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Science-Art Scumble #27

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American


Scumble #27's featured image:

Virginia Stephenson created this artwork about the Tiktaalik fossil and the origins of our own hands that dig it up. From her statement:

"It begins with the Tiktaalik, the earliest fish in our fossil record that has wrist bones. When it was discovered by paleontologists, a connection was immediately made between fish fins and the human hand. We have also discovered the genetics behind how our hands are built at the embryonic stage from experiments on chicken embryos. I included both of these tools used to show us the origin of our hands in my art piece. The egg on the far left shows present time when we have made these discoveries (featuring common tools used by paleontologists). The eggs to the right travel back in time. The one on the far right shows the Tiktaalik climbing into the egg, or "time capsule". Then it is fossilized in the middle egg, waiting to be discovered."


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Make sure to visit Stephenson's DeviantArt Portfolio Gallery, where she goes by the handle SpeedLimit-Infinity. If you like this piece, I suggest checking out more of her science and nature themed art, such as Ohne Dich (ecology-themed painting inspired by Rammstein!), Mother Nature and Father Time, and Cicada 2 among others.

I hesitate to comment on this. I've deleted and re-written this paragraph a couple of times, because I can remember being exasperated when adults commented about my abilities and my age. Virginia Stephenson according to her dA profile, is 16. This work is remarkable in its own right, without it "being amazing for her age". I only realized her age after being excited enough to ask about including it in this week's Scumble. But I've decided to comment on it, and ask Symbiartic readers to send me links by artists and illustrators under the age of 18 who are making science-art. They are out there, they are excited by science, and they have tons of talent. Maybe we'll feature some in a future post. It could be a great way to extend scientific outreach with student science-artists, and maybe connect a few to scientists and writers.

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This edition's links:

All Black Mosasaur - Weapon of Mass Imagination. Craig Dylke renders his 3D mosasaur in honour of the All Blacks New Zealand rugby team's win.

Spongelab Newsletter - Spongelab Interactive. Biochem Gems, a new game! Lots of great stuff happening at Spongelab, which we've featured previously on Symbiartic.

Congratulations to Kathryn Chorney - SONSI. Science and nature illustrator Kathryn Chorney won 2nd Prize in the 48th Annual Juried Wild Mushroom Show for the Puget Sound Mycological Society for her painting of Bracket Fungus.

Live Chat: The Intersection of Science, Art and Humour (transcript) - Science Live. Full of interesting questions.

Painting Plasma - by Joseph Milton, Creatology. The art of Ed Munn.

Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed - Lines and Colors. Charley Parker talks about Carl Zimmer's upcoming science-tattoo book.

Happy Hallowe'en from the creatures of Mad Art Lab - by maggie, Mad Art Lab.

Sarah Yakawonis - Anatomical Quilling - by Vanessa Vegter, Street Anatomy.

Moth Circles - Jacqueline Dillard.

New Work Wednesday: Away - Mary C. Nassar Mixed Media Map Art.

I Love This! Land of the Giants - Anita Kunz's Weblog. Architects Choi + Shine create humanoid electrical towers.

Cosmic Dust Cloud - Lucyjain's Blog.

Dinosaurs of Dinosaur Revolution - by David Krentz, ZBrush Central. One of the artists of the show shares his work.

The Artist Emerges - Drawing the Motmot. "The forest is the story."

Algae Art - Hybrids of Art & Science.

Maide Weide - The Tiny Aviary. Fantastic look at a science-artist of the past.

A revolution of universally average art - by Melissae Fellet, CultureLab. Looking at the mediocre art movement by Jonathan Keats.

Collection Impossible: distributed curatorship and crowd-sourcing as alternatives to centralised collecting - Medical Museion

President Obama, using creatives for free work isn't supporting your "create jobs" campaign - AntiSpec.

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Scumble: ”A painting technique in which semi-opaque or thin opaque colors are loosely brushed over an underpainted area so that patches of the color beneath show through.”

From The Artist’s Handbook, by Ray Smith.

This began as a series of posts on my personal blog, The Flying Trilobite, as a way to brush highlights over the tremendous amount of science-based art that’s out there. I can’t begin to cover it all, so here’s a scumble over some recent posts that I found interesting, provocative, or otherwise caught my eye from the Science Artists Feed, and other sources.

Science-art is becoming an increasingly popular form of science communication and entertainment. Drawing from fine art, laboratory work, scientific illustration, concept art and more, watch how artists spread scientific literacy and play with the inspiring concepts in science. Doing the Scumble posts, I hope to connect artists with each other, and expose their work to a wider audience. Remember, a lot of these artists are available for commissions and have online shops for original art and reproductions. Why not put some art on your wall that means something more than “weird for the sake of weird”?

Put your feet up, make yourself a cup tea with a shot of espresso in it and enjoy the science-art on the links above.

Click here for recent Scumbles and here for even earlier Scumbles.