Shhhh...it's gonna be okay.

It may be a little quieter around The Flying Trilobite for a couple of weeks. The second-half of my brain, my new HP Pavilion pc has lost it's mind. I bought it last August, and came home two days ago to discover hard drive failure. Although the 5 hours with 3 different HP phone support personnel gallantly tried to save things, it was not to be.

Most of our files are backed up (the rest of the zoo photos were not yet) so things should be back to normal after the Geek Squad at Best Buy finishes their work.

But will the new pc love me like the old one?
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Thankfully my wi-fi Bell Fibe modem and iPod Touch are there to keep me going in teeny touch-sensitive blogging.

There's an exciting post in the works for Monday next week of some very different art I completed recently. *wink wink*

Also, make sure to visit the site for the Southern Ontario Nature & Science Illustrators that we've been putting together. Lots of great science illustrators in the links!

And don't forget the Art Evolved icthyosaur gallery launches at the start of May!

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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 ***

All this time away from the pc should allow me to get a lot of oil painting done.

Art Monday: Life as a Trilobite

One of my personal favourite paintings. Click to enlarge. Below, detail views.

Life as a Trilobite Oil on canvas, early 2000's.
Detail view also available in my print shop as a greeting card or in a variety of fine art print formats. Originally debuted on The Flying Trilobite here. Tricky to photograph, as I poured stand oil over the surface giving it a mottled, organic look that reflects light strangely.

I'm working on some new images with a variation of this character called "Flying Trilobite Boy" - I'm adding wings.



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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 ***

Metro Toronto Zoo trip & Polar Tweets

Last weekend was "Teacher Day" at the Metro Toronto Zoo. Michelle could get in free, with one guest (yay me!) and we brought along our intrepid nephew to explore in wonder.

Though we had sketchbooks, we spent a beautiful 7+ hours going from sultry pavilion to spacious grassy enclosure to the marsh, just taking it all in and zooming in with a ton of photos. Sketching at the zoo is something I've only been able to do briefly.

Here are a fraction of the photos I hope to use as reference or digital textures some time. Though I've watermarked them with this blog url, I should note I think almost all of these were taken by my awesome wife Michelle. A bird we couldn't identify in the Indo-Malayan Pavilion. (Looking pointedly in GrrlScientist's and Dan Rhoads' directions...)


The air was still cool, (about 15C, if I recall) and many of the animals were really active.


Some of the rocks near the polar bear enclosure have trilobites carved in them, with an explanatory plaque describing the largest so far found, Isotelus.


Colours in nature are often far more bright and outlandish than a natural realist painter can get away with. One of the many peacocks that wanders the zoo.

The Neph seeing of this turtle responds to visual stimuli. (Nope.)


Even an accidentally blurry photo can be incredibly evocative to a painter's eye. Look at this seahorse in motion. Like something out of a Precambrian dream.


Look at the magnificent textures on that lovely face. A reminder from an elephant that an artist can never have too much detail. And there I go anthropomorphizing again. This elephant was making a subtle, powerful purring-clicking noise while she foraged on her own, as close to the humans and as far from the other elephants as could be.

The Metro Toronto Zoo also has a fascinating initiative involving Twitter, called Polar Tweets. You rescue a polar bear by creating ice out of words you tweet that are pro-sustainability and environmentally-friendly. The level of ice changes quite a bit during the course of the day. Like a socially-conscious NeoPet.

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

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

Art Monday: Subway Trilobite

Subway Trilobite
Digital, 2009.
Originally appeared here.

Done using the Brushes app on my iPod Touch while commuting by subway.

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

New 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

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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: Beetleman

Beetleman
Pencil on paper, around 1996, I think, despite that watermark.

This was my late grandmother's favourite drawing. Yeah, she was a fun person.

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

New objects gallery on glendonmellow.com

I've begun adding a new gallery to my main site, Glendon Mellow: Art in Awe of Science.

It focuses on the art objects I've made this year, from multiple views.

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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 ***

Medium overriding the message?

When presenting the final project of my undergrad here on The Flying Trilobite, (see the process here: one, two, three, four and five) some excellent points have been raised in the comments of the last post.

My Art Evolved peeps Craig and Peter have been discussing whether or not unconventional mediums (like a wooden cube with busted slate tiles painted and hanging from wire) end up muddying the message more than conventional, easier to read forms.

Here are a couple of more photos, different from the the last post in that they show off the individual paintings more:

Click to enlarge.

This picture was taken on a weird angle. Sorry.

It was an interesting experience for me to have some of my artwork turn off someone for being post-modern and medium-focused. Typically, I am a painter in love with creating representational, realistic paintings.

As Craig pointed out, the medium is the message. We see here not only a 3D series of paintings hanging in a cube, we see them through the lens of a camera and displayed on a computer screen. It's very removed from say, Darwin Took Steps, a much more 2D picture which translates better through scanning and being online.

How much can the presentation enhance or interfere? Would video of a 3D object present better online, panning, zooming and with soft techno music in the background? Would it be clearer to scan individual pieces and present them as head-on photos?

Is this presentation in the immortal words of Mo the bartender, "po-mo; postmodern; weird for the sake of weird" or is something more getting across?

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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 ***

Next time on The Flying Trilobite: my interpretive dance fossil project!

Final. Art. Project. *gasp*

Top view.

Front view.

More after the jump...

Art Monday: Hyperferrule

Hyperferrule
Pencil in my Moleskine, 2007.
A steampunk-inspired painting device; obviously it needs the latest in Linux hand-eye shareware.
Originally appeared on this post.
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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 ***