Trilobite Boy: The Escape -sketch

                                 

Need to get back into my groove. Here's a new Trilobite Boy piece I'm working on. Long way to go. 

ArtRage for iPad with Intuos Stylus. 

Trilobite Boy face

Trilobite Boy work-in-progress. Messing with my Intuos Creative Stylus and ArtRage for iPad. 

                    

                                 

Should have a review up on Symbiartic about the stylus next week! 

Pressure Sensitivity

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
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Finally!

This is as exciting (I hope) as when I switched from watercolour to oil paint. 

Works with ArtRage on my iPad. Thanks Vistek for the special order! 

Autumn Ent, coming along

                                 

Bit more done on this Autumn Ent during my lunch break today. 

Pencil on Moleskine, painted with ArtRage for iPad. 

Aaaaaalmost where I want it. 

The Unfinished Pumpkin

                    

Here's the Jack O'Lantern sketch I didn't finish this week. Ah well. 

Took the two year old out for a Hallowe'en last night. "Let's go to the next spooky house!" The. Best. Time. 

Above sketch done on my iPad using Sketch Club. 

Trilobite Boy through the eyes of Eric Orchard

I think this is the first time in my life I have ever commissioned a painting. And I'm stunned by its strange and wonderful otherness. Go check out my character Trilobite Boy as painted by award winning illustrator and my good friend Eric Orchard. 

On Symbiartic, the art and science blog on Scientific American. 

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic/2013/10/26/trilobite-boy-by-eric-orchard/

Quick self portrait

                    

                     

A quick self portrait. Sketch Club on iPad. 

Apparently that's not my good side. Hopefully this will get easier with a stylus instead of my finger. 

I like this part, though: 

                    

New custom Flying Trilobite iPad case

Those designs I was playing with recently were for a custom iPad case for my new iPad. 

                    

Arrived today. RedBubble does such great work. 

Here's the design itself.

                            

 I wanted something a little more subtle than the bright saturated colours of my iPhone case. Very happy with this. 

Are there any other designs from glendonmellow.com you'd like to see as an iPad case? 

This is why

This is why I bought myself an iPad last week.

            

ArtRage is so satisfying. Can't wait to get the Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus to go with it! 

Finally joining the future

Bought an iPad. Can't wait to get a Wacom Intuos Creative Stylus next: you can bet I'll review it on Symbiartic on Scientific American! 

        

Playing with a logo-style design

Playing with a new logo-style design. Whaddaya think? 

Trilobite Boy face sketch

Took some time on this before work today. Trilobite Boy face in pencil, to be digitally painted later. 

Should he be wearing a necktie? Denim jacket? Why am I getting a "Robert Smith for The Cure" vibe off of this? 

Drawing Ovals and Triangles With Your Host, Calvin

He's currently 2 and half. 

I'm currently very proud.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Knowledge Pupates [wip]

Lately I need a warm-up to get back into my commissions, so I've been spending a few minutes here and there with this old drawing, re-painting it with ArtRage. I think the pencils are about 15 years old.

It might appear on Symbiartic in its final form. 

The ebook I have planned will likely be this style, or something close to it. Pieces like this help me think about it.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Ent in Autumn, work-in-progress

Worked on this some more this evening while waiting for my son to fall asleep. Kid has such an imagination.

Not done yet. Pencil, imported into my iPhone 4 and painted with the Sketch Club app. 

That Little Glow

Just sent final art off to a client. Feels good to have accomplished some illustration work before 7am on a Monday. That Little Glow. 

It isn't the pic below though: can't show everyone yet!

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the Scientific American Blog Network!

Playing with Watery Trilobites

Been really enjoying painting with my new ArtRage 4 - and I find myself just addicted to messing with the images with various filters in the Halftone app afterward. 

So, that painting I made the other night when I couldn't sleep?  This one?

Yeah; underneath some of the layers it actually started out as more of just a watercolour. 

The shape is a bit different because I painted two layers and then hid this one.

And then I decided to email it to myself, save to my iPhone and play with it in Halftone. 

Here's some watery trilobites. 

I've really been enjoying black, grey and stark white images lately. 

If you haven't tried ArtRage before, I highly recommend it: the watercolours and inks have me hooked and the oil mixing is amazing. Perfect for traditional painters making a transition to digital. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Distressed and Fit for a Saloon

Playing with ArtRage 4. Then run through the Halftone app for a filter I like.

A Flying Trilobite for 2013. 

How to Destroy Priceless Works of Art is no 1

Totally blogging about this. 

My recent post over at Symbiartic, How to Destroy Priceless Works of Art is currently sitting at the number 1 most read post on the network. 

 Go read it!

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

In university I was asked regularly what I was smoking or doing to come up with ideas in my paintings. 

Answer was I was reading biology. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Trilobite Boy has cracks in his fossil face

Instead of acne, suffers from fissures in his fossil face. Start of a new sketch on my work break. 

Regaining That Edge

The eternal debate. After the toddler is good and asleep, do I stay up late and work on contracts? Or get up extra early in the morning? 

Mug design by Glendon Mellow, commissioned by Scicurious

Back when I worked at the art store (before the kid) I would get up around 5a.m. and make art or blog. Then, I'd be thinking about what I had worked on all day and I'd feel good about it. But something happened after being a stay at home dad for almost a year. I've become a night person. An ineffective, exhausted, but can't-get-to-sleep night person. 

So I needed something stronger than coffee to help. Something to help me regain that edge.

That's right: two coffees. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the Scientific American Blog Network!

A Few Flying Trilobite Facebook Stats

After The Flying Trilobite reached 600+ Likes on Facebook recently, I thought I'd take a look at some of the stats. 

Click to enlarge. As of 9 June 2013.

The stat I like best is that among my most popular age range, 25-34 year olds, the gender divide is pretty close to even. Nice to know my niche paintings are close to gender neutral in appeal. 

Another stat you don't see here, is that though I currently have 580+ friends on Facebook, only 191 of them also Like the art page. For a long time, I've mostly posted separate items on the wall, saving the double-posts for ones I found the most important. Now I'm not so sure if I should bother. Maybe I'll post things at different times of day so it's less repetition in people's streams (though they could silence one or the other). 

Facebook is also giving me $50 of advertising money since I hit 600 Likes: not sure yet what I'll do with it. See if I can post an animated gif of a flying trilobite being swatted with a flyswatter? 

What is it readers like about the page?  Let me know! 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the Scientific American Blog Network!

Tip-Top Steam-Powered Robot

Pencil drawing painted on my iPhone 4 with Sketch Club. I think this one is complete now. 

Trilobite Boy Leaping

Quick lunchtime sketch 

Trilobite Boys - Big Plans, Little Brains

A real birthday treat! 

Morgan Jackson, sent me this wonderful mash-up via Twitter this morning:

He even dug deep into my bloggy archives and included Ana and her pet Opabinia! 

Thanks Morgan!  Funny stuff. And yeah, his Trilobite Boy's (or should I call him T-Boy?  Seems more appropriate) habit of wearing white tanks fits in perfectly. I'll have to illustrate him in plaid next. 

Love this. 

Old Timey Art in Awe of Science

Bunch of Maggots

Quick lousy sketch after listening to a lousy radio program by Toronto's Mayor. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Smudgy Clouds and Art Conventions

Sometimes real life looks kind of fake. Or it would if you tried to paint it. Lurid pink, purple and orange sunsets. Up close detail of tree bark. 

Or this morning's low hanging clouds over Toronto. They look like poor use of the Photoshop smudge tool. 

When painting, we sometimes stick to conventions based on viewer expectation instead of what nature actually looks like. It's rooted in the same impulse that children use when always picking blue for colouring skies even though in they may just as often be grey. 

1st Astronaut Hero

Our son Calvin, age 2, watching Commander Hadfield sing Bowie's Space Oddity a few hours before touchdown. 

Calvin tried to sing along about "he puts on his helmet" and "big giant Jupiter in the sky-y-y..."

Stegoceras sketch ii

Refined this sketch a little more on my lunch break today. Getting me warmed up for a late night binge of drawing commissions.

Bora Zivkovic to Visit Toronto

The Blogfather himself, Bora Zivkovic of Scientific American, ScienceOnline, OpenLab and circadian-rhythm-awesomeness is coming to Toronto next week!

Bora will be giving a talk at my alma mater York University, about Science and the New Media Ecosystem from 2:00-3:30. 

Here's the deets:

Science and the New Media Ecosystem

Bora Zivkovic, Blog Editor at Scientific American
Monday, May 6, 2013, 2:00 – 3:30 pm
Paul Delaney Gallery, Room 320, Bethune College
York University, Toronto Map
Abstract: The whole media landscape is shifting and changing – newspapers on the decline with blogs, Twitter and YouTube on the rise.
Science is no different. Come listen to one of the pioneers of online science communication talk about how this new media landscape is shaping how science is done, evaluated and communicated in an increasingly connected world.

John Dupuis, the Science Librarian with Bora Zivkovic from ScienceOnline2012.

There's also going to be a tweet-up Monday night! Check out the Facebook page, and here's the info: Monday May 6th, 7pm Duke of York Tavern. Map. Thanks so much to John Dupuis for organizing these events, (and Romeo Vitelli for starting the FB page!)

Both events are open to the public. I'll be at the tweet-up for sure, so say hi to the guy with the winged trilobite tattoo on his arm!



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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Trilobite Boy - band poster

More goofing around with the Halftone app. Just need to put a date, time and venue on this one. 

From this original oil painting. 

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

Stupid Asthma

Asthma Incubus Distressed © Glendon Mellow 

Woke up at 4am because it hurts to breathe. Stupid asthma. 

A painting I did in ArtRage, run through a filter in the Halftone app. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Dimetrodon Sphinx, painted on my iPhone

Over the past few years, I've done more versions of this character and image than I can count. It's an exercise in poor background environment planning. These are no different. 

My idea for the Dimetrodon Sphinx goes back quite a ways, but at its root has to do with my love for blending mythology and prehistoric creatures, much like the chimaeric flying trilobites. If the Sphinx is an archetype of ancient tricks and wisdom, I thought a predatory dimetrodon is sufficiently old and strange enough to create a half-human with. I have some further ideas for her, and she'll be appearing in the ebook story I've started working on. 

So here are a couple of versions of my Dimetrodon Sphinx drawing painted using Sketch Club on my iPhone 4; square ones were put through Instagram afterward. 

Pleased with the sky in this one. 

Out of the four of them, I like this one best.  

See other versions here. 

Here's the drawing I started from. Should have taken the time on the iPhone to highlight her lizardy feet and human hands some more. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
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Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the Scientific American Blog Network!