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: ”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.
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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.
Put your feet up, make yourself a iced coffee with honey and enjoy the science-art. There's a number of controversies in paleo-art this week that'll I'll try to link to.
Click here for recent Scumbles and here for even earlier Scumbles.
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Free Vs Paid : this controversy is erupting again. Is there a time when artists can do free art? How about when a researcher comes knocking?
Call for Conference Art - ART Evolved. Here's where the controversy takes off. ART Evolved shares a research student's contest, for artists interested to submit some art to be used in a presentation in front of palontologist luminaries. Comments on both sides of the exploitation/opportunity debate are set off.
Going Pro: free dinosaur art? - The Flying Trilobite. I took my own comments from Art Evolved and canvas my readers for discussion on the issue. Uniformly so far, free art is seen as an evil by my commenters. My own view is that it sometimes can help, but figuring that out isn't easy.
Doing it for Free Part 1 and Part 2 by Donato Giancola on Muddy Colors. Not part of the current debate, but relevant. And hey, one of the masters of fantasy art painted young Darwin!
Should I work for free? Infographic by Jessica Hische.
I'm out of the race - Weapon of Mass Imagination. Head admin of ART Evolved Craig Dylke decides to reassess his own stance on free art.
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Amateur Vs. Professional - Ever since paleo-artist Gregory S. Paul tried to lay down the gauntlet several months ago, this debate has raged in the paleo-art community. Here's some past links and relevant new ones.
Art in the service of science: You get what pay for - Kalliopi Monoyios, Scientific American Guest Blog. In this pre-network post from last March, my co-blogger distills the Gregory Paul controversy into the dilemma between free scientific info and copyright.
The Gregory Paul Emails - lots of opinions in this series of multi-author posts on ART Evolved.
La volgarizzizione della Paleoarte - Theropoda (Italian). Scientific Illustrator and advisor Andrea Cau dislikes the "artistic" element that's overtaken scientific illustration in paleo-art.
Join the orgy, but scribble responsibly - drip.de||David's Really Interesting Pages. David Maas agrees that amateurs viewing dinosaurs as a type of sf or fantasy is overtaking the field.
Appropriately for this Scumble, here's a look at the poster for Raven Amos and Scott Elyard's upcoming show, Dinosaurs & Robots in October: