Anatomy and Art

I’d intended to speak here about motion graphics and 3D modelling, but instead I’ve gotten distracted with this little bit of awesome…

Seriously, how cool is that?!?  Artist, Lisa Nilsson is making these out of old guilded edged pages from books and Japanese mulberry tree paper.  This is some really great work.  You can click on the artist’s name to see more of her tissue series.

Hello readers!  I am writing to you from sunny Austin, Texas!  I am at this point two weeks in to a new position in digital education.  I’m trying to minimize my computer time away from work for a little while, due to a little over-taxing on an old shoulder injury, but I wanted to pop in and say that I have not forgotten this blog.  And I may even be able to share a fun little clip of video here that I’ve been working on before long.  And regardless of what happens with that, there will be more words and fun images here soon.

Ok, so I’m posting a picture I grabbed off of Facebook circulation.  It may not be cutting edge journalism, but it feels right the night before I start my new job…

I mean, come on!
I’m gonna teach some people some SCIENCE!!

Heeeeelllllooooo Internet!  Feels like we’ve been apart for ever so long!  So here I am, picking back up in Austin, Texas.  It’s been over a decade since I last lived here, and I still haven’t quite shaken the feeling that I must just be visiting again.  But no, this time it’s a move.  I have an exciting new job with Sapling Learning that starts on Monday, and a whole lot to get done towards this move before that happens.  Fortunately, what would have been a week and a half wait for internet connection services has been facilitated by friendly neighbors who were willing to share their wifi password with me in the interim in exchange for delicious beer donations.  This is especially important, as I’ve been wanting to access some more Cinema 4D tutorials before I start the new position.  My experience has all been with 3DsMax and Maya, so I’ll have a lot to learn with the new software before I can get to the very important business of impressing people with my technique and artistry using this new tool set.  So yeah, you can expect some Cinema 4D posts to come.  After all, they say that teaching is one of the best things that one can do toward learning themselves.  But for now, I’m fast to sleep.  My office can get set up in the morning, and my posting will become more frequent when it can again.

Well, I’m packing up over here for the big move to Austin next week, and I keep coming across all these materials and notes and sketches.  It’s hard to know what to keep.  Just now I found a small stack of scrap pages full of scribbled thoughts.  Most of them seem to be about the balance between eternity and this present moment.  It’s hard to throw things like that away.  And so, I keep folding more boxes to hold more stuff.

Finally finished this last painting of 2011.  It’ll be glossed tomorrow, and I can start packing up my paints without that loose end hanging.  And I’m happy with how it turned out.

By the way, if anyone in Chicago ever wanted to buy any art from me, right before I have to pack things up is always the best time to get a deal!

Well, I know it’s been a little while since my last update.  I’ve been very busy.  And I have exciting news to share.  I’ve just signed the agreement on a new job!  I’ll be moving to Austin, Texas to work as a 3D Artist/Animator at Sapling Learning.  They create online tools for education in math and sciences, and so far everyone I’ve met over there seems just great.  These are exciting times, and I’m looking forward to getting back to Texas again.

Just wanted to wish all of my student readers out there the best of luck with their finals.  May you all find fresh coffee, good study buddies, accurate information, and great epiphanies about the topics you study!

So, this is going to have to be one of those brief posts today, but I did want to point your attention at an interesting new 3D animation out there on the human brain in orgasm.  This is neat for a number of reasons.  For one, it’s about sex, always a popular topic.  For another, it’s about brains, and lets face it, brains are awesome. People love brains almost as much as they love sex.  And lastly, the team working on this decided to start with women as their test subjects.  Health studies have long been criticized for focusing on male anatomy and often neglecting women’s health, or at best, later coming to it as an afterthought. Well, this time the data starts with the ladies.

Here is the video. And for those of you looking closely, that’s over 80 regions of the brain lighting up. The brightest yellow you see signifies the greatest use of oxygen in that area (which is how activity is being measured here). Reds signify activity but at lower levels.

The video was only just presented at the Society for Neuroscience conference last week, and has not yet been peer reviewed for publication.  More information on this can be found here at Time Healthland, or here at the NY Daily News, or you can go directly to the video’s initial appearance on The Visual MD’s website.