The Flying Trilobite

Print Shop

This contest is purely for entertainment purposes and fun. I won't be held liable for sciencey-artsy fun under any circumstances.
The winner's print will not originate from my online store: I will make it in my studio on museum-grade paper with standard inkjet ink.

Sunday, 13 February 2011

Darwin Day contest entries!

My thanks to everyone who tweeted and shared and especially entered my Darwin Day contest that I posted on Friday.

The contest was to provide a tweet-length (140 characters) commentary about my painting Darwin Took Steps - humour, poetry, insight all acceptable. Winner gets a signed print. It's science-history-surreal-portrait-art, it can be fun.

Here are all the entries. Brilliant stuff.

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Sorry, I didn't mean to stair. - Richard Carter, FCD.

Upon the heads of giants we will see yet further than we ever could on their shoulders. What new vistas will entice us from there. - Steampunk Professor

Lady GaGa claims “Origin of Species” inspired her latest outfit. “I think he took step classes.” she said, waving ‘The Tree’ at her fans. - Tommy

Oh good, the Pope declared Science as a work of God and that includes Evolution as well! #makingstrides -Thomas Stacey-Holmes

The biologist's stairway to heaven. - Morgan Jackson

Far-thinking fellow
Darwin placed atop the tree
Branch diversity

-nhigh

"I think.." that the tree of life branches out from a common root, climbing past Paley. - Mike Haubrich, FCD

Darwin took steps, many years ago, to unravel nature's ways. Now The Beagle continues to spark young minds to explore the land, the seas. - Eric Heupel

His idea paved the way, but some found themselves unwilling to ascend.his notional staircase. Those who did: awestruck, beyond description. - Adrian J. Ebsary

Preconceptions dropped away / As he stood atop Bartolome. / For Darwin, a glimpse of nature's plan: / Ascent of stairs, Descent of Man. - e_journeys

Although #Darwin Took Steps, Many Further Steps Have Been Made Since in Evolutionary Biology - The Dispersal of Darwin

Biology as a stairway still being built, as the tree of life still keeps growing. - soniahs

Progress is made by standing on the shoulders of giants; some giants provide more than their shoulders, expanding our minds with new ideas! - Morgan Jackson

"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the stairs coming out of the heads of giants." -Arvind

Looking at the variety of head shapes, it seems incredible that all of these Darwins evolved from a common ancestor. - Joseph Hewitt

the stairway to evolution - Kyle Gillespie

Darwin got his idea for "Descent of Man" one day when someone walked down the stairs and slid down his forehead. - coturnix

Crap! Uh, Darwin's cool, had a good head of stairs! On his shoulders! - ScottE

There's a guy who’s sure trilobites really fly
And he's building a stairway to heaven.
When he gets there, he's humble even though he likes scumble
With a word he built it on Darwin's head.
-Creech

"The Theory of Evolution isn't just a step up from Special Creation. It's the whole flight." Lou FCD

"I think... I may have to see a doctor." - Mo Hassan

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See? Gonna be tough.

Winner announced soon!

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow

under Creative Commons Licence.

Friday, 11 February 2011

Darwin Day contest!

Several weeks ago, I began working on a new painting for Darwin Day. However, with other deadlines looming and and still being awestruck by the existence of my newborn son, the new Darwin painting isn't near finished.

But let this day not go unmarked at The Flying Trilobite! Time for a contest.

Write something about my Darwin Took Steps image in 140 characters or less (the same size as a Twitter tweet). It could be a fictional quote, a line of poetry, something to do with The Beagle or evolution by natural selection. Will you focus on the stairs? The beard? The tree of life? A comical way he got a staircase on his head? A knock-knock joke? I'll leave it fairly open-ended. Amuse me.

Contest closes at 12:01 am eastern standard time February 13th 2011 and I'll post the winner on the blog that Sunday. Multiple entries allowed, but they cannot be a series. A whole thought in one 140 character entry.

Entries should be submitted as a comment on this post on my blog, not on my Facebook or Twitter or other rss feed related places.

The winner will receive a signed Darwin Took Steps print in snail mail. Remember, you can also order this print in a variety of ways from my online store, and a portion of the profit goes to The Beagle Project.

Merry Darwin Day!

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

Wednesday, 9 February 2011

Scumble #12

Scumble:

"A painting technique in which semi-opaque or thin opaque colors are loosely brushed over an underpainted area so that patches of the color beneath show through."

From The Artist's Handbook, by Ray Smith.

A semi-weekly highlight of some of posts I found interesting, most provocative, or otherwise caught my eye from the Science Artists Feed, and other sources. Higher than normal number of posts emanating from here in Toronto this edition. Sit back, have a finely ground coffee and enjoy.

Click here for earlier Scumbles.
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3-D Paintings on Panes of Glass, Visual News. Hat-tip to Lucy Walsh.

Tripping the light fantastic, Cocktail Party Physics.

Visceral Curator: making art out of living tissue, Amanda Gefter interviews Oron Catts, CultureLab.

The house that math built, Katie Daubs, Toronto Star.

More ROM sketches, Sketchkrieg!

ROM! (Royal Ontario Museum), Jesse Graham Illustration.

Louis Kahn and Travertine, Stories in Stone. Geometry and architecture.

Wikipedia Color Resources, lines and color.

Engravings of Darwin by Meredith Nugent, The Dispersal of Darwin.

Unnatural Selection: this anti-intellectual flashes back to the first time she fell in love with the rest of the 4-atom world, Hybrids of Art and Science.
Van Gogh's Color Schemes Served as Pie Charts, Gurney Journey.

Kinetica Art Fair: Zoo of the Future, Sci Art Sci.
WIP - Wolf, Heather Ward Wildlife Art. There's always something haunting about Ward's works in progress: the hyper-real detail and empty negative space.
Neuroscientists try to unlock origins of creativity, Anne McIlroy, The Globe and Mail.

Colourblind fix for iPhone, An Eye for Science.

Plasma Accelerator Plume, Fresh Photons.

Students Overcome Their Fear of Drawing in the Botany Lab, ArtPlantae Today.

Boo - Kathrun Chorney's Eurasian Eagle Owl, SONSI.

Why I don't like Tumblr: mystery cephalopod islands, The Flying Trilobite.

Grow Up, drip. Funny cartoon for scientific illustrators.

Finally, if I had to pick a link that wins the Scumble this week, it would be this one:

How many bytes in a trilobite? archy.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow

under Creative Commons Licence.

Tuesday, 8 February 2011

Why I don't like Tumblr: mystery cephalopod islands

While preparing the latest Scumble round-up of science-art, I wanted to include this amazing image:

It was "liked" and shared via Google Reader from someone I follow. Note, there's no visible signature on the image. It was shared from here, a Tumblr blog, and it looks like it originally was posted here.

My purpose here is not to single out this specific Tumblr blogger. Tumblr makes it easy to reblog an image, even one that has no attribution to its original creator. And this very cool surreal image of an island town built on an octopus has been reblogged and liked 535 times. Without the artist getting any credit at all.

The problem is not the Tumblr software, it's the culture of re-posting without respect to the image creators that has developed on Tumblr. It's so quick, most people posting images don't write anything at all, no title for their post, no comments on why they liked it, nothing.

There is some hope that this disrespect is recognized in the Tumblr community: Reblogged To Give Credit seem sto care. (Check out the url.) There are others too.

As readers of The Flying Trilobite know, I sometimes advocate for better image attribution on blogs. It's a problem. Images are treated as important and noteworthy, but their creators are often treated as unimportant and worthless.

I realize I am being a hypocrite for re-posting this image yet again - indeed, in the past I've parted ways with my Art Evolved peeps on whether or not it's a good idea to post unattributed images in the hopes of repatriating their ownership. But I thought I would try to re-post it the same way Art Evolved does on occasion: in the hopes of finding out from my readership if anyone knows who the talented artist is behind it. So far, my Google-fu fails me. I've tried "octopus island", "cephalopod fantasy painting" and about 10 other combinations, and no luck.

One of the Tumblr blogs had an interesting link I hadn't seen before: to a site called TinEye which searches for images and tells you where their being used. I put Darwin Took Steps into it, and TinEye matched the image to me as the most likely source.
Unfortunately, no joy for the Octopus Island.

Anyone recognize the artist behind this?
Any other artists find more trouble with Tumblr than other platforms?

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

Monday, 7 February 2011

Art Monday: Dimetrodon Sphinx wip

This work in progress is one I'm using as a warm-up while working on contracts. Click to enlarge the screen-capture.

I'm getting better at painting while holding the baby. With analog oils, it would be impossible - brush cleaning, mixing, squeezing tubes- but digital works just fine. I really appreciate the weight of my Wacom Intuos 3 tablet right now, it stays put on the desk.

There's something about ArtRage I'm still learning to overcome: it's way too easy to get lost in too much texture, without letting the eye breathe. In analog ("real") oil painting, some linseed on a fan brush, and I'd just blend it all away. In ArtRage 2.5, I really haven't found an effective way to do this yet. Perhaps lots of thinner on a pale colour, low opacity? Using the palette knife tool sometimes comes close to what I want.

I wonder if that type of blending is easier in ArtRage 3.0. Can't wait to get my hands on that program.

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