Get your pumpkins ready

There’s a Flying-Spaghetti-Monster pumpkin contest!

Aaamazing nature photographs

Image by Igor Siwanowicz

OK, these are pictures, mostly of insects, that have been posed and perhaps coloured — I don’t know if there are any red or green pillbugs — but they sure are beautiful. Many of them are extreme closeups:  photos by Igor Siwanowicz.

The page has at least 60 large images on it, so try it only on a fast connection.

New T-shirt: Nessie in a fishbowl

That seems like a good swear-phrase: “Nessie in a fishbowl!”

Nessie in a fishbowl

You can get one from Donkeyshines.

Earth as art

An alluvial fan in China

Our Earth as Art is a NASA web site with images of the earth from satellite heights. Many of them are both intriguing and beautiful. Each has a brief explanation of where and what it is.

Clicking on the images takes you to a high-resolution version. They can be used as large postcards and they are in the public domain.

Oktapodi video

The science bloggers have found a link to a very cute, amusing, and touching story about octopus love from the students of Gobelins art school.

Oktapodi” primé au SIGGRAPH 2008 09/09/08

“Oktapodi”, film de fin d’études réalisé en 2007 par des élèves de la formation Conception et réalisation de films d’animation à GOBELINS, l’école de l’image, a remporté deux Prix au SIGGRAPH 2008 : le “Best of Show” et l’”Audience Prize”. Evénement incontournable, ce salon international réunit chaque année les professionnels du domaine des techniques interactives et du graphisme numérique aux Etats-Unis. “Oktapodi” a déjà reçu une dizaine des distinctions les plus prestigieuses du monde de l’animation.

Paleoart of Mauricio Anton

I found a blog called Paleomammals online, which got off to a promising start but hasn’t any new articles since May. But it did have links! One of them was to the scientific paleomammal and anthropology art of Mauricio Anton. The home page is in Flash but there are, at least, galleries underneath.

Squid, reversible, hooded jacket

If you’re fond of squids and octopodes, check this out! Clothier Gama-go is offering a limited edition squid hoodie called the Leviathan reversible. It’s black and red. I like it because there’s a flamboyant side and a subdued side:

I can see PZ walking down the street with his minions, everyone dressed in black jackets with a red squid on the shoulder. Then, when he rises to debate those who would drag science down to the level of a religion, or religion into science, education, and government, he wears the red jacket with its all-embracing tentacles.

There’s a continuing squid theme at Gama-Go. They have a ’squid calimari’ one that shows the squid on a plate with a knife, ready to fight. There’s also a “seasick squid” - just a few tentacles above a sea of tossing waves. I also like the “Flock you” jacket, which is adorned with flying birds.

Secrets of graphic art: choosing colours

I learned this years ago in a graphic arts seminar given by the Editors’ Association of Canada (then the Freelance Editors’ Association).

It’s not always easy to choose attractive, coordinating colours for an expensive graphics project. Directors of a prosperous company publishing their annual report want their report to be give an impression of quality and perfection. One of the ways to do that through colour is to choose a combination from nature or art. Take a beautiful image from nature and pick three or four colours from it.

Natural landscape

Or take a harmonious painting and borrow its colours.

The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum, Arles at Night by Vincent Van Gogh

Questionable Content

This cartoon is definitely Questionable Content!

Science art!

In the late Cretaceous: Ornithomimus

Here’s a source of science images: Science-art.com.

• Technical Illustration
• Marine Life
• Historical Subjects
• Insect Illustration
• Botanical Illustrations
• Mammal Illustration
• Astronomy and Space Illustration
• Geology Illustration
• Extinct or Endangered Species
• Reptiles and Reptile Illustration
• Amphibians
• Bird Illustrations
• Fish Illustration
• Human Illustration
• Science Cartoons
• Science Illustration
• Medical Illustration and Art
• Dinosaur Illustration
• Veterinary Illustration
• Children’s Illustration
• Medical Illustration
• Extinct Animals
• Medical Illustration

Haldane’s Precambrian Puzzle from The Flying Trilobite

Glendon Mellow at The Flying Trilobite shows us a piece of art that could be a puzzle arranged in two different ways: as ordinary fossils and as Haldane’s impossible Jurassic rabbit. Take a look at Haldane’s Precambrian Puzzle.

Play with your food

I like images that show the beautiful symmetry of living things.

Spanish clementine orange from Anomalous4

This one is Anamolous4’s joyful image of a Spanish clementine orange.

Be a freelance illustrator

Statistically Improbable Phrases has a good article on “How to be a freelance illustrator.” First bit of advice:

Get a website. I can’t consider anyone who isn’t online. I’m sorry, that seems harsh, but I physically do not have time to spend an hour going to a coffee shop and shuffling through the portfolio of each of the dozens of illustrators I hear about. I need to see all your work in about 30 seconds, then move on to the next candidate.

In other words, make it easy to find you.

Create a cartoon character using Adobe Illustrator

The Spoon Graphics blog has a step-by-step tutorial showing you how to create a 2-D character, starting with a sketch and adding realistic pen strokes, then texture, and shading. I’m impressed with creating a new pen tool to provide variable-width lines: How to create your own vector cartoon character.

Paul Potts reaches for his dream

I’ve more or less ignored the American Idol and Canadian Idol talent shows. However, CBC’s The Hour showed Paul Potts, who was working in retail when he appeared on Britain’s Got Talent. He loves to sing. And he didn’t think he had time to sing — he was working two jobs to pay the bills after an illness and an accident. Now, he’s being spoken of in the same breath as some of the great tenors. He won the talent contest and he is now working on a new album called, “One Chance.”