Art Monday: Ammonite Flax Flower

Image available in The Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop, from greeting cards to framed prints. A variation of this image was originally seen as part of the Sowing Seeds & Fossils series.
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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 ***

Flying Trilobite 2010 Calendar now available!

A little peek!


This is a whole new collection of artwork I've put together. I'm really proud of this one, and it has a few images not previously available. Click on the few I've included below, and you can click through the entire calendar at my RedBubble site.

April: December: Back Cover:
I loved the print quality of the 2009 calendar by RedBubble. They accept payment in many currencies, Canadian, U.S., Australian, U.K., and Euros. If you missed it, you can also purchase last year's calendar, with the dates revised for 2010!

It's a great a relatively inexpensive way to own a lot of Flying Trilobite artwork. Impress and weird out your friends, co-workers and labmates.

Both calendar collections can easily be found 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 ***

Asthma Incubus II progress

Progress so far on my new version of Asthma Incubus. Click to enlarge.

The original drawing from a few years ago:

A background to inspire the mood, painted in ArtRage using my Wacom Intuos 3 tablet:

I've hidden the background here so I don't distract myself while I play with the details. Using paint, metallic paint, airbrush and pencil tools. Mainly focusing on the Asthma Incubus itself:


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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 ***

Happy Origin Day!

Happy Origin Day!

150 years ago, Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was originally published. It's like a science-blogohedron holiday today - wonderful links and commentary everywhere.

Why not read a few links, become inspired about science education, and perhaps make a donation to the Beagle Project?


Darwin Took Steps, above, will be shown to a new audience in 2010. As part of Casa de las Ciencias 2010 Darwin exhibit, a reproduction of my painting will be shown as part of a display about how Darwin is still making waves in visual media. I'm completely thrilled! My first museum exhibit, and in Spain no less! I have never been to Europe, and Michelle thinks next summer would be the perfect time to head to Spain. Good idea. The building itself is beautiful, and they have a great logo for their Darwin year. (Museum photo from Wikipedia.)

This painting is piling up a nice c.v. of its own - debuting on The Eloquent Atheist, shown on the cover of Secular Nation, the book cover of La Mente di Darwin, as part of the book cover for Open Laboratory 2008 - and hopefully, it will continue to intrigue new viewers to learn about Charles Darwin and his wonderful writing.

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If you like this image, it's available as matted prints, greeting cards and t-shirts in my reproduction shop. A portion of the profits goes in support of The Beagle Project.

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

Art Monday: Anthropometry

Anthropometry

Close up of left side: Close up of right side:Click each to enlarge.

The text on the right hand glove says:

"It follows also, that no vain or selfish person can possibly paint, in the noble sense of the word."
-from Modern Painters by John Ruskin Vol.5, E.P. Dutton & Co. (no date on colophon) .

"When the pupils can make from the figure rapid pencil sketches showing good action and good proportion, they may be allowed to indicate the features in a very simple way. "
-from the Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Art, Toronto, William Briggs, 1916, 1918 edition.

The assignment was to discuss sexuality, body image, eroticism, beauty or any combination of these. I decided to go for body image and perfection from a different angle. Anthropometry seemed appropriate.

After some discussion with Felice Frankel about our upcoming ScienceOnline2010 session, my mind has been ticking about the way scientific visualizations and scientific illustrations create their own standards, holotypes and "perfect" images, as well as how artists have done the same. From da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, to laws of the body being 7.5 heads high (or whatever), artists have been using these semi-arbitrary rules for perfect drawing for as long as there has been clay and fingers to smudge it with.

India Ink, pencil, and sanguine brush marker drawing on hygienic latex gloves. Glued to stretcher bars and backlit. Copyright Glendon Mellow 2009.

Some of the rough work can be seen 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 ***

Art Monday: Trilobite Tree

Trilobite Tree

Since I am under more deadline pressure than usual, please enjoy this little drawing originally shown on The Flying Trilobite back in June of 2007. Lots of work is happening behind the curtains right now, just like on The Muppet Show. Only imagine Kermit trying to get some painting done while Gonzo rounds up chickens and Fozzie sets fire to the stage. Life is like that sometimes.

Need more sleep. But first must draw anatomy on stretched surgical gloves.


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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 ***

Some sketchy sketches

Here's a few things I've been working on.

Sketches for my class. The topic is body image. Pop culture and sexuality is popular as a topic, but I thought I'd tackle anthropometry and perfect proportions for the artist. Lots of nodding at Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man here.

With how my lungs have been feeling lately, I thought I'd revisit my Asthma Incubus drawing from a few years back, and dive into ArtRage a bit more. This is not even close to done: the figure is on a separate layer so I can delete it after I paint them in properly.

There's also a new Steampunk Trilocopter on the way, with larger, Opipeuterella-ian eyes for the cockpit.
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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 ***

Tra-la-la-lalobite! Cards for the holidays!

Available now in The Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop!

A fossil Encrinurus trilobite, tastily bedecked for the holidays! Makes a great Holiday card for the geeky paleo-loving set. Like me.

Choose white or black side panels, and blank inside so you can write your own message.

Suggested interior: "Tra-la-la-la-lobite!"

Available in Canadian, U.S., Australian, U.K. and European funds. Produced by the fine folks at RedBubble. The original is oil on canvas with some digital flourishes.

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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 ***

Art Monday: Lights portrait series

This is the series Lights I began for my drawing course at York. Our project was to draw between 5 and 30 heads. The idea and compositions I set for myself are fairly simple. Draw portraits of living biologists, each with a light source on their heads, and incorporating a double helix form.

I've shown Richard Dawkins and Craig Venter before here, and Jane Goodall here. This time I've included Eugenie Scott and Jerry Coyne.

Jerry Coyne.Eugenie Scott.
Jane Goodall.
Craig Venter & Richard Dawkins. (I couldn't resist one of my DNA Candles on Dawkins!)

I think of these more as sketches now. All I can see are their flaws.
-Richard Dawkins needs to be re-done, with his head turned to a three-quarter view.
-I made Craig Venter's face too interesting (though it was by far the most popular with my class.)
-Eugenie Scott's hair looks too dark. I tried to use the books to show education and poise.
-I think I need to re-work all of Jerry Coyne's piece. I like the firefly, kinda. The rendering is too rough.
-Jane Goodall's I am happy with the portrait - very happy - but it's hard to make out the helix-gorilla looking down behind her.

Damn, it was an arrogant thing to sit down and expect myself to polish off decent portraits (of people I admire!) in a couple of weeks, in my spare time. Not sure what I was thinking. It wasn't until the last one that I realized this was kind of a folly.

I'm posting these perhaps as some insight into my thought processes. The York University motto is "The way must be tried."

So, um, there.

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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 ***

Tripping over art while wandering online

Some things that caught my eye despite the busy-ness and the drawing and the screaming and crying and mm-hey.

-The Sauropod Gallery over at Art Evolved launched last week, and as expected those cuddly lumbering giants brought out the best in some of today's hottest young paleo-artists. The diversity of animals in this group of dinosaurs is matched by the many many styles.

-Macabre artist Chris Zenga of The Day After has reached his 100th post and launched a new series of artwork based on the Day of the Dead festival. This stuff is pretty amazing, and lies somewhere between tattoo linework and cartoon art.

-Artist extraordinaire Leslie Hawes decided a while back to do one drawing every day for a month. Well, she's just finished month two! Holy monkey. Beautiful little moments of life.

-Nature artist Heather Ward has added a new calendar of her jaw-dropping renderings from the animal kingdom. My favourite is whenever she draws an ape, and the massive coral reef is not to be missed!

-Renaissance Oaf and his new series examining art and its failings, as well as his own direction. Toward Pretensionism is essential reading.

-One of my favourite slideshows about the internet. Most marketers don't seem to understand any of this. Shown at A Blog Around the Clock.

-An artist stands up for his principles. The story of Bill Viola turning down the Pope at ArtInfo.

-My fellow Torontonians will love the sketches by recent artist-transplant Morena P at I pocci della Morry.

-I discovered this blogger after they discovered me following the Blog of Note excitement over the past couple of weeks. Check out Idegenszövet blog (it's in Hungarian) for all sorts of amazing science-art.


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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 ***

Art Monday: Seed Fossil Flax Flower

A detail view of one of the underlying drawings from my project, Sowing Seeds & Fossils.


The text written on drafting film in the image below says,

a. Nutrient- rich shell yields dark oil when pressed.
b. Flowers have ammolite-sheen on stalks, esp. at base.
c. Pleasing to my eye. I hope transfer works onto pumice.
d. Observed to crawl blindly up the sides of buildings to eavestroughs.

You can see the project and all it's layers 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 ***