Stories by Glendon Mellow

It’s time once again. Symbiartic is 3 years old now, and every month we bring you about 10 posts from the intersection of science + art.

Restoring works of art isn’t exactly like restoring Vigo in Ghostbusters II. For one thing, the challenges can be great even on restoring works less than 100 years old.

Some artists find a synthesis of style and subject that causes their work to resonate deeply within us. We experience new memories and ideas while we look at their images.

There are two kinds of illustrators. Those, like myself who bend fine art and other forms into the service of illustration – and then there are illustrators like Niroot Puttapipat (a.k.a.

During my recent talk at the AMI conference about social media and illustration, I skimmed this slide near the end. Talks were intended to be 20 minutes long and I don’t like to rehearse too much: I don’t read off of my slides so I tend to remind myself of the critical points and fret [...]

The Virgin in Prayer, 1640-50, by Sassoferrato. National Gallery, UK. When I write these Pinch of Pigment posts, alternate, catchier titles come to mind.

This past weekend I participated in the Association of Medical Illustrators annual meeting (hashtag #AMI2014), held with the hospitality of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, USA.

Botanical art has some conventions that have helped the practice remain accurate and disciplined: portions of the plants painted in isolation on white backgrounds; often 1:1 in size with the real plant; typically in watercolour for the range of colours (Opera Pink, anyone?) and known factors in preservation.

“I know that I am mortal by nature, and ephemeral; but when I trace at my pleasure the windings to and fro of the heavenly bodies I no longer touch the earth with my feet.” -Ptolemy, Ptolemy’s Almagest While I am a also a fan of work more  scientifically accurate in nature, the imaginative leap [...]

The first time I had ever heard of Quinacradone Burnt Orange (C20H12N2O2) was after starting to work for an art supply company, DeSerres, that I worked for for the next 10 years.

Protoceratops © by John Conway, from All Yesterdays As someone fascinated by prehistoric life during my entire existence, my love for paleoart is experiencing something of a renaissance: I have children now.

Do our unborn descendants have a right to spy on our day-to-day activities? There’s little doubt they will look through our digital archive, minus some terrible technological disaster.

Shortly after my Symbiartic co-blogger Kalliopi has run a workshop about social media for nature & science artists at the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators annual conference in July, I will be speaking about social media for medical illustrators and communicators at the Association of Medical Illustrators annual conference at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, [...]

Back in 2012 I described paleoartist Julius Csotonyi as a Paleoart Rockstar. The title certainly fits: few illustrators today can make a living image-making full-time, especially in the sciences.

Toronto’s newest superhero accidentally trashes the Royal Ontario Museum. And although the ROM is my favourite place in Toronto, I enjoyed every page turning moment.

No. 217 from Brain Salad Surgery, © HR Giger, 1973. Cover for the album by Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The art world has become safer, less dangerous and less disturbing than it ought to be today.

Students like I once was, Copying studies like Dürer once made, Of a skull, once with a name. Just like our genes, little carbon marks drift little changes over time.

“If you think Humans are destroying the planet in a way that’s historically unprecedented, you’re suffering from a species-level delusions of grandeur.” -Annalee Newitz, Scatter Adapt, and Remember Perhaps it’s having a 3 month old baby in the house (our second), but I’ve been thinking about the apocalypse more than normal.

Cobalt Blue is a fascinating colour with a much longer history than many pigments in use today. It’s also the only goblin hiding in the Periodic Table.

Best viewed at 1080p In addition to creating science-art and blogging here on Symbiartic, I work at INVIVO Communications in QA and social media. One of the absolute treats in my day to day job is getting to watch gorgeous 3D animation about health, pharmaceutical mechanisms of action and medical devices.

Many of the early Pre-Raphaelite paintings may have paint made from dead Egyptians. Considered to be a highly variable pigment between raw umber (almost greenish brown) and burnt umber (a ruddier brown), Mummy Brown was a transparent brown good for mixing.

Credit is Due (The Attribution Song) by Question Copyright and artist-in-residence Nina Paley with Bliss Blood on vocals. By pairing an important message with a catchy tune, the point sticks with you far longer than a © symbol will.

After celebrating 7 years of blogging on The Flying Trilobite, I’m going to get all old guard and pompous and established and drop some wisdom about best practices for science artists online.

Last week on Twitter and Facebook, I leveled criticisms at particular sites and railed against improper image use in science communication.