In late December, I unveiled a new winged trilobite that was not part of my initial round of sketches for The Field Guide to Flying Trilobites: Trinucleus ra, the Scarab-Trilobite. Here’s a look at the process. This sketch looks like pencil, but was done entirely in ArtRage Vitae. ArtRage is a wonderful digital painting platform for people who are used to painting traditionally, due to the lack of drop-down menus and the palette system. ©…

Continue reading

Ogygopsis acheuliensis, the Acheulian Hand-Axe Trilobite, © Glendon Mellow Acheulian Hand-Axe Trilobite‪“While the exact nature of the ritual that led Homo ergaster to hurl their Acheulian hand-axes into piles is unknown, the discovery of a unique cache of these finely-crafted tools, laden with trilobite fossils, led to the start of the Fossil Wars.” —from A...

Continue reading

Choosing a career path is a big decision. In the modern western world a career is practically synonymous with identity: whether we like it our not, what we do is a big part of who we are. And we are told to choose a career carefully, to find and follow our passion. But what is...

Continue reading

I made myself a logo, riffing on the Assassin’s Creed logo which looks like the imprint of an eagle skull. I added the cuts on the right to make an “M”. Too subtle? Hm. This has been fun. Last summer, I decided to create a new Instagram account, @MellowAssassin, to share my game captures from...

Continue reading

Follow me on Instagram @FlyingTrilobite My 2021 was focused on image-making & community-building.tl;dr:🎨Worked on adding colour to The Field Guide to Flying Trilobites⛈️Ran the 6th(?) #SciArtTweetStorm in the spring. 🟣 Co-hosted weekly SciArt Chats with Julia Krolik - we started by alternating on Clubhouse and TwitterSpaces, and made the switch to Spaces by the end...

Continue reading

Intent on improving your creativity or focus? Want to raise your IQ? What does that even mean? This week, we've got Emily Willingham back on the show to talk about tailoring the brain with science: The good, the bad, and the totally not proven. We're talking about her new book The Tailored Brain: From Ketamine, to Keto, to Companionship: A user's guide to feeling better and thinking smarter.

Continue reading

In Handmade: A Scientist’s Search for Meaning Through Making, author Anna Ploszajski takes her experience of materials science out of the lab and into the world of craftspeople. Ploszajski's quest to fashion a broader perspective on stuff surpasses the dry and academic. In her book, Anna brings readers along through an exploration of materials ancient and modern, bringing out the ways that matter intersects with society and identity. On the show, we’ll talk about matter from…

Continue reading

TL; DR: If like me, you need some new tech for your digital illustration work, the Kamvas Pro 16 is a smooth-running and impressive tablet, with a great price point. The true test for me was that I found I was joyfully losing myself in the act of painting. Let’s run down the pros and cons of the Kamvas Pro 16. PROS:TECH: A gorgeous screen with brilliant colours, and excellent pressure sensitivity (8,192 levels) and…

Continue reading

2021 has vanished, sucked into the black hole created by 2020. But while the pandemic continues, we are steadily climbing our way out. And what better way to gain momentum than to look forward at where science might be going? We’ve looking from the tiniest parts of the human body to the vast expanse of space to find out where we are going. Related Links: Floods Have Swamped the US. The Next Health Problem: Mold…

Continue reading

We often think the practices of science and academics as a western-European invention, and while both science and the academy have created a lot of positive knowledge, it's important to take a step back and recognize the blind spots of science that come from European ways of thinking about the world, and to see how academics can disadvantage people who don't align with that worldview. We speak to Ray Pierotti, Associate Professor in the department…

Continue reading