Anatomy and Art

I just liked this, and I wanted to post it here.

It comes from a series called What the Duck, posted here.
http://www.whattheduck.net/

Oh, how beautiful is this?!

Brian Dettmer, out of Atlanta Georgia is making quite a name for himself.  Eugene of My Modern Met calls him the book surgeon, in his piece here…
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/the-book-surgeon-15-pieces

That’s because he is literally dissecting these books “with knives, tweezers, and surgical tools.”  And the results are awesome!

He doesn’t always choose to use medial books, but you have to admit that it really does go well with the whole surgical/dissection theme.  I noticed on his website, a skeleton made of old cassette tapes as well.  Those of you who read this blog often know how I love skeletons, and particularly skulls so you have to know how much I love that someone did this.

The artist statement on his website speaks of how we are loosing our physical forms of information as digital technology takes over.  I highly advise stopping over there and taking a look at more of his work.  It is beautiful.  And Brian is clearly an artist who has taken the time to master his craft.  What a fun find.

Today I got to be the voice of science! Really, I did. It was my first time working from home with the new job, and I spent a good portion of my day tucked away inside my closet with my laptop and microphone, recording narration for a couple of scientific animations that we’re making.  The closet tip, I got from a friend, Tano, back in California who does great voice work.  You might remember him as the voice of my jaw surgery animation.  And sure enough, when the world won’t be silent for you, sound barriers are your friend.  I guess those Chicago coats aren’t going to waste here in Texas after all.

I’ve also been getting to do a little medical illustration this week.  I’ve really been enjoying that.  My very first assignment, and what do they ask me for, but a nephron.  I think the nephron may have been the first piece of anatomical art that I picked for myself back in school.

I chose it at the time because one of my good friends has kidney problems and I was thinking of him.  I guess it was sort of a totem to the functional unit of the kidney, a kind of wish for kidney function, or something like that.  It’s one of the only things I’ve ever gotten to really work through in pen & ink too.  That’s a fun medium.  Anyway, I was pleased to get to jump into such familiar territory for my first medical still illustration in a while.  The illustration I’m doing for them is different enough though, that it still feels like a totally new piece.

I’m also working on another illustration with a lot of cells.  It’s funny, I’ve spent so much time modeling cells in 3D that it feels strange coming back to them in 2D again.  I’ll have to see what my new employers think of maybe posting some of that.  It would be neat to keep sharing this sort of stuff here.

Well I am off to bed now.  Too much computer time makes me a dull girl I’m afraid.  As always, thanks for reading.

I already posted this a long time ago, but what with today being Valentine’s Day, I felt like digging it up again.  Thank you Hard ‘n Phirm for making this…

Next week I will arrive at having put in my first month at the new job.  For those of you that don’t know, I’m working for Sapling Learning.  We do online homework and ebooks, and goodness what we do here with Sapling is leaps and bounds beyond anything I ever had to do online with any of my classes.  My first week down here, I actually ran into some chemistry students at a bar and they all knew Sapling and loved it.  A fair bit of my graduate project was in education, and it’s really great being a part of something that is so clearly an educational benefit to so many.

I can’t say that I’ve been doing a lot else in the realm of either anatomy or art lately.  It will probably take me a while to settle in enough with the new place to start painting again.  I have found that I am one of those finicky artists when it comes to personal projects.  Right now, I’m still looking for where to put all the paintings I moved here with.  Much love to the people who bought art from me before the move down here.  In my last week in Chicago I was able to sell my two most recent paintings.

Running in the Moonlight

Feel

I’m not sure if I’ve been getting especially better over the past few years, or people simply like things that are new, but it seems like my newer pieces keep selling even though I still have some that I’ve carried with me for years now.  Come to think of it, I suppose last year was pretty much my decade mark for getting into painting as a personal endeavor.  I took classes when I was a kid all the way through high school, but then I stopped for some years when I went off to college.  It wasn’t until 2001 that I picked up a brush again and went for it.

Well, this has been a bit of a meandering post.  My apologies for being such a scatterbrain tonight, but I intend to blame moving for at least another couple weeks as far as such things are concerned.  You may think that’s just a slack excuse, but I am a firm believer in the principle that one’s surroundings influence them.  Everything at work is so nice and uncluttered, and I have been a right bastion of focus there at times.  Home, not so much, not yet.  I do a lot of walking around in circles when I’m home, going from one thing that needs doing to the next.  It’s like that.    And that’s exactly what I’m going to get back to now.

Thank you for reading!

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.