This high five goes out to my bloggy buddy-cop policing science-art, Kalliopi Monoyios. Kalliopi and I co-blog on Symbiartic, the art + science blog on the Scientific American blog network.
For the month of September 2012, we set out to post 30 pieces of science-art, in a SciArt of the Day feature - and we made it. At times it was a bit of a marathon, but the wealth of art out there and the graciousness of the many fine artists, illustrators and creators we tapped on the shoulder was amazing. Thanks everyone!
We showed art by a viking blacksmith, horror illustrator, abstract expressionist, trompe l'oiel, superhero comic artist, cartoonists, fermented bacteria clothing, steampunk Renaissance rhinos, polarized micro-thin rocks, concept art and much more. The attempt was in part to challenge perceptions on what effective science communication can look like.
What does the future hold? We have more plans, lots of long and short posts on the go, and we'll continue to showcase creators and their images relating to science communication, education and entertainment.
You can see them all at the SciArt of the Day label on Symbiartic. We also have the whole first year's worth of science+art posts indexed here.
(This post originally appeared yesterday on Symbiartic, the art+science blog I co-author on the Scientific American Blog Network.) - - Like millions of other superhero comic fans, I loved Joss Whedon's & Marvel'sThe Avengers when I saw it (in 2D) opening weekend. Motion-captured Mark Ruffalo turned in the most incredible version of the Hulk we've seen yet on the screen. Squeeing and cheering, it reminded me of a drawing I had made back in 2002. I drew this fan art of Marvel Comics' Incredible Hulk, dissected and analyzed. Here it is with a new lick of paint.
At the time, I tried to draw on not only my mother's nursing school anatomy textbooks, but also gorilla and hominid ancestor skulls (such as Paranthropus, though my murky text identitifies it with the outdated Zinjanthropus name), inspiration for things like the cranial ridge and large jaw muscles. I included details such as 3 scars on the bone (I'm Canadian: Wolverine wrecked his face a few times and I wanted to document that) and perfect glowing teeth. If anyone has perfect shiny teeth, it needs to be Hulk.
The science and geekery site io9.com recently listed 10 Science Concepts that Could Spawn Awesome Supervillains (by Esther Ingliss-Arkell). Established characters borne of exaggerated real world scientific causes could probably use science-inspired revisions too. Can't wait to get my hands on The Art of Marvels The Avengers to see what scientific concepts the pros who designed the movie concept art came up with.
- - - As a bonus not featured on Symbiartic, here's what the labels around ol' Jade Jaws' head say. TOP LEFT
The Hulk Reviewed
Points of interest concerning the osteological and muscular systems.
TOP LEFT: The Skull
Note muscle-anchoring protuberances and ridges not found in average frontal and zygomatic bones.
Enlarged and bifurcated nasal cavities; see Appendix 3.1 for discussion and speculation of respiratory efficiency. See also; ribcage and spinal cord sinuses.
Note disproportion of maxilla to mandible.
TOP RIGHT: The Skull
Grossly enlarged frontal fontanelle, similarity to Zinjanthropus found in 1959.
Three scars unhealed grazing left ocular cavity; unusually, no traces of foreign molecules present.
Connective tissue spurs above eyeteeth at gumline.
Note complete absence of tooth decay or erosion.
Analysis of blood vessel to marrow ratios reveals skeletal system itself surprisingly fragile relative to comparisons with muscle and tissue tensile densities.
BOTTOM RIGHT: Musculature
Layers of cartilage and dense marrow-like tumours surround blood vessels; protecting both vessels and braincase simultaneously.
Jaw muscles extend to skull ridge homologous to gorilla.
Note muscles allowing subject to shut nostrils: unheard of in primates. This trait normally found in desert-dwelling ungulates such as dromedary camel.
Jaw may lock while mandible is at any degree of extension.
Elasticity of muscle tissues allows striations and contractions on 4-axis per muscle. Eyes and mouth can close using enormous, continuous pressure.
Recently, over on Symbiartic, I posted a piece ruminating about copyright and the utility of good scientific illustration, called Dinosaur Couture Should Be Open To All. I hesitated putting the post up, since although tangential, I thought some sort of illustration riffing on dinosaurs and high fashion would enhance the post.
Squeezing in time to make any sort of artwork is next to impossible the past couple of weeks: our son is teething, not sleeping well and I'm very behind my self-imposed deadlines. So I spent some time and tried to work on the sketch above, thinking maybe a model with some sort of fossil couture outfit could be fun. The face is pretty flawed, I didn't use an actual model. Perhaps I was thinking of Eva, from America's Next Top Model season 3?
Ultimately not happy with it, I decided instead to attempt a breezy fashion design sketch, using watercolours in ArtRage.
C'mon, the hipster pants and shoulder pads on the right not doin' it for ya?
I was scrambling to complete it before posting and heading out the door...in the end, I erased the two dinos on the sides, and went with the parasaurolophus in the spring dress.
Ok. Not my best work. But I hope a splash of colour livened up the post.
I feel hopeful about getting some sort of studio and blogging schedule back on track soon. We're going to try some new things with Calvin's sleep schedule to allow him to be more rested, and in turn, me more rested. I love being a stay at home dad and freelancer: it's a balancing act that's tipped a bit askew, that's all.
I'll leave this post with a fanciful parasaurolophus I'm more proud of.
Last year, I was pretty excited to start blogging at Scientific American. Around the same time, my university's alumni newsletter had sent an email asking for stories and entries, "where are they now" kind of features. Unlike many of my peers (and most people in post-secondary education) I'm actually still directly using a lot of the skills from my degree, though more for illustration than the fine art gallery-scene.
So I sent in a little blurb about blogging for Scientific American.
I didn't realize they actually published something. Here's the entry.
It reads,
Mellow, Glendon (BFA Spec. Hons. Winters) is a graduate of York's Fine Arts Visual Arts studio program. He married Michelle Follett, a primary teacher for the TDSB, and they recently had their first child, Calvin. He is a speaker on the intersection of arts and science on several radio programs.
Well yeah. That's all true and a matter of public record. And being married to Michelle and having Calvin are two of the most amazing things in my life, certainly things I'm proud of.
I dunno though, I sort of thought this was a newsletter for catching up with professional accomplishments? I guess it's like Facebook-old school.
(While thinking a lot about copyright over on Symbiartic, I thought I'd repost this piece from a couple of years ago. Originally appeared May 2010 both here on The Flying Trilobite and at ART Evolved.) - -
In the past few posts of Going Pro, we've looked a lot at copyright. Again, a lot of people have opinions, but it's important to see what the legal definitions -and what steps you can take to protect your creations- really entail.
Today though, I want to propose a question.
Suppose you post a nifty image of a prehistoric critter online. It's awesome, you're proud, people give you kudos. You put it under a Creative Commons Licence, the most restrictive one that says your image a) must be attributed to you, b) cannot be altered, c) others cannot profit from it, and otherwise, it's okay to post and share.
1. Then someone copies it. Another blogger. Does their own riff. Are you okay with that?
2. What if they're more famous than you, getting lots of illustration gigs, but they notice it, do their own version, and give you a nod for your cool idea. Still excited, feeling the attention?
3. What if your painting happens to hit the zeitgeist and goes all viral all over the interwebs. Everyone is sharing it. There's a day on Facebook where all the users switch to you image. But you haven't made a dime. What do you do?
We're in interesting territory. Personally, I don't believe overly restricting images (insanely huge watermarks, disabling right-clicking) are helpful to make a successful career anymore. But neither is completely open sharing.
It makes a strong case about question number 3, doesn't it? But how do you capitalize on that image going viral? How does it put food on the table?
I suggest it's how you parlay that viral dinosaur image into getting newcontracts.
As for questions number 1 and 2, consider the post-modern, remixed, mash-up, variant-cover culture we live in. Think an Indiana Jones video game is fun? What about Indiana Jones Lego! Like Batman? Sharks? Lightsabers? Ta-da! (artist here) Authoring mash-ups and riffing on others' work is an integral part of pop culture.
Painting gets started at about the 4 minute mark in the video above.
In the past, I've sometimes been the dissenting voice here at Art Evolved about all those posts showing past-art about upcoming themed galleries. I dislike them because sometimes attribution to the artwork cannot be easily found - though yes, as Peter and Craig have pointed out to me, sometimes we attribute an "orphan image" after the post goes up when a reader identifies it.
I'm uncomfortable with those posts because in a world of remixes and fun Photoshopped images, attribution and authorship can sometimes be your only coins to bank on. Literally.
Everyone has different comfort zones. Where do you feel comfortable with your images on questions 1-3 above?
After posting recently about Pinterest, I've been involved in a lot of discussion about their Terms of Service. Here's a quick link primer to some of the discussions I'm involved in and I'm seeing in the science-art blogosphere.
To recap:
Pinterest does a lot of things right: links back to creator's sites, deleted pins get deleted on all subsequent re-pins - these are good things.
Pinterest has some problems: most people pin whatever neato things they find online when the Terms specifically state you must own the image or have permission. So it's built on misuse in many ways. Personally I think more artists should use Creative Commons type attitudes toward this type of sharing. But the point stands that most users violate Pinterest's own Terms of Service.
Pinterest has some Peril: they can "sell" and "otherwise exploit" all content according to their Terms of Service. So if you use it correctly, you're giving away your work which then involves risk assessment.
Read through these links to get the whole picture so far.
ART Evolved is a No-Pin Zone, sadly... -ART Evolved by administrator Craig Dylke. I'm affiliated with ART Evolved but I wasn't involved in this decision beforehand, for the record. Good move though.
*****Edit: It was announced on March 23rd 2012 that Pinterest is indeed dropping the "sell" term in their Terms of Service - as well as making many other changes. Storify below takes place as of time of the original post.
Later in the week I'll be posting about how the sessions went, the art & photo walk, and the impact I think having a bunch of artists in attendance had on a science and science communication unconference.
For now, some fun photos.
This year I decided to pack as light as possible for ScienceOnline2012, my fourth time attending. Instead of a regular camera, I brought my iPhone 4.
Here's a few photos from some of the new friends and familiar faces I met on the trip. I wasn't nearly thorough enough documenting the experience, and regret missing photos of a ton of people. Like Anton Zuiker for being amazing and helpful; Lisa Grossman for being roomies; Greg Laden for being great dinner company; Brian Malow and Kaitlyn Thaney for letting me prattle on at breakfast about the history of paint pigments; Brian Switek, Karen James, Andy Farke, Southern Fried Scientist and Bluegrass Bluecrab, Lyndell Bade, Kevin Zelnio, Miriam Goldstein, Doc Freeride, Blake Stacey, Scicurious and a whole bunch of others I'll regret forgetting to mention as soon as I hit publish, are all great friends and fascinating people. Thankfully, people like Russ Creech, Jason Goldman and Maggie Pingolt were doing a better job than I documenting.
Okay. Buncha photos.
Fanboy moment for me: with Maggie Koerth-Baker of Boing Boing, left, and Annalee Newitx of io9.com, right. Both of these two have shouted out and shared my work this past year on their popular sites (here and here) and so a bit of their tres coolness has rubbed off on me.
John Dupuis, the local science blogger I think I see more of when we're both in North Carolina, with Bora Zivkovic, #scio12 organizer, the Blogfather, and Scientific American Bloggy Bossman.
A year since I left my management job with a dynamic art supply retailer I'd been employed by for 10 years.
Above is a little painting I did the following Monday, my first day as a full-time freelancer. It's kind of a poorly-painted little oil painting I call Freelance Leap, and it represents my excitement and anxiety at leaving a secure job and diving into my illustration and social media work.
I'm still glad I made the change to challenge myself in most ways. But I cannot deny, times have also been much rougher than I ever imagined. It's been the best and worst year ever.
Reading Jesse Bering's piece on Bering in Mind, Half Dead: Men and the "Mid-Life Crisis"has me wondering about which option of Jacques' will happen with my creativity in mid-life (note to self: you're 37 you're already there): will my current state of anxiety propel me to greater heights like Bach? Or will I do a major about-face in my creative style, brining me larger success than before? (The third option, dying somehow, is off the table as far as I'm concerned.)
Good friend and amazing illustrator Eric Orchard shared this piece on G+ yesterday, by Scott Timberg from Salon: The Creative Class is a Lie. It's an engaging piece, covering everything from retail jobs to writers. And it offers a ton of interesting things to think about for illustrators.
Up until now, my business model has been: 1. Make cool artwork, mostly for a niche scientifically-literate audience 2. Put online for people to view for free. 3. Take commissions for originals or prints from people who like it enough to want their own, or have a budget.
It works. It works better than not being online ever did. It works haltingly, in fits and starts, with many months in between. It's not enough to feed my family. How does this whole creative economy do that? Or all we destined to be like rock stars, where only a tiny few ever make it despite the public''s hunger for imagery and illustration?
I outlined in my Symbiartic post, It's Time for Illustrators to Take Back the Net that illustrators supporting each other when faced with image theft online could put the profession back on a path to respectability. Would income follow?
I miss the guy I was when I did that terrible little painting, above. I'm still optimistic I might get to that amusement park in the distance, but my feathers are bedraggled.
Today I have what I think is an important post up on Symbiartic over at Scientific American, discussing copyright and illustrator activism.
Head over there to read and discuss whether I'm right in saying "It's time for Illustrators to take back the Net". Or just critique my sketchy Western illustrations. It was inspired by a lot of the posts and situations I link to, and from the growing community of illustrators on Google+.
Here's the composite image I sliced up for the post, done with the latest edition of ArtRage Studio Pro:
Science-inspired art is everywhere these days, and there's so much of and so many fascinating issues about the technology, about the ethics of scientific accuracy in art, and about the people behind it, I'm so excited we're bringing these issues and images to a larger audience. And I think it's working: more artists than ever before are contacting us by email, Twitter, G+ and Facebook, and I'm really happy with the traffic on Symbiartic.
In case your one of my regular Flying Trilobite readers and you haven't checked out Symbiartic yet, here's a quick rundown of all the posts on Symbiartic to date, in blog-style reverse chronology:
Science-art Scumble #22 - Glendon Mellow. I moved these popular posts rounding up links on science-art from The Flying Trilobite to Scientific American, and began featuring a pic of the week.
There's been a bunch of new posts on Symbiartic since Kalliopi Monoyios and I debuted our art+science blog on the new Scientific American blog network. Here's a rundown, plus a bonus gnome at the end.
Visual Beings: Meet Symbiartic by Kalliopi Monoyios - say hello to us both! Introduce yourself! Science-art: Don't call it "Art" by Glendon Mellow - Where I lay in some ground rules about the silly generalization of the word "art". Now with fully repaired interactive image, touring some of the hotspots of science-based and science-inspired art. Oh, also it totally links to some of those crazy fractal people. Seriously, fractal artists are whack. (And see if you can find the Autobot.)
5 Reasons Your Camera Won't Steal My Job by Kalliopi Monoyios. Kalliopi lays a smackdown on photography and states why illustration is supreme. My favourite reason? Dinosaurs.
The Dudley Bug by Glendon Mellow. How long did you think it would take before trilobites crawled onto Symbiartic? :-) An unusual coat-of-arms.
Magic Beans by Glendon Mellow. How does a scientific illustrator reconcile themselves with doing pseudoscience? Is it just for the money? What about fiction? Does it hurt their work? I explore all this and more, and included a new illustration in the style of 19th Century naturalists depicting the traits of magic beans.
A Naturalist's Study of Magic Beans by Glendon Mellow. Under Creative Commons Licence; feel free to share and remember to attribute; no derivative; no commercial. Done using ArtRage Studio Pro.
I'm really hoping more Flying Trilobite fans will head over to Symbiartic and comment! I love the reception we've been getting about Symbiartic on my Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and here at the blog. Please take a moment to let us know how we're doing on the new network as well.
And because I know you will comment because you're all rad and stuff, I'm prepared to give you this short film of the magic bean pollinating-gnome being created as a bonus.
Symbiartic by Glendon Mellow with helpful art direction by Kalliopi Monoyios.
The new Scientific American blog network has launched this morning! And I'm on it!
Head over and say welcome to Symbiartic! I'll be co-blogging with scientific illustrator Kalliopi Monoyios about art + science, scientific illustration, copyright issues, how new media change art, data visualization, science cartoons, comics, architecture, photography, fine art and much more. You may remember Kalliopi Monoyios from the blog An Eye for Science, sometimes featured on my Scumble posts. She was also the illustrator for the books Your Inner Fish by Neil Shubin and Why Evolution is True by Jerry Coyne.
I'm completely thrilled Kalliopi is joining me on this blog, she's tremendous fun and it's been a real collaboration while we worked on getting this ready behind the scenes. Read our introduction post, Visual Beings: Meet Symbiartic.
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So what does this mean for The Flying Trilobite? A few changes. The Scumble science-art posts I use to highlight artists and artwork from the Science Artists Feed will be moving over to Symbiartic. There's so much good work out there, I like to try and highlight what I can, even if it's not a longer form blog post and analysis or interview.
The Flying Trilobite will still be the primary showcase for my own work, and work in progress, personal commentary and so on. Symbiartic will be myself as a fine artist and Kalliopi as a scientific illustrator (and both of us as geeks) discussing mainly other people's work, unless one of us has an event we want to post there.
Basically, The Flying Trilobite is all about me, and Symbiartic is all about the science-art movement and community.
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And wait until you see what other blogs are on the new Scientific American blog network!
Head over to blog community editor Bora Zivkovic's welcome on The Network Central.
And thanks to all my Flying Trilobite readers and art-fans! Check out Symbiartic!
