Author Archive for Glendon Mellow

Hybrid Flying Trilobite

Published

Glendon Mellow

on May 15, 2012

Recent sketch in my Moleskine.

My professional portfolio on deviantART – stay or go?

Published

Glendon Mellow

on May 7, 2012

The last few years if you've looked at glendonmellow.com , it's whisked you away to the URL otherwise known as daportfolio.com/179939 - I have been using the popular art site deviantART for my professional art portfolio hosting. I'm considering a change and would love some opinions. Below I have my pros and cons.

Before I say much more (an oh, I'm gonna), there is a big difference between a standard dA account page and their portfolio service. I'm not planning to leave dA entirely, just considering whether or not to stop paying for Premium and using their professional portfolios.

Here's the visuals:

Standard dA bio page.

Portfolio bio page.

Standard dA gallery page.

Portfolio gallery page.

I pay about $30 a year for the Premium service (last year with some very welcome donations from fans for this new dad). The Premium Portfolio means:

I can customize the URL, hence the very original glendonmellow.com.
No ads from deviantART appear on my page.
I can make new portfolios, add specific page URLS through my domain host (like published.glendonmellow.com )
There's lots of image storage.

Those are all decent features in the plus column.

Here's a couple of other things I like:

Layout forces me to stay clean and simple for potential clients.
It really easy for me to change and add or drop artwork.
Limits on how much art per gallery forces me to keep it fresh for return clients.
I occasionally add my entire resume to it as a pdf download - not there at the moment, but that's neat-o.
I love how it looks.

But here are the features in the minus column that have me wondering if my $30/year would be better served somewhere else.

Not enough links. The text on the bio page is insanely limited and includes the HTML - so when something helpful to my business like say, Google+ crops up, I have to delete another important - actually important, not just for fun - link from the link list. They limit the text so that the whole portfolio has no scrolling. Yeah cool. But to link to my Scientific American gig and increasing Media list, I had to drop links to two other blogs I have contributed to.
I pay for no ads, but I get pranks. This past April Fools' Day, deviantART thought it would be funny to pretend they were taken over by cats and there was a pop-up that if you wanted, would lead you further into the joke. Or you could disable it. Each time you went on dA on April 1st, it would pop back up. Kind of funny stuff, but I pay for no dA ads, and here's a silly joke I had no part in designing that any potential client was going to get stuck figuring out for a whole day. Pissed me right off.
No links in art descriptions. Click on the little letter "i" under the art, get some neat info about the image. But no links to further information, and it's reduced to about two short sentences. I do science-based art. It sometimes needs a bit more explanation about the client, project, subject and materials. You know. The professional details.
No statistics. This is the worst. The HTML I am allowed to use is on the bio page only, and is very very basic. No third party html widgets or gadgets to track stats using SiteMeter or Statcounter or even Google Analytics. When the portfolio service first launched I assumed this was coming at some point (dA offers crazy amounts of stats for their basic accounts). That was 2.5 years ago. Last year, when Annalee Newitz of the popular geek site io9.com featured Trilobite Boy and some of art in a fun article, they appropriately linked back to glendonmellow.com . And though I can see on the io9 article that it had over 14000 views (most just in those first few days) I have absolutely no idea how many went through to my own portfolio.

So. Do I stay or go? If I go, does anyone have any good suggestions?

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite © to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the Scientific American Blog Network!

Trilobite Boy revisited

Published

Glendon Mellow

on April 19, 2012

Another Instagram tweak for fun. This one might make a nice print for the shop. Can't wait until my schedule opens up a bit to work on new Trilobite Boy stuff.

Big plans!

One of the things I've been considering is changing his name from Trilobite Boy to something with a name: "Trilobite Elroy" or "Dave" or something.

So here's a handy poll!

If you have suggestions for an actual name or reasons to leave it as Trilobite Boy, please let me know in the comments!

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

Portfolio

Blog

Print Shop

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Messing with Trilobite Boy Rocks Out on Instagram

Published

Glendon Mellow

on April 17, 2012

I like making messed about versions of some of my paintings. The variations are interesting.

Here's Trilobite Boy Rocks Out in Instagram.

Almost used this sketch

Published

Glendon Mellow

on April 15, 2012

Recently, over on Symbiartic, I posted a piece ruminating about copyright and the utility of good scientific illustration, called Dinosaur Couture Should Be Open To All. I hesitated putting the post up, since although tangential, I thought some sort of illustration riffing on dinosaurs and high fashion would enhance the post.

Squeezing in time to make any sort of artwork is next to impossible the past couple of weeks: our son is teething, not sleeping well and I'm very behind my self-imposed deadlines. So I spent some time and tried to work on the sketch above, thinking maybe a model with some sort of fossil couture outfit could be fun. The face is pretty flawed, I didn't use an actual model. Perhaps I was thinking of Eva, from America's Next Top Model season 3?

Ultimately not happy with it, I decided instead to attempt a breezy fashion design sketch, using watercolours in ArtRage.

C'mon, the hipster pants and shoulder pads on the right not doin' it for ya?

I was scrambling to complete it before posting and heading out the door...in the end, I erased the two dinos on the sides, and went with the parasaurolophus in the spring dress.

Ok. Not my best work. But I hope a splash of colour livened up the post.

I feel hopeful about getting some sort of studio and blogging schedule back on track soon. We're going to try some new things with Calvin's sleep schedule to allow him to be more rested, and in turn, me more rested. I love being a stay at home dad and freelancer: it's a balancing act that's tipped a bit askew, that's all.

I'll leave this post with a fanciful parasaurolophus I'm more proud of.

Check out Dinosaur Couture Should Be Open To All on Symbiartic!

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

Portfolio

Blog

Print Shop

Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Science-Art Communication Specialist – it’s now a thing

Published

Glendon Mellow

on April 4, 2012

Changed my LinkedIn profile to read "Science-Art Communication Specialist". I've decided that's now a thing.

Although painting and illustrating are my first choice in career and I'm busier than ever with commissions, when I consider my blog writing at Symbiartic on Scientific American, the growing number of talks, podcasts and interviews and my new volunteer Board Member position with Science Art-Nature this seems like a more apt description. I find myself doing a lot of networking for and with other artists engaged in science, and slowly starting to hear from scientists looking for artists. I've been seriously considering turning it into a consulting business.

I've developed a standard email I send out to artists contacting me about their science-art and asking for advice since it's happening more and more often. (And I don't mind at all!

Keep 'em coming.)

Here's what it typically says.

- -

I've added your blog to the Science Artists Feed (It's in the 2nd list that feeds into the first one...the first one filled up fast). So when you have a show or update the bloggy portion in any way, it will appear on the Feed to subscribers, and on scienceblogging.org which is a huge aggregator site many science bloggers turn to to follow the many science blogging networks.

I don't know if it will help traffic or eyeballs in any way, but it also helps me to stay on top of people's work, which I irregularly compile interesting links from and put in posts I call Scumbles. They used to be on my personal blog The Flying Trilobite, and I've moved them to Symbiartic since Scientific American asked me on board.

So far the biggest impact the Science Artists Feed and Scumble posts have had is drawing together the disparate scattered science-inspired artists into a tighter community. I've shared a Circle on G+of them in the past and more are talking on Twitter. I just finished up at my 4th trip to ScienceOnline this year, in North Carolina. Usually I've been one of 2 or 3 science-artists or illustrators out of a few hundred researchers and science journalists. This year, there were about a dozen of us in attendance which had an impact. If you're on Twitter, an easy way into the community there is to use the #scienceart hashtag.

- -

(For the interactive version of the image above, head over to Symbiartic and explore the image!)

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Inky Bidness

Published

Glendon Mellow

on April 3, 2012

Coupla tattoo things.

Fascinating personal post by paleo-author Brian Switek of Laelaps over at his other gig, Dinosaur Tracking, where he talks some more about the tattoo I designed for him not long ago. And hints at a second design possibly in the works. (I'm trying to see if it's possible to make a theropod's jaw open and close on Brian's flexing bicep.)

Check out his Allosaurus Ink, Brian has more recent, healed photos.

Another tattoo I designed, the caffeine molecule for my SciAm peep Scicurious has long been one of my most popular all-time posts for getting traffic. Bound to happen then, that another internet denizen, Ryan S on Reddit has gotten a similar tattoo based on the design Sci and I came up with.

Here it is on Scicurious:

I've also made a portfolio gallery of my science tattoo designs if you'd like to see more.

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Important details

Published

Glendon Mellow

on April 2, 2012

Came across a link with my name on it.

Last year, I was pretty excited to start blogging at Scientific American. Around the same time, my university's alumni newsletter had sent an email asking for stories and entries, "where are they now" kind of features. Unlike many of my peers (and most people in post-secondary education) I'm actually still directly using a lot of the skills from my degree, though more for illustration than the fine art gallery-scene.

So I sent in a little blurb about blogging for Scientific American.

I didn't realize they actually published something. Here's the entry.

It reads,

Mellow, Glendon (BFA Spec. Hons. Winters) is a graduate of York's Fine Arts Visual Arts studio program. He married Michelle Follett, a primary teacher for the TDSB, and they recently had their first child, Calvin. He is a speaker on the intersection of arts and science on several radio programs.

Well yeah. That's all true and a matter of public record. And being married to Michelle and having Calvin are two of the most amazing things in my life, certainly things I'm proud of.

I dunno though, I sort of thought this was a newsletter for catching up with professional accomplishments? I guess it's like Facebook-old school.

(And radio programs, but they left out podcasts?)

For those of you who love baby pictures, here's our little dynamo working at his art station, about 15 months old.

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Copyright Comfort Zone (repost)

Published

Glendon Mellow

on March 29, 2012

(While thinking a lot about copyright over on Symbiartic, I thought I'd repost this piece from a couple of years ago. Originally appeared May 2010 both here on The Flying Trilobite and at ART Evolved.)
- -

In the past few posts of Going Pro, we've looked a lot at copyright. Again, a lot of people have opinions, but it's important to see what the legal definitions -and what steps you can take to protect your creations- really entail.

Today though, I want to propose a question.

Suppose you post a nifty image of a prehistoric critter online. It's awesome, you're proud, people give you kudos. You put it under a Creative Commons Licence, the most restrictive one that says your image a) must be attributed to you, b) cannot be altered, c) others cannot profit from it, and otherwise, it's okay to post and share.

1. Then someone copies it. Another blogger. Does their own riff. Are you okay with that?

2. What if they're more famous than you, getting lots of illustration gigs, but they notice it, do their own version, and give you a nod for your cool idea. Still excited, feeling the attention?

3. What if your painting happens to hit the zeitgeist and goes all viral all over the interwebs. Everyone is sharing it. There's a day on Facebook where all the users switch to you image. But you haven't made a dime. What do you do?

We're in interesting territory. Personally, I don't believe overly restricting images (insanely huge watermarks, disabling right-clicking) are helpful to make a successful career anymore. But neither is completely open sharing.

Consider this:

[h/t Boing Boing]

It makes a strong case about question number 3, doesn't it? But how do you capitalize on that image going viral? How does it put food on the table?

I suggest it's how you parlay that viral dinosaur image into getting new contracts.

As for questions number 1 and 2, consider the post-modern, remixed, mash-up, variant-cover culture we live in. Think an Indiana Jones video game is fun? What about Indiana Jones Lego! Like Batman? Sharks? Lightsabers? Ta-da! (artist here) Authoring mash-ups and riffing on others' work is an integral part of pop culture.

Painting gets started at about the 4 minute mark in the video above.

[h/t to Boing Boing, again]

In the past, I've sometimes been the dissenting voice here at Art Evolved about all those posts showing past-art about upcoming themed galleries. I dislike them because sometimes attribution to the artwork cannot be easily found - though yes, as Peter and Craig have pointed out to me, sometimes we attribute an "orphan image" after the post goes up when a reader identifies it.

I'm uncomfortable with those posts because in a world of remixes and fun Photoshopped images, attribution and authorship can sometimes be your only coins to bank on. Literally.

Everyone has different comfort zones. Where do you feel comfortable with your images on questions 1-3 above?

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Pinterest Terms of Service link round-up

Published

Glendon Mellow

on March 20, 2012

After posting recently about Pinterest, I've been involved in a lot of discussion about their Terms of Service. Here's a quick link primer to some of the discussions I'm involved in and I'm seeing in the science-art blogosphere.

To recap:

Pinterest does a lot of things right: links back to creator's sites, deleted pins get deleted on all subsequent re-pins - these are good things.

Pinterest has some problems: most people pin whatever neato things they find online when the Terms specifically state you must own the image or have permission. So it's built on misuse in many ways. Personally I think more artists should use Creative Commons type attitudes toward this type of sharing. But the point stands that most users violate Pinterest's own Terms of Service.

Pinterest has some Peril: they can "sell" and "otherwise exploit" all content according to their Terms of Service. So if you use it correctly, you're giving away your work which then involves risk assessment.

Read through these links to get the whole picture so far.

Pinterest gets right what Tumblr got wrong - The Flying Trilobite by Glendon Mellow

The Promise and Perils of Pinterest - Symbiartic by Glendon Mellow
-->Discussion on G+
-->Discussion on Scientific American's Facebook Page

Pinterest's Terms of Service, Word by Terrifying Word _Symbiartic by my co-blogger, Kalliopi Monoyios.

ART Evolved is a No-Pin Zone, sadly... -ART Evolved by administrator Craig Dylke. I'm affiliated with ART Evolved but I wasn't involved in this decision beforehand, for the record. Good move though.

*****Edit: It was announced on March 23rd 2012 that Pinterest is indeed dropping the "sell" term in their Terms of Service - as well as making many other changes. Storify below takes place as of time of the original post.

Pinterest updates Terms of Service - drops the "sell" - Symbiartic by Glendon Mellow

For those not on Twitter, after the jump I've included a first attempt at a Storify of some of the comments there.
More art after the jump!

Allosaurus Science Ink

Published

Glendon Mellow

on March 12, 2012

You know, doing science tattoo designs is an aspect of my current career I never would have guessed I'd be doing 10 years ago. They're challenging and fascinating. Each time I feel really honoured someone would like their body graced by one of my images.

When author of Written in Stone Brian Switek asked me about designing a tattoo, I was really excited. Brian's one of my favourite bloggers, both at Wired's Laelaps and the Smithsonian's Dinosaur Tracking, and who I have also been lucky enough to meet at ScienceOnline the past few years. Great guy.

Right away, he knew what he wanted: allosaurus in the death pose in blackline.

I headed to the Royal Ontario Museum, which has an allosaurus mount scurrying under the new signature barosaurus named Gordo.

I took these photos since they're backlit, and that's helpful for a blackline tattoo, but in the end I didn't reference them.

Instead, even tough it was to be a blackline, silhouette design, I like to start by standing in the museum and drawing a detailed sketch of the skull, hands and feet

While I was drawing this from the original skeleton, Gregory Paul patted me on the head, gave me a doggy treat and said, "Good boy!". Then he whacked my nose with a rolled up newspaper. Yeah, I was confused too.

I drew the body separately, and Photoshopped the head on. For those not familiar with this pose, most terrestial vertebrates, from dinosaurs to rabbits can be found in this extreme back-arched pose after they die. The thinking is that it's likely ligaments and tissues around the deceased animal's spine tend to dry out first, tightening and contorting the body.

Above is a screenshot of me inking the skull using ArtRage Studio Pro, my favourite digital painting program. I found the basic billboard marker gave me the lines I liked.

Brian was getting this tattoo in part to mark a transition: from his home state of New Jersey to Utah, and the allosaurus is Utah's state dinosaur. So as I neared completion of the skeleton drawing, I started thinking about different ways to make this tattoo design more personal to Brian, and not just a random dino fossil.

So I sent him this image below in an email, and asked if he could find the Easter Eggs:

Do you see them?

The coloured-in portions are in the shape of a tiny New Jersey (green) and Utah (coral).

After looking at a few variations, such as all-black with no outlines, a broken tail, and so on Brian settled on the image above. I like this one too: the solid black ribs, leg and skull are offset by the outlined vertebrae. I think it breaks up the image in an interesting way, and visually makes the image clearer to someone who may not be familiar with the dinosaur death pose.

Here's Brian with the finished piece, done by Jon at Heart of Gold Tattoo.

Thanks Brian! That was really fun and I love how the final version turned out. Badass allosaurus.

- - - - - -- -
For more of my science tattoo designs, check out the following links:

Science Tattoo Portfolio
Hominid Skulls Wearing Mexican Wrestler Masks
Nautilus Tattoo - Hardcore Ink
Highest Form of Flattery
Caffeine Tattoo Commission for Scicurious and Scicurious Caffeine Swag!
Art Monday: Flying Trilobite Tattoo

As well, two of these designs can be found in Carl Zimmer's new book, Science Ink.

Diatom Kiss

Published

Glendon Mellow

on February 14, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day!

This image is from my series, Fossil Boy, Diatom Girl.

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Pinterest gets right what Tumblr got wrong

Published

Glendon Mellow

on February 13, 2012

I've started making boards on Pinterest, a fascinating new site that I think is going to be a big thing for artists.

Attributing artwork is something I believe to of huge importance, not just the letter of the copyright laws, but also attributing art to artists who've dead for hundreds of years. I've written about it *ahem* a few times. (This, this, this, this...)

Here on Blogger, if I want to re-share some artwork, I need to save it to my drive, and re-upload it. There's a bit of work involved. So attributing the art is just a tiny step, and one I think is more likely for bloggers to do since they're crafting a whole post.

While there are ways to effectively use Tumblr and be respectful of creators, as I've written before, it's easy to lose track of a creator of an image and have it shared and re-shared thousands of time without attribution. The reblog button makes the initial person's mistake too easy to replicate. In part, I created the Trilobite Boy Tumblr to get a handle on how Tumblr works. You can attach an url that would follow the artwork, but it's not mandatory. So tons of people just blog away, and creators lose all credit for their images all too often.

Enter the new site Pinterest.

Pinterest was first on my radar when my wife mentioned it looked interesting for sharing artwork. Then, via Twitter, I read ZDNet's "Why small business can't afford to overlook Pinterest". I maintain a Twitter feed for a national retailer, and thought this was right on the mark. But I like to test things with my own accounts before bringing it to clients. Then, my friend and fantastic artist Eric Orchard started in on it in a big way. He has a good eye for effective media for artists.

Pinterest takes the responsibility of attribution away from the user: I'm using it in Chrome, and I placed a little button on my Bookmarks bar. If I'm on a site, and wish to pin an inspiring piece of artwork onto one of my themed bulletin Boards (say, "science art that inspires me") then I click on the Pin It button, and Pinterest creates a screen that has all the images from that webpage on it. I pick the one I want, click, write a description if I wish, and post on the board. There's the option to tweet or Facebook-stream it too.

But the best part? Anyone else following that bulletin board of mine who decides to pin it on their board, will still have the original link to the original website functional if someone clicks on the art itself. The more artwork is shared on Pinterest, the more potential hits the blog, gallery or website will have.

Pinterest got respect for creators right. And they made it so easy.

You can find my Pinterest at http://pinterest.com/flyingtrilobite

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Merry Darwin Day 2012!

Published

Glendon Mellow

on February 12, 2012

Appropriately enough, I'm working on some scientific illustrations of beetles this Darwin Day. Can't show anyone yet.

Please enjoy these images of our man Charles from years' past, and make sure to read The Beagle Project's Blog post about Darwin's birthday aboard the H.M.S. Beagle.

The images below are from 2009, when I attempted to live blog progress from scratch of a new oil painting of a young Charles Darwin discovering a glyptodont skull in South America during the voyage of the Beagle. At the time (you can find all the blog entries in February 2009) I wasn't happy with how the piece was turning out, and the exercise got weird. Still glad I attempted it - it's good to experiment.

If you look at the first sketch, you can see the ghostly sketch of the Beagle masts rising behind our young explorer.

Quick sketch to get the shadows and composition down.

Focused on the face first. Relatively happy with the pencils.

Tinted in Photoshop, I actually like this sketched image better than the final.

My work station. Love those Micron brushes.

More or less (somewhat less) complete.

Make sure to check out my online store for Darwin prints, cards and more!

ScienceOnline2012 Photos

Published

Glendon Mellow

on January 30, 2012

This week I'll be continuing to write about ScienceOnline2012, both here and on Symbiartic.

You can see a few posts already:

New Art Movement? The Science-Artists Feed Keeps Growing

ScienceOnline2012 Art Show!

ScienceOnline2012 Sci-Art Show Winners

Later in the week I'll be posting about how the sessions went, the art & photo walk, and the impact I think having a bunch of artists in attendance had on a science and science communication unconference.

For now, some fun photos.

This year I decided to pack as light as possible for ScienceOnline2012, my fourth time attending. Instead of a regular camera, I brought my iPhone 4.

Here's a few photos from some of the new friends and familiar faces I met on the trip. I wasn't nearly thorough enough documenting the experience, and regret missing photos of a ton of people. Like Anton Zuiker for being amazing and helpful; Lisa Grossman for being roomies; Greg Laden for being great dinner company; Brian Malow and Kaitlyn Thaney for letting me prattle on at breakfast about the history of paint pigments; Brian Switek, Karen James, Andy Farke, Southern Fried Scientist and Bluegrass Bluecrab, Lyndell Bade, Kevin Zelnio, Miriam Goldstein, Doc Freeride, Blake Stacey, Scicurious and a whole bunch of others I'll regret forgetting to mention as soon as I hit publish, are all great friends and fascinating people. Thankfully, people like Russ Creech, Jason Goldman and Maggie Pingolt were doing a better job than I documenting.

Okay. Buncha photos.

Fanboy moment for me: with Maggie Koerth-Baker of Boing Boing, left, and Annalee Newitx of io9.com, right.
Both of these two have shouted out and shared my work this past year on their popular sites (here and here) and so a bit of their tres coolness has rubbed off on me.

Michele Banks, aka Artologica and me mugging for the camera.

John Dupuis, the local science blogger I think I see more of when we're both in North Carolina,
with Bora Zivkovic, #scio12 organizer, the Blogfather, and Scientific American Bloggy Bossman.

A tableau vivant of science artists in their natural habitat: the museum.
My Symbiartic co-blogger Kalliopi Monoyios, Lynn Fellman and Nathaniel Gold.
Under a whale.

Perrin Ireland, Katy Chalmers and Russ Creech, 3 more members of the massive artist cabal at this year's ScienceOnline.

Me and one of my co-moderators, Emily Bauerfeind of the New England Aquarium.

Me and co-curator of the science art show, ScienceOnline organizer and MC, Karyn Traphagen.

More thoughts & photos about the unconference experience soon!

- - - - - - - -

Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.
Portfolio
Blog
Print Shop

--> Find me on Symbiartic, the art+science blog on the new Scientific American Blog Network!

Red Knot in Flight

Published

Glendon Mellow

on January 29, 2012

While I'm working on a series of scientific illustrations I can't reveal yet, I thought I'd re-post this pencil (and the oils below) of a red knot in flight.

Originally created for biologist and conservationist Dan Rhoads' excellent and vital Migrations blog, you can read more about it at his site, and my two-part making-of, here and here.

Dan fights the good fight to save birds from the heinous hunting practices of migratory birds in his adopted home of Cyprus. You can sign the petition to stop the practice here.