threads.

At Bond's Blog, we have a lucid step-by-step presentation by Peter Bond on rendering a megalosaur, the final version seen at right. Thanks to Peter for allowing me to use the image! The image was created, along with a sauropod and medium theropod for Traumador the Tyrannosaur's post on dinosaurs of New Zealand.

The terror of the ancient seas swoops through Prehistoric Insanity. Craig Dylke struts his digital stuff in the latest peek of his Art of the Unspecified Time Interval. A realistic digital anomalocaris is difficult to pull off, but Craig took it many steps further and has placed it in its natural habitat, with some lovely filters to give it that undersea sense of depth. And be sure to check out Craig's spectacular trilobites, rendered with the scrapes and scratches their little carapaces must have had in life. See them here, here, and here.

Triloblog features the works of Laura Passow using Viking artistic techniques to create amazing specimens of the prolific vanguard of evolution by natural selection. The Bug Factory contains many past posts of the artist's impressive sculptures.

What is it about stegosaurs and car jokes? Charley Parker's Dinosaur Cartoons are not to be missed, complete with lessons!

Jacqueline Rae's Indohyus , published in Nature, appears furtive at the edge of the shore. Be sure to check out the rest of this versatile scientific illustrator's gallery.

N. Tamura's latest, a ferocious Paraphysornis is painted in predatory detail.

Zach of When Pigs Fly Returns continues to illustrate Mesozoic marine predators with an economy of line, making clear the bone structure of askeptosaurus and others from the fossil matrix.

Sometimes, I find paleoart so beautiful, I can't pick a favourite. Scientific Illustrator Emily Damstra paints vivid illustrations of the wonders of the natural world. It was tough to pick one -perhaps this smoothly-blended tornoceras ammonoid?-, so go visit her whole invertebrate gallery.

The Boneyard's groundskeeper Brian featured this interview with scientific illustrator Michael Skrepnick. In addition to providing the banner at Laelaps, Michael's artwork has recently been flung far and wide for his evocative image of the newly discovered "frogamander", gerobatrachus, a transitional fossil between modern frogs and salamanders. However, Lim at Fresh Brainz reckons we've seen another creature related to this ancestral-amphibian.

The Critique
I have a final piece to submit for your criticisms, witticisms and tomatoes.

The past while here at The Flying Trilobite, I've been posting a work-in-progress of a puzzle. The painting is in oil on shale. It is inspired by biologist John Burden Sanderson Haldane's infamous quote, when pressed by a creationist about what Haldane thought could falsify the fossil record. Haldane's reply; "Fossil rabbits in the precambrian."

The piece is finished. Below are the two possible configurations for the 9-piece shale puzzle I have entitled, Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle. Apologies for the weird angle: with the oils still wet it was difficult to photo without picking up a lot of glare.

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle: False Rabbit Configuration

Haldane's Precambrian Puzzle: True Trilobite Configuration

Comments? Have I made it too ambiguous as to which one is true and which false?
- -
A thank-you to the suggestions and posts and brilliant work of the scientists who discover all the wondrous things of the past, and the artists who imbue them with wonder. If you're a palaeontologist working on the next big or feathered thing, perhaps you will consider one of the stellar artists above to illustrate a future paper.

I hope you've enjoyed this artsy edition of The Boneyard.
-Glendon Mellow
- -
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.