My painting of Rob Ford. Still crumbling, hollow, unfinished. #TOpoli pic.twitter.com/h6YlfI1QdX
— Glendon Mellow (@FlyingTrilobite) February 26, 2014
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.
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| John Dupuis, the Science Librarian with Bora Zivkovic from ScienceOnline2012. |
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| © Glendon Mellow - glendonmellow.com. Under CCL. |
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| The SONSI group at the marsh. |
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| Leopard frog. Lots of tadpoles around. |
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| Red-eared slider ignoring us in the sun. |
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| I managed to spot a heron pretty far away. |
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| Photos are great for future illustration reference. |
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| Perfect day. I stood here sketching reeds. |
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| Swans heading back to their nest on a small island in the marsh. |
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. 
I put three pieces in the show, and attempted to sell three others. Admittedly. turnout was slim, and most of the other artists were not there. This could have been because the gallery show was part of a larger conference with a big attending fee, and it wasn't clear anyone could attend the free gallery show - I couldn't figure it out from the website, and asked someone the day-of. Not to grumble overmuch - the people in attendance were interesting and we had a nice evening.
Michelle joined me, and we had a great time, met some interesting people including artist Karyn Wong and her boyfriend Jacob. Karyn's work is pretty fantastic stuff (digital fairies!) so make sure to check it out.
11:00 am - 12:30 pm - Panel 2: Science and Art
Can art be turned into a science? Can science be turned into an art? How do science and art influence each other? Plus, we'll explore the intersection of art and design with science and technology.
* Paula Gardner, The Portage Project: Material meets Digital in Mobile Experience
* Roshelle Filart, Selling Science to the Public
* CFI Conference Art Exhibitors, featuring Glendon Mellow, "Art in Awe of Science"
Artist-writer-oaf Sean Craven of Renaissance Oaf and I have talked about how fascinating it is to peek inside another creative person's studio space. To quote Sean, "I'm always fascinated by the workspaces of creative types. The factories of the culture industry, the monastic hives of the culturally isolated, closets and couches as well as studios or arts centers."
I don't have a lot of photos of the outside of the studio. Here's one from a couple of year's back. It's behind my holiday smile. Weird colours in that photo. The walls are actually more neutral blue-green.
I also sometimes pour stand oil, a thick-as-honey heated linseed oil on top of my finished paintings, like the diatom fairy painting in the foreground. Gives it a mottled, glossy surface. 
Our home has books in almost every room. Like Bond, I like to have some inspiration and reference close at hand. The bright blue book below the awesome Art S. Buck mannequins and Precambrian toys is my mother's original nursing anatomy book. Books on concept art, atheism, science and art techniques all sit hand in hand on there. And Twisted Toyfare Theatre tends to creep in sometimes. 
For a while, Sara was going to be a hipster-photo-blogger of the kind that dwells on West Queen West here in Toronto, but the spray painted tag added a lot of colour. I drew that using my favourite india ink-brush pen, and erased all the pencilly-bits. A thick black pen (I use Faber-Castell's Pitt pens) like this can be great for quickly dropping in digital paint in Photoshop.
I created the background using some rocks I scanned for texture, and embossed them to go with the light direction. With a digital hard brush I spattered paint in yellow-greens. Then, I added a medium-opacity white stucco to the wall.
The oil painting. Completed in about 6 hours while listening to M.I.A., Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails and the new Lily Allen cd. I arrived at her name by thinking about Sara from ceratopsian, Chasm from chasmosaurus, and together they both sound a bit like sarcasm.
After scanning the wet oil painting, there had to be a lot of clean-up. Using levels, I colour-corrected the blacks and whites. I tried to erase and blur the edges a bit to help it blend into the background.
Finally, a bit of lighting to set the mood off. Click to enlarge the final product! 
Labels:
artevolved,
Artwork Mondays,
chasmosaurus,
oil paint,
Photoshop,
process,
Sara Chasm,
Toronto