This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American
Welcome to this week's Science-art Scumble!
Before this year's headline-making hurricane and earthquake, there have been some of the worst New Mexico wildfires in that state's history. Heather Ward, one of my favourite nature and wildlife artists documented her own flight and feelings of family by creating the beautiful and ominous drawing above. It's my selected image of the Scumble.
You can find more of Heather's work in the following places:
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Heather Ward Wildlife Art - Portfolio
Heather Ward Wildlife Art - Blog
Heather Ward on Fine Art America (prints of the art above are on sale)
Heather Ward on RedBubble (pick which month a calendar of her art starts in)
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And now for this week's links!
What are some of the most important, iconic and/or beautiful scientific images? - Quora. You can add your own! Pity there aren't more illustrations. [Hat tip to Jerry Coyne for the link!]
The Tempests of Ivan Aivasovsky - lines and colors. More bad weather.
Thrifty Thursday: Insect Wings on a Cheap Scanner - Compound Eye.
Depth Perception - xkcd. I love it when Monroe busts out his art skillz as a backdrop for his expressive stick people to move around in.
Future Foundation Mr. Fantastic - StanlyDan. Fanart of Marvel Comic's thinking superhero's superhero. Cute!
Shoehorning Science into Art - John Hawks Weblog. Excellent point and I couldn't agree more.
On the Origin of Species - gremz/Alan Kennedy. Stunning retro-style image with muted colours. Would make an awesome book cover.
Greg Dunn's Golden Neurons - Bioephemera
Binary Brain - Artologica/Michele Banks
Femke Hiemstra - lines and colors. Amazing colours and personality in these illustrated animals.
Philosofossilising: Scientific Accuracy In Art - Craig Dylke, Art Evolved. what starts out as a brief post turns into a discussion about dinosaur feathers, cgi budgets and art technique invading science imagery. Read those comments! And it continues here!
Charles Knight Neandertals - John Hawks Weblog.
The Fish Stands for Surrealism - The Flying Trilobite.
(no title) - Saturday morning Breakfast Cereal. One of my favourite webcomics does the ol' "who's on first"routine, with a chemistry flavour.
An Embarrassment of Starches - Sci-ənce
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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 o’ joe and enjoy the science-art on the links above. You’ll notice that I’ve flipped the format of the Scumble. Kalliopi suggested it, both so the blurb on our homepage doesn’t always read the same way, and I like it for the featured artwork being front and center. Thanks Kalliopi!
Click here for recent Scumbles and here for even earlier Scumbles.