tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16883101707818647352024-03-15T01:39:49.670+13:00SeditiosusStella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.comBlogger295125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-54456119419379590612018-12-20T17:38:00.001+13:002018-12-20T17:38:05.075+13:00Another map-based piece<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv3XJxvdMlQ70ObYN7gkkVDU1y6c_wDaDSGakPG5IWHXrFZJPBhzQ3gJfYuDg0qzVSrC_kwbEPtiGN4MQKuikpfZoCNWADj0T_I1tBUdutHAgWsnZRRZANEQkO3UfZy9J4AQuxk-uCwH0/s1600/20181220_132247.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgv3XJxvdMlQ70ObYN7gkkVDU1y6c_wDaDSGakPG5IWHXrFZJPBhzQ3gJfYuDg0qzVSrC_kwbEPtiGN4MQKuikpfZoCNWADj0T_I1tBUdutHAgWsnZRRZANEQkO3UfZy9J4AQuxk-uCwH0/s640/20181220_132247.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">These are the formative stages, of course, there's a lot more I want to do with this piece before it's finished. It's kind of a 3D drawing, showing parts of the neolithic city at </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Çatalhöyük</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwYPMN4-kNMG7pRxjj2kfLoUTP2a4z7UlGxrD5-U7Xfy9XS0WJLtxqezLegxuZ46XtPZoT0tE8C-ztcy8-9iCezXG5iOaBIX3Vju4nz5xkWtV7xbQZwfoulaAGi7mPNUCsJLwweeBl3XY/s1600/20181219_194003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwYPMN4-kNMG7pRxjj2kfLoUTP2a4z7UlGxrD5-U7Xfy9XS0WJLtxqezLegxuZ46XtPZoT0tE8C-ztcy8-9iCezXG5iOaBIX3Vju4nz5xkWtV7xbQZwfoulaAGi7mPNUCsJLwweeBl3XY/s400/20181219_194003.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The concept here is quite similar to that of the <a href="https://seditiosus.blogspot.com/2018/01/sculpture-with-knossos-floor-plans.html">Knossos floor plan sculpture</a> I made a while back, but with a different city. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"><a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1405">Çatalhöyük</a></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> was a very large settlement in what is now Turkey, occupied between around 7500 and 5700 BCE. It is distinctive for having produced what is often believed to be the world's first map - a wall painting showing images that look very much like </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Çatalhöyük </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">houses.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidIaxG1Yoe41XLdeNmaYsXTxfus7o9C4Xc2LwC_N5vC4Vxtwy2Vo2x8P8y1dex3D9KnueZKEV3FQ64-ot4XLV0f9haCzMexXuC8zI0RyWxVJfC7X1kFFJqFhennBLx5ZNoo64dhmdFxLQ/s1600/catal_map_1964.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="283" data-original-width="1214" height="147" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidIaxG1Yoe41XLdeNmaYsXTxfus7o9C4Xc2LwC_N5vC4Vxtwy2Vo2x8P8y1dex3D9KnueZKEV3FQ64-ot4XLV0f9haCzMexXuC8zI0RyWxVJfC7X1kFFJqFhennBLx5ZNoo64dhmdFxLQ/s640/catal_map_1964.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image found <a href="https://makingmaps.net/2008/10/13/cartocacoethes-why-the-worlds-oldest-map-isnt-a-map/">here</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In fact there's <a href="https://makingmaps.net/2008/10/13/cartocacoethes-why-the-worlds-oldest-map-isnt-a-map/">a bit of debate</a> over whether the painting <a href="https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/195777">is really a map</a>. Yes, it probably shows houses, but does it show specific houses intended to represent a section of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Çatalhöyük city? There's really no way to know, because the inhabitants of </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Çatalhöyük had no writing system.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">My sculpture shows the Çatalhöyük map (or "map" if you prefer), alongside plans of some of the actual buildings from the city.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrZ37wfMF382GZi24CHagGcvJNq4E1hcE3n6Fch_e-mUwnFnIHxT8bBL1gBLNBaqZWV1tdGDwHafOukpO1KsnNsCcqwXOfogwD6vvxxTdKQUh_gcctOYCHI1TC3u0OBBLlceRbtXbdn4/s1600/CH+level+VII.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="705" data-original-width="1000" height="281" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTrZ37wfMF382GZi24CHagGcvJNq4E1hcE3n6Fch_e-mUwnFnIHxT8bBL1gBLNBaqZWV1tdGDwHafOukpO1KsnNsCcqwXOfogwD6vvxxTdKQUh_gcctOYCHI1TC3u0OBBLlceRbtXbdn4/s400/CH+level+VII.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.mappingasprocess.net/blog/2017/12/14/this-is-not-a-map">Excavation plan showing part of Çatalhöyük's fourth level</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-25708397667316364132018-12-17T11:30:00.000+13:002018-12-17T11:53:21.645+13:00Finished, I think<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://seditiosus.blogspot.com/2018/08/tree-of-life-progress.html"><span style="color: blue;">Last time I posted</span></a> I was making a piece based on the tree of life concept. It's turned into one of those situations where I'm mostly happy with it, but in a way I think it maybe needs something else, but I can't work out what, so for now it's finished.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOaKV_93NEAA5UDfpiPbvrR1yk60gCwKe9aVuIpwhh_cb699kZ5Qrkke2mRsrOotWRFS9pSAhr0QsD8rUMUvc5ntjaVBHS4uQpQDgkrmqy_7qIOMWukM4dNs6nysoVixeNBw2iE3cGcCM/s1600/20181215_104705.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOaKV_93NEAA5UDfpiPbvrR1yk60gCwKe9aVuIpwhh_cb699kZ5Qrkke2mRsrOotWRFS9pSAhr0QsD8rUMUvc5ntjaVBHS4uQpQDgkrmqy_7qIOMWukM4dNs6nysoVixeNBw2iE3cGcCM/s640/20181215_104705.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Thank you for your patience, readers. Due to a variety of mainly work related reasons I no longer have as much time for art or blogging as I used to. I'm still doing sculpture, but I'm not able to update this blog anywhere near as frequently as I did previously.</span></div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-88426574055868805652018-08-08T09:23:00.000+12:002018-08-08T09:23:08.231+12:00Tree of life progress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">All the tree sculpting is now done, painted, and attached to a canvas. The next step involves a bit of homage to Kandinsky, where I'm accenting the tree with raised dots in blue and yellow. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXVmyWgY_uprYRf3gAApL35TtxfoicXdInHzxUTwaIL0MxFXM4VdXvlJLFW4gx1Tatzgu8fKuXDdzIidYPMbVattt2pdwOrDg4YtKU8ebQbRVDTdz_fZHe6dnxrTouQxUR6I4NJc1kYg/s1600/20180805_113322.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDXVmyWgY_uprYRf3gAApL35TtxfoicXdInHzxUTwaIL0MxFXM4VdXvlJLFW4gx1Tatzgu8fKuXDdzIidYPMbVattt2pdwOrDg4YtKU8ebQbRVDTdz_fZHe6dnxrTouQxUR6I4NJc1kYg/s640/20180805_113322.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I’ve always had a strong suspicion that the pretty round coloured things in Kandinsky's paintings actually represent <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/photism"><span style="color: cyan;">photisms</span></a>. He did like to pursue non-material subject matter, and appears to have experienced <a href="https://denverartmuseum.org/article/staff-blogs/wassily-kandinskys-symphony-colors"><span style="color: cyan;">synaesthesia</span></a>, which typically involves coloured photisms. T</span><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue", arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">he neurobiology and cultural significance of our brains' ability to see things that aren't there are quite interesting too, so adding some photisms to the tree of life seemed appropriate.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0ZgJMZyVJBQGPa0u-8DiYGKHnjwM4YjP1HBUg2vHD5iJz-5jSbEDmRgh5EwHh8_lJHoZGf4mKyYUahRTjFirxQgrODnxWIV_fPDcApOaOAbDCg8mZoIjGh5rqJZrPnODNdQxDcn1G_0/s1600/20180806_124636.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1303" data-original-width="1600" height="520" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE0ZgJMZyVJBQGPa0u-8DiYGKHnjwM4YjP1HBUg2vHD5iJz-5jSbEDmRgh5EwHh8_lJHoZGf4mKyYUahRTjFirxQgrODnxWIV_fPDcApOaOAbDCg8mZoIjGh5rqJZrPnODNdQxDcn1G_0/s640/20180806_124636.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">These little dots are gilded around the edges, to provide some contrast and brighten the whole thing up a bit, as well as to make them reflective and thus more suggestive of photisms.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-49329830591967813492018-08-01T12:57:00.004+12:002018-08-01T12:57:50.180+12:00It's nice to be doing some art again<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKhNaKY6FuoSJoCyn2RTsQctK9mZMdEfrQW_ILFde9Z7_cIkMhmRroFTve_9HL9g7VkcgiUHUvpWJgsggRafjEcGgErcPjANZmy6N6KAHF3xwri6CIub7ju_q0_j7DQGQxgFKKix6bAY/s1600/Tree+start.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1243" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnKhNaKY6FuoSJoCyn2RTsQctK9mZMdEfrQW_ILFde9Z7_cIkMhmRroFTve_9HL9g7VkcgiUHUvpWJgsggRafjEcGgErcPjANZmy6N6KAHF3xwri6CIub7ju_q0_j7DQGQxgFKKix6bAY/s640/Tree+start.jpg" width="496" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The tree of life, in its formative stages</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I started this sculpture in May, before getting sidetracked by <a href="http://hvitr.blogspot.com/2018/05/minoan-kilt-reconstruction.html"><span style="color: cyan;">this thing</span></a>. Now I have time to give the tree of life sculpture some attention, and therefore something to blog about here. It’s made with paper filaments, some of which have wire inside them so they can be bent into shape, and the concept here is basically a mashup of this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZgRDu-g1E29p8DJiAqHXsq6CmNUJai3bB9jJbBGWkERSTdbVzCU3igwm5X1AX_pMWN0x4w4PZaB9cwrxjmj9rFY-KPxkemXH04gOLn96M3Efij1h-IY3_8o0GxO5BfBM3KcJNEhmiMM/s1600/1-thyroid-gland-capillaries-sem-susumu-nishinaga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="900" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZgRDu-g1E29p8DJiAqHXsq6CmNUJai3bB9jJbBGWkERSTdbVzCU3igwm5X1AX_pMWN0x4w4PZaB9cwrxjmj9rFY-KPxkemXH04gOLn96M3Efij1h-IY3_8o0GxO5BfBM3KcJNEhmiMM/s320/1-thyroid-gland-capillaries-sem-susumu-nishinaga.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="https://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-thyroid-gland-capillaries-sem-susumu-nishinaga.html"><span style="color: cyan;">Fine Art America</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">And this:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAAa4GvT4Zl49eRKLXpI8YrGp2jvkXI8BH1UkG7zrO_xNeOTobO4xW_CEVbPFT7RB7N-pO4rtqVN7aeoun79TTBsBoF7eqyfDWputAFoIqDzE04cklxLZTqFPTSJW_nGnsdeI_2ia6ltE/s1600/Kelburn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="925" data-original-width="776" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAAa4GvT4Zl49eRKLXpI8YrGp2jvkXI8BH1UkG7zrO_xNeOTobO4xW_CEVbPFT7RB7N-pO4rtqVN7aeoun79TTBsBoF7eqyfDWputAFoIqDzE04cklxLZTqFPTSJW_nGnsdeI_2ia6ltE/s640/Kelburn.jpg" width="536" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The larger filaments of the sculpture follow the outline of the streets in this map of Kelburn, but flipped </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">upside down because it makes a nicer tree shape that way,</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> and re-imagined as blood vessels inside an organism.</span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-47586085824899942992018-01-29T09:21:00.001+13:002018-01-29T09:21:46.148+13:00Sculpture with mitochondria<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The sculpture of mitochondria and endoplasmic reticulum I was working on in my last post is now finished and framed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLdlBh3IBdHcQy4E9hEIS7580blVWWPb97nBj9AlZS_ZqoZ7H_z916i4CRnZW-3eWSDaRq4LvkM7b1A-ndSHc9zANfEcTJJrEXMREWNz7rMxV7kaSPL4tcRfGZ1XM07e1ynk2e3od9zJk/s1600/20180126_071940.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1587" data-original-width="1600" height="633" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLdlBh3IBdHcQy4E9hEIS7580blVWWPb97nBj9AlZS_ZqoZ7H_z916i4CRnZW-3eWSDaRq4LvkM7b1A-ndSHc9zANfEcTJJrEXMREWNz7rMxV7kaSPL4tcRfGZ1XM07e1ynk2e3od9zJk/s640/20180126_071940.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here are some of the mitochondria in close up, with their internal structure visible the way they frequently are in samples prepared using a <a href="https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/cryofracture">cryofracture or freeze fracture</a>:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ8M5NU-gc9GV0wmlh93ch3kSAdgkdhEaN_QcbZ7HevKyThD9wc78ecDfzr1lEjdqeEuVpeqoj9KxmLE6xZZQwkqmi9rPEZmKVAByW0H5kJMtIFx-OTred0dHjpQ3IO3R08LWQ9QAyI44/s1600/20180120_102358.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZ8M5NU-gc9GV0wmlh93ch3kSAdgkdhEaN_QcbZ7HevKyThD9wc78ecDfzr1lEjdqeEuVpeqoj9KxmLE6xZZQwkqmi9rPEZmKVAByW0H5kJMtIFx-OTred0dHjpQ3IO3R08LWQ9QAyI44/s400/20180120_102358.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The colour scheme is entirely based around a jar of Egyptian Violet that I couldn't resist buying, but it reminds me of a <a href="http://www.chrisjoneswriting.com/terry-pratchett-quotes/category/anatomy">Terry Pratchett quote</a> about anatomy: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">"I thought I’d show everyone what I’m made of. And now they’ll probably find out: I’m made of lots of tubes and greeny purple wobbly bits."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNaIWGy6K63kL46C8dqRHB-P-0yYRU56M4i-hgkZoY_KsmV_gji1JovjUFj_zEpgtlxGw8XjOt7XsX19YY599_YrMre04xaW1KTveg2SFFBmDbmTHQEak9Sh0RuT9JkLxN9opt_GPf8Ns/s1600/20180125_134451.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1392" data-original-width="1600" height="347" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNaIWGy6K63kL46C8dqRHB-P-0yYRU56M4i-hgkZoY_KsmV_gji1JovjUFj_zEpgtlxGw8XjOt7XsX19YY599_YrMre04xaW1KTveg2SFFBmDbmTHQEak9Sh0RuT9JkLxN9opt_GPf8Ns/s400/20180125_134451.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I have two more of these frames, and eventually I want to complete a series of these sculptures looking at different aspects of cellular biology. My colleague points out that the mitochondria would look great with <a href="http://www.mindkits.co.nz/EL-Wire">EL wire</a> inside them, so that's something to keep in mind for the future.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-90655949664889018912018-01-17T10:03:00.002+13:002018-01-17T10:03:39.153+13:00Beginning another SEM-based sculpture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The world as seen through a scanning electron microscope is a beautiful and fascinating place. These are mitochondria inside a cell: notice that some of the mitochondria are cut open and their internal structure is visible. The concertina-like folds inside them are <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0968000400016091">protein membranes</a> inside the mitochondrial wall called cristae. The mitochondria are shown embedded in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/endoplasmic-reticulum">endoplasmic reticulum</a>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiShD2Rg7XdTL1lWW_k34jT4mQKwrYYk1yQXD-0zRI8dUdbKDxkb44IZ7yxQZZ_ME-_Yzj_m6WP6Lasl7l5ne9f0NThC-kkraXzfI422DwqwTx8HIPxNdU5oq3smpX7tNnCD6W4Dq6_GQU/s1600/20180107_130259.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1564" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiShD2Rg7XdTL1lWW_k34jT4mQKwrYYk1yQXD-0zRI8dUdbKDxkb44IZ7yxQZZ_ME-_Yzj_m6WP6Lasl7l5ne9f0NThC-kkraXzfI422DwqwTx8HIPxNdU5oq3smpX7tNnCD6W4Dq6_GQU/s400/20180107_130259.jpg" width="390" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That yellow oxide colour is just a base layer. In the next post I'l show the final paint effect, which will involve a lot of magenta and Egyptian violet. The yellow oxide contrasts with these and will highlight the interior structure of the mitochondria. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For comparison, this is a SEM photo of mitochondria inside the endoplasmic reticulum:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for mitochondria sem" height="280" src="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56a652d1ab28105c117c08d5/56a655f8a976afaceba8b7f5/56a6beef9cadb6c68f608a6a/1457106043102/Pseudocolor+Heart+Mitochondria%2C+purple.jpg?format=1000w" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="http://woodslab.squarespace.com/gallery/">Woods Lab</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It took me a while to get the mitochondria looking how I wanted them to. On the left here is my first attempt, and on the right is a second, more successful attempt. I wanted a feathery effect for the cristae so they would contrast with the crisper edges of the endplasmic reticulum folds.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wpEoYS8eQioI8BTCXHdrLo1NaB1FhIAdkC95M505EiqrzgtCApV7BB-hVKezv3ACOvmo49_eJ1N17y6tidLARbSS7Vm4w6AfJ_ydlJLG5kKwgIUpv7Uh3TTD1iOk5NnccX1ipp2cprs/s1600/20171231_092819.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-wpEoYS8eQioI8BTCXHdrLo1NaB1FhIAdkC95M505EiqrzgtCApV7BB-hVKezv3ACOvmo49_eJ1N17y6tidLARbSS7Vm4w6AfJ_ydlJLG5kKwgIUpv7Uh3TTD1iOk5NnccX1ipp2cprs/s400/20171231_092819.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-29703406078705673162018-01-05T08:30:00.000+13:002018-01-05T08:30:46.972+13:00Sculpture with Knossos floor plans<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Continuing the labyrinth theme from the <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2017/12/labyrinthodont-teeth.html">previous post</a>, but turning now to prehistory rather than palaeontology, I've been working on a relief using the floor plan of the main palace building at Knossos.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnxQzElDEfj-Mn2gIS_ZMv4wDVTIcesMZrwWn5sk6K5s1weqWhx4AgtyJR5g7vYmFERglyDeRx7P9FN00AwaoHM_NPGsXDQShHIrOiRbJ7oXZcAS6YOmx01Eoev-gzZqAlxOy2Y8bFoo/s1600/20180105_074730.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1239" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNnxQzElDEfj-Mn2gIS_ZMv4wDVTIcesMZrwWn5sk6K5s1weqWhx4AgtyJR5g7vYmFERglyDeRx7P9FN00AwaoHM_NPGsXDQShHIrOiRbJ7oXZcAS6YOmx01Eoev-gzZqAlxOy2Y8bFoo/s640/20180105_074730.jpg" width="495" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">People tend to identify the Knossos buildings with the mythical labyrinth in which Theseus fought the Minotaur. The idea is that</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> mainland Greeks found Minoan buildings confusing and easy to get lost in, being rather more complex than the buildings they had back home. It sounds plausible, but this idea really came from Sir Arthur Evans, who excavated Knossos in the early 20th century and who, despite his debatable merits as an archaeologist, was a great PR man. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Regardless, it makes for a nice artistic composition.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHEIluWhEjZCzmgwoboRDsF-fxbhczMeiRZhRTEWXp3IIbvjj5e-j6Y9fVfAtUw55erHkxQ-hpMDhd0_1urSW3pqEoovgyqVJao39-LyhOBT1v7Y_U2r0fzliBblzYav_R7VMPdGwXgU/s1600/20180104_174025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHEIluWhEjZCzmgwoboRDsF-fxbhczMeiRZhRTEWXp3IIbvjj5e-j6Y9fVfAtUw55erHkxQ-hpMDhd0_1urSW3pqEoovgyqVJao39-LyhOBT1v7Y_U2r0fzliBblzYav_R7VMPdGwXgU/s640/20180104_174025.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is an exploded diagram of sorts, with the main ground floor of the palace building to the right, and the surviving portion of the second floor to the left. Originally there would have been perhaps five floors, but the upper floors haven't survived.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFwdqnx-CKNlwa7vmhbAgo4KQTsS2jcYpGwGDAd_jKDZcPZz-WdvjcvFIEh9GCNQQepyu3oTcB1kVBdJIueNSUqwKYLdC5BckUH_FI5FynY9oFex4CI1XBpZ5M2dgYc7iS5RsuyP9Nio/s1600/20180104_073323.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVFwdqnx-CKNlwa7vmhbAgo4KQTsS2jcYpGwGDAd_jKDZcPZz-WdvjcvFIEh9GCNQQepyu3oTcB1kVBdJIueNSUqwKYLdC5BckUH_FI5FynY9oFex4CI1XBpZ5M2dgYc7iS5RsuyP9Nio/s640/20180104_073323.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close up showing the floor plan for the first floor of the Knossos building.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOCIDEabcI1cBrYlRXz3Yaggb3vbHk52A9Qmqz2Kn3fWC8hUsqfaduKhsx1fY_uYAcuEBn9FqL33GdLoPLgqMTJQAPErNgNuHnmmwc0cCTjFlcOOgT53sx0qJGddweYIqJvC_YbKzTYbc/s1600/20180104_073350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOCIDEabcI1cBrYlRXz3Yaggb3vbHk52A9Qmqz2Kn3fWC8hUsqfaduKhsx1fY_uYAcuEBn9FqL33GdLoPLgqMTJQAPErNgNuHnmmwc0cCTjFlcOOgT53sx0qJGddweYIqJvC_YbKzTYbc/s640/20180104_073350.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Plan showing what remains of the second floor.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-30822845713646758632017-12-10T19:25:00.002+13:002017-12-10T19:25:58.993+13:00Labyrinthodont teeth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally, I'm getting some new content up on here! Today's blog post is about palaeoart, though it's really more art than palaeo. These are sculptural studies showing three cross sections of labyrinthodont teeth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNL5U7FVtUYQBOloVYXX9AXtLpMPvKRMQ3-ZSgZrAI2birhm-iJsyGDakAtFLxfJdOiztrESxPl5m4X24NJK28FgPEzKILy-3TnDg6iseMuFmDfcj1_xlrOBQ2tZ8StcSm31UTK-_7Gt8/s1600/20171210_175648.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1493" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNL5U7FVtUYQBOloVYXX9AXtLpMPvKRMQ3-ZSgZrAI2birhm-iJsyGDakAtFLxfJdOiztrESxPl5m4X24NJK28FgPEzKILy-3TnDg6iseMuFmDfcj1_xlrOBQ2tZ8StcSm31UTK-_7Gt8/s320/20171210_175648.jpg" width="298" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHpXmThNsS5HHy_LqhyphenhyphengaZ7h57qhR-bs4-t-trqGkyAP76IApqjvz-Nmw7loxlVivw7zYtJcrgf50q8rkxIhgerZaXzEwk8JzcM1J3v2l8tmOKUHmuFWEiVzNE2kEf15ISgd60ly1vkl0/s1600/20171210_175455.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1513" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHpXmThNsS5HHy_LqhyphenhyphengaZ7h57qhR-bs4-t-trqGkyAP76IApqjvz-Nmw7loxlVivw7zYtJcrgf50q8rkxIhgerZaXzEwk8JzcM1J3v2l8tmOKUHmuFWEiVzNE2kEf15ISgd60ly1vkl0/s320/20171210_175455.jpg" width="302" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOCB_4R3Bcd0Yw2My78HeEGYx6n3PM_JHzy22B8GrURu_oNgOF2R7zS0Kf1mI7Nra59RmdL7iU5_0ffRaMdr76U6DT8sWXpgtSEuYPmqgnEiadfTGD6A2aUeWqVBanozGW75N_ySHORss/s1600/20171210_175834.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1476" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOCB_4R3Bcd0Yw2My78HeEGYx6n3PM_JHzy22B8GrURu_oNgOF2R7zS0Kf1mI7Nra59RmdL7iU5_0ffRaMdr76U6DT8sWXpgtSEuYPmqgnEiadfTGD6A2aUeWqVBanozGW75N_ySHORss/s320/20171210_175834.jpg" width="295" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinthodontia">Labyrinthodonts</a> were a </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">group of carnivorous amphibians common during the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic, and their key distinctive feature was their teeth. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;">These things are fascinating. What's happening here is that the enamel folds in on itself towards the center of the tooth, creating characteristic channels inside the tooth structure.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms", sans-serif;"> <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-76156-0_12">It seems </a>the teeth evolved this way because the infolded enamel made them stronger while the teeth were growing.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-6347221894722846742017-05-18T11:20:00.001+12:002017-05-18T11:20:27.477+12:00Lamina cribrosa sculpture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I finished the <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2017/01/using-hemp-fibers-in-anatomical.html"><span style="color: cyan;">lamina cribrosa sculpture</span></a> ages ago, but didn't post about it until now because I wasn't sure if I liked it, or if I wanted to change the colours completely. So I left it alone for ages, and now that I come back to it I think it's probably okay as it is.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXXfnR0CiWwl9agRcuMHl6Q4v6leaHj06hgFcQ5PLLBT4rrw35xvL_KF8usg7PoI6669bHbIyfr3Wt23fuzcDUJqgPqp-_lhtFbcgzmjhrsBODtX6kOdrTNuKwlrzUxuYuzYk6Z9Zi7XI/s1600/20170423_125522.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXXfnR0CiWwl9agRcuMHl6Q4v6leaHj06hgFcQ5PLLBT4rrw35xvL_KF8usg7PoI6669bHbIyfr3Wt23fuzcDUJqgPqp-_lhtFbcgzmjhrsBODtX6kOdrTNuKwlrzUxuYuzYk6Z9Zi7XI/s320/20170423_125522.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The more I look at it, the more I see the eye of Sauron. I'm okay with that, though.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I did want to do some interesting things with colours on this sculpture, because that's half the fun of sculpting something as seen through an electron microscope. The microscope itself doesn't produce a coloured image, but it's common practice to add colours in post-production. </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Strong colour contrasts (such as blue/orange, red/green, yellow/purple) are a popular choice, partly because they look cool and partly because they</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"> help viewers identify different parts of the image.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've stuck to that convention and used magenta and chrome yellow on the lamina cribrosa, with Payne's grey on the surrounding membrane. Here it is in close up:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7In7ztWQXBRIgKRQT1q8vT_ExQBAqfjoRXpuEd7yWyDpKO3h_OK8qTVHRW0gdH_rXFdCY3mkdo774KP-thjlLom_4wIpir2RcUEPZDWCq3CT7IV23C-W3lLYlL9ENUBTR9SCfEvEhBY/s1600/20170423_125608.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQ7In7ztWQXBRIgKRQT1q8vT_ExQBAqfjoRXpuEd7yWyDpKO3h_OK8qTVHRW0gdH_rXFdCY3mkdo774KP-thjlLom_4wIpir2RcUEPZDWCq3CT7IV23C-W3lLYlL9ENUBTR9SCfEvEhBY/s320/20170423_125608.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-56083989890421260002017-01-12T10:17:00.001+13:002017-01-12T10:17:29.891+13:00Using hemp fibers in anatomical sculpture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">It’s always good to try new things. This week I’ve been experimenting with using hemp fibers in sculpture. I wanted something fibrous, and hemp string turned out to be ideal.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is another episode in my long-running fascination with things that look abstract but aren’t (for another example, see <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2016/06/the-bone-triptych.html"><span style="color: cyan;">here</span></a>). It’s the inside of a human eyeball, as seen under an electron microscope. The round thing in the middle is the point at which the optic nerve enters the eye. This is called the lamina cribrosa. In reality it's about 4mm in diameter, and it's like a little sponge with nerve fibers growing through the holes. The two large holes in the center allow a vein and an artery to enter the eye. The lamina cribrosa is surrounded by a membrane. Note that you cannot see the rod and cone cells, because they are underneath the membrane. Human eyes are inside out; light has to pass through a membrane layer before it can be picked up by the rod and cone cells.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLg0ziBhhDY9QdlLeSmBxt_9Nq_NpS-_7sKEeUMMjj63zFWK7TwTofsVxUCTNpfMGUbaZXtmrsRbi4x15GwdJ9VmWXAi0B6mxP1SGI-zeu0av6h92RFcSoCuECzndgHNAxv_OndNcndr8/s1600/LC+whole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLg0ziBhhDY9QdlLeSmBxt_9Nq_NpS-_7sKEeUMMjj63zFWK7TwTofsVxUCTNpfMGUbaZXtmrsRbi4x15GwdJ9VmWXAi0B6mxP1SGI-zeu0av6h92RFcSoCuECzndgHNAxv_OndNcndr8/s320/LC+whole.jpg" width="270" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's not an optical illusion, the whole thing is slightly concave. It curves upward at the corners because it represents the back of an eye, as seen from the inside.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The brown parts are hemp fibers incorporated into the membrane around the lamina cribrosa, which is made from thin strips of paper rolled into small cylinders and glued together to mimic the structure of the real thing.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRCmroyJbzsbFS4kUviwZcse8mKwE6HEVQbv3QrEo6ee2KEpDZU7gjJzEPQWcq2w-yUmrwnrd4-Sq_3ajtUosbXD5OPPRKiNkzUR5rvPAgZnPaxNAYPPnT6-FczuKn7jQuFsa8UejJAo/s1600/Lamina+cribrosa+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmRCmroyJbzsbFS4kUviwZcse8mKwE6HEVQbv3QrEo6ee2KEpDZU7gjJzEPQWcq2w-yUmrwnrd4-Sq_3ajtUosbXD5OPPRKiNkzUR5rvPAgZnPaxNAYPPnT6-FczuKn7jQuFsa8UejJAo/s320/Lamina+cribrosa+1.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lamina cribrosa, halfway through construction.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">For reference, these are pictures of the real thing, as seen through an electron microscope.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPOQvdUvQpb9PW4-VMt5K9jZsT5PHMm89cFiuQ-Umj0iqxJitVjry9SHLrCGTsnLi816hDUdYpXqcwGR0CecMue5iwiGSspA734IM89EQ9T_yXxbEMzA1VRTI-qHE0Nhy6wmVWSOotLns/s1600/Entokey+LC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPOQvdUvQpb9PW4-VMt5K9jZsT5PHMm89cFiuQ-Umj0iqxJitVjry9SHLrCGTsnLi816hDUdYpXqcwGR0CecMue5iwiGSspA734IM89EQ9T_yXxbEMzA1VRTI-qHE0Nhy6wmVWSOotLns/s320/Entokey+LC.jpg" width="297" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image found <a href="http://entokey.com/4-2/"><span style="color: cyan;">here</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjWqlEQqE5elHCj7lB56s5IrWGEi7ic8tFHe3ekxNmL4xv0n-vIuMuHz2n63-eu9fmVnbOfB-FDnkiYEMtXtyzIOgYvq3gPcyJyHq9Wzwpk2G9PI0OmMikjDkAEpXwMGyZpBAVAi5Ijf0/s1600/Human-lamina-cribosa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjWqlEQqE5elHCj7lB56s5IrWGEi7ic8tFHe3ekxNmL4xv0n-vIuMuHz2n63-eu9fmVnbOfB-FDnkiYEMtXtyzIOgYvq3gPcyJyHq9Wzwpk2G9PI0OmMikjDkAEpXwMGyZpBAVAi5Ijf0/s320/Human-lamina-cribosa.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image found <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/figure/280491628_fig6_Figure-6-Human-lamina-cribosa-Scanning-electron-microscopy-of-trypsine-digested-nervous"><span style="color: cyan;">here</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">You can see the tissue is very fibrous, and so I needed a fibrous sculpting material to represent it. The hemp fiber works well and creates an interesting variety of textures. When the sculpture is painted the hemp will be the same colour as the rest of the membrane, which will highlight the differences in texture.</span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
</div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-74608706854383890112017-01-09T12:09:00.001+13:002017-01-09T12:09:06.307+13:00Avalofractus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Happy New Year readers! Following on from my <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/finished-haootia-quadriformis-sculpture.html"><span style="color: cyan;">haootia quadriformis sculpture</span></a>, I've been sculpting some more Ediacaran life forms. In this case,<span style="color: cyan;"> <span style="color: cyan;"><a href="http://www.burgess-shale.rom.on.ca/en/science/origin/03-enigmatic-edicarans.php">rangeomorphs</a></span></span>. These were fern-like organisms that lived on the sea bed 635-542 million years ago and were obviously very successful, because there were a lot of different species. This one is called <a href="http://broom02.revolvy.com/main/index.php?s=Avalofractus"><span style="color: cyan;">avalofractus</span></a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_7SWAmWEyIyauwbUoxh4iUCna88ipG6VfDEX7J0Z26PIoGILw7U8fs7vkPfH7zXtHZtKJj7rJ_bZCoQHpHXBHAUfoNj3IkcX3HaV6CEkbsjtNu9ni95Yw_Z6c9NGKI3W1AhOpIKclOpg/s1600/Avalofractus+complete.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_7SWAmWEyIyauwbUoxh4iUCna88ipG6VfDEX7J0Z26PIoGILw7U8fs7vkPfH7zXtHZtKJj7rJ_bZCoQHpHXBHAUfoNj3IkcX3HaV6CEkbsjtNu9ni95Yw_Z6c9NGKI3W1AhOpIKclOpg/s320/Avalofractus+complete.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Finished sculpture showing three avalofractus <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">specimens.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The interesting thing about rangeomorphs is that their body shape was fractally symmetrical. Modern animals are usually bilaterally symmetrical, though <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-system"><span style="color: cyan;">some plants have fractal growth patterns</span></a>. Rangeomorphs, however, had a central column anchored to the sea bed with a round holdfast, with branches growing out on alternate sides of the column. Each branch grew sub branches, and so on. Every little branch or frond was a miniature version of the whole animal.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Beothukis mistakensis model og growth: " height="400" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/33/f8/50/33f8505d802272bd5ab31dc816a91069.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="283" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This diagram shows the rangeomorph's fractal growth pattern. The image comes from <span style="color: cyan;"><a href="http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/mwg-internal/de5fs23hu73ds/progress?id=ZjWIk8g8XwbP0EAilSPWuXrozVvYB4_KupP9Q_Ok3bM,&dl"><span style="color: cyan;">this paper by Jennifer Hoyal Cuthill and Simon Conway Morris</span></a>.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I think this is just so cool. I say animal but in fact there's some debate as to exactly what they were, and whether they were related to modern animals at all, or whether they evolved completely separately. Although they looked like ferns, they weren't a kind of plant. Plants use photosynthesis, and rangeomorphs did not. They lived at the bottom of the sea where there's no light, and probably <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/106/34/14438.full"><span style="color: cyan;">used their fronds to absorb nutrients</span></a> directly out of the water. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWyD9j_Aq6UObps09kY5LzNID-5M2-0CN-6vzOPIk96bUjO0wWQFWzx5Q_7DHIr0RzotwoFkluiLvAcref8v1sRu7NFBOyk2E45Mtr0Rsxsx8lsVUMDdtMvZVrxhmqVWSU3tqsDjMvNBE/s1600/Avalofractus+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWyD9j_Aq6UObps09kY5LzNID-5M2-0CN-6vzOPIk96bUjO0wWQFWzx5Q_7DHIr0RzotwoFkluiLvAcref8v1sRu7NFBOyk2E45Mtr0Rsxsx8lsVUMDdtMvZVrxhmqVWSU3tqsDjMvNBE/s320/Avalofractus+detail.jpg" width="228" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">These sculptures are much larger than life size. In reality avalofractus was only about 5cm long.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">As with the haootia sculpture I used a simple colour scheme where the background is painted indigo and the avalofractus figures are a lighter indigo. Again, this is my conjecture based on the fact that there's no fossil evidence for animals with eyes at this time, and there was no light at the bottom of the sea where these things lived anyway, so why would they be colourful? I could be wrong. There are deep sea creatures today that are colourful, even though they live in a world without light. However, I like the simple blue colouring. It gives them a somewhat ghostly look against the dark background, which is appropriate for deep-sea animals.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-34123861084008232042016-09-07T15:28:00.001+12:002016-09-07T15:28:59.530+12:00Finished haootia quadriformis sculpture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The haootia quadriformis sculpture is finished. To recap for the benefit of any readers who haven’t read my previous blog posts, <a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1793/20141202"><span style="color: cyan;">haootia quadriformis</span></a> is a small marine animal similar to (and likely related to) modern jellyfish, which lived 560 million years ago during the Ediacaran period. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Ediacaran life forms are very interesting to me as a sculptor because they’re just so weird. Haootia is actually one of the less strange ones, but it still makes for an interesting sculpture.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWYo_YNVvQkrdgaNuXLmK-b8U2y-8m09-AhjwrBIZpdrL-xp9O9XvExelCSs0MbL3NtbkmK_H8S1OgFQ2AizG139NHbqPwpBRuT54b0mdUPeGoGPHHHxqdVEerLmL8liRSb-mESSMZoj4/s1600/Finished+haootia+sculpture.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWYo_YNVvQkrdgaNuXLmK-b8U2y-8m09-AhjwrBIZpdrL-xp9O9XvExelCSs0MbL3NtbkmK_H8S1OgFQ2AizG139NHbqPwpBRuT54b0mdUPeGoGPHHHxqdVEerLmL8liRSb-mESSMZoj4/s320/Finished+haootia+sculpture.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/colouring-haootia-sculpture.html"><span style="color: cyan;">As I said</span></a> yesterday I did retouch some of the paint. I didn't change it very much though, just evened out the colours a bit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Here it is from the side. You can see the haootia's body projecting slightly from the surface of the background, however you can't see the whole body. Haootia had a little <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haootia"><span style="color: cyan;">stalk and a disc shaped foot</span></a>, which is not shown in this sculpture.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMf3j14ORlod0OmQJMqwhzv8OtltMiy7_GKnZ64NJx6HG4Z0f1ihzLHYK4TLZOFLiLluMcQum3i55Jt-IrfUJqyDhuC2KSRD2a4W4h5CRBRsH6fwhLyh1WXxnwnWLWOV7EqhlT4dl3tg/s1600/Haootia+partial+profile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMf3j14ORlod0OmQJMqwhzv8OtltMiy7_GKnZ64NJx6HG4Z0f1ihzLHYK4TLZOFLiLluMcQum3i55Jt-IrfUJqyDhuC2KSRD2a4W4h5CRBRsH6fwhLyh1WXxnwnWLWOV7EqhlT4dl3tg/s320/Haootia+partial+profile.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I decided against varnishing it, even with matte varnish, because any varnish would change the sculpture's texture and I like the texture as it is. </span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-9430827381589424662016-09-06T10:25:00.001+12:002016-09-06T10:25:48.380+12:00Colouring the haootia sculpture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">In <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2016/09/haootia-quadriformis-sculpture.html"><span style="color: cyan;">yesterday's post</span></a> I showed you my new <span style="color: cyan;"><a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1793/20141202"><span style="color: cyan;">haootia quadriformis</span></a> </span>sculpture. Last night I got stuck in and painted it.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVZtnj3-FtMxQjPkGseRKINcbk3q8g4CS7gVupQhVTshjhfCRDlL1GPWjIOBU4OUBfa6wB9ua76CZ7wGRZl4-WoiIPgUrveLP8d0ATlTApupGG3cZ7KUaOxd1Jpt6Axw-JgEgMJGnpwE/s1600/Haootia+coloured.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYVZtnj3-FtMxQjPkGseRKINcbk3q8g4CS7gVupQhVTshjhfCRDlL1GPWjIOBU4OUBfa6wB9ua76CZ7wGRZl4-WoiIPgUrveLP8d0ATlTApupGG3cZ7KUaOxd1Jpt6Axw-JgEgMJGnpwE/s320/Haootia+coloured.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The big question here was what colour to make it. Jellyfish are the closest things to haootia that still exist today, and they can sometimes be brightly coloured. But what about an animal that lived 560 million years ago in the Ediacaran period? Haootia didn’t have eyes as far as we can tell and neither did anything else around at the time; there’s no fossil evidence for eyes before the Cambrian. Would Ediacaran life forms have evolved coloured skins when there was nothing that could see them? Unfortunately we will probably never know, so this is one of those situations where an artist has to use their best judgement. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I took the conservative approach and used very little colour, just white and indigo.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_DwV159wapiD80ex0ORQm03_RNBYTCvomrigNNjmTcSv88R4P3UG7M9E8MLvDVJ8Vgo3HGh1eCzHiSUUZXpBudpDCKXdHNZZt80byvQtHP0hhyphenhyphenmGdcL287haxbRcGRq4yeMbZcpkANSA/s1600/Haootia+coloured1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_DwV159wapiD80ex0ORQm03_RNBYTCvomrigNNjmTcSv88R4P3UG7M9E8MLvDVJ8Vgo3HGh1eCzHiSUUZXpBudpDCKXdHNZZt80byvQtHP0hhyphenhyphenmGdcL287haxbRcGRq4yeMbZcpkANSA/s320/Haootia+coloured1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I may go back and re-touch some of the paint inside the haootia because it's not exactly my best work. By the time I got to those parts of the sculpture it was late and I had a migraine. I was determined to finish the job, but I wasn't really feeling it and it shows. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'll also give the sculpture a coat of matte or semi-gloss varnish.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-47821442152426540262016-09-05T13:03:00.001+12:002016-09-05T13:03:50.752+12:00Haootia quadriformis sculpture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1793/20141202"><span style="color: cyan;">Haootia quadriformis</span></a> is a small polyp-type animal which lived around 560 million years ago, and is believed to be one of the first creatures to have muscle tissue. I’ve wanted to do something with haootia ever since the discovery was published in 2014, but couldn’t work out exactly what I was going to do.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Finally I got the idea to make a small sculpture that emphasises the little animal’s symmetrical body plan.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesiqB2SeQR2Zw8AfyMkocBQRvyH2ZYdO2AGQWv7y3FYLXqKCnBo8wc8X4O2Au0EOH_glAxDJeDbx3uKQT2GFUgGxTyPv5dKAcNxdkvLlwJf8iGd-Nf4rjupxsHVsZ3bk1pf7_ulGa1G8/s1600/Haootia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhesiqB2SeQR2Zw8AfyMkocBQRvyH2ZYdO2AGQWv7y3FYLXqKCnBo8wc8X4O2Au0EOH_glAxDJeDbx3uKQT2GFUgGxTyPv5dKAcNxdkvLlwJf8iGd-Nf4rjupxsHVsZ3bk1pf7_ulGa1G8/s320/Haootia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is haootia seen from above. From the fossil evidence it appears to have been cup-shaped, with small tentacles branching off at each of its four corners, so that's what you see in the sculpture. The sculpture is about life size, maybe slightly bigger.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The following pictures show the haootia fossil discovered in Newfoundland, along with an artist's reconstruction of what it probably looked like when it wasn't squashed flat, and a modern staurozoan (stalked jellyfish), which is possibly a distant relative of haootia and is a similar type of animal.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-edition/20140830_STP001_0.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The two top images show the original haootia fossil from Newfoundland. Bottom right is an artist's depiction of what it looked like in life, and bottom left is a staurozoan, a similar type of animal which is still around today. <a href="http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21614094-ancient-jellyfish-shows-its-muscles-making-impression"><span style="color: cyan;">Picture from The Economist</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I used these pictures to determine how my haootia sculpture should look. I should point out we don't know exactly what haootia looked like inside. The Newfoundland fossil doesn't show evidence of any clearly defined structures </span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">inside the animal</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">, so I went with a very simple shape. Modern polyps <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cnidaria"><span style="color: cyan;">have a mouth</span></a> and the body of the polyp forms a stomach cavity. I assume haootia absorbed nutrients through the walls of its body cavity, but the fossil shows no sign of a mouth.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-32443016427696583592016-06-28T11:14:00.002+12:002016-06-28T11:14:55.428+12:00The bone triptych<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've mounted and framed the three panels of my Bone Triptych, which means I've glued them onto a board and put it in a frame so I can hang the whole thing on my wall, and I've finally gotten around to taking some photos. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7lc-Y5-g64QJF_BWvAXM6s44Aw_Z3G16byYPcwPX79Br3OFwOTcSovPzr_pmk3c7zqv7ZWfgumg9rHY4-wL5tQfWT311tvhOxGY2ZtqSujRg3aZHrw0PNV5yj2SchC0C3NZWo4Inli5Q/s1600/Triptych.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7lc-Y5-g64QJF_BWvAXM6s44Aw_Z3G16byYPcwPX79Br3OFwOTcSovPzr_pmk3c7zqv7ZWfgumg9rHY4-wL5tQfWT311tvhOxGY2ZtqSujRg3aZHrw0PNV5yj2SchC0C3NZWo4Inli5Q/s320/Triptych.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I really enjoyed doing this set of three related images. This is something I haven't done before, but it's certainly something I would do again in the future.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2unrqMSJiMXDQ5ywXCKcKcj0mdvQgk7IYKPAASkhiDUuSZFAVRwlJWN2reZuLvmDePaKubxUB7Z9J5DaOn4k1gq5HuFTRRSAECyD11xA-brKaoVK1U4RAZWEfrdOyBk3cz7OufYKadnU/s1600/Angle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2unrqMSJiMXDQ5ywXCKcKcj0mdvQgk7IYKPAASkhiDUuSZFAVRwlJWN2reZuLvmDePaKubxUB7Z9J5DaOn4k1gq5HuFTRRSAECyD11xA-brKaoVK1U4RAZWEfrdOyBk3cz7OufYKadnU/s320/Angle.jpg" width="293" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-12792047813872840402016-04-26T14:18:00.002+12:002016-04-26T14:18:21.094+12:00Time for some colour<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The thing about paper sculpture is that it looks totally different when it's painted. Paint usually emphasizes the sculpture's contours, though it can sometimes obscure some of the details. The kind of sculpture I make is intended to be painted, and really needs paint in order to work.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is what my <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2016/04/osteons-again.html">bone sculpture</a> looks like now it's painted:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3PyoHBYF3aEIOdyVHGGNCHht7x_ezIHQwsiVWfwjIzW2zMlOSkRLViINQH4s34KrLwWIF6QVCTgtmHLAromcjD31hsQPxjSknKS5aD1p_jctW4ZOmEV-6OuNxuXMDZG7NfjnrCO2t6c/s1600/Tryptich.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_3PyoHBYF3aEIOdyVHGGNCHht7x_ezIHQwsiVWfwjIzW2zMlOSkRLViINQH4s34KrLwWIF6QVCTgtmHLAromcjD31hsQPxjSknKS5aD1p_jctW4ZOmEV-6OuNxuXMDZG7NfjnrCO2t6c/s400/Tryptich.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">With bone, I think the secret to getting a satisfactory colour is using many thin layers of paint. I use acrylic paints, which tend to be fairly flat and don't have the kind of depth that oil paints have. Acrylic paints are cheap and convenient, but creating a painted surface with good depth and complexity using acrylics requires a bit of work. This panel with the cross section of a femur has up to seven layers of paint in places.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgovUa_uphSckX4p0GWaM_7OpZD77uH2TYqV1r5OANNYne7X44KHup-IKVKtZez1gp0dd2ktjX4EJYRLi0xx0fLluFtsKvTvc_0rWb0jFbGfamOAeHRMnAnx87U1u6IUBhYgivjc6A3rwE/s400/20160425_163850.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="300" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Panel one</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgovUa_uphSckX4p0GWaM_7OpZD77uH2TYqV1r5OANNYne7X44KHup-IKVKtZez1gp0dd2ktjX4EJYRLi0xx0fLluFtsKvTvc_0rWb0jFbGfamOAeHRMnAnx87U1u6IUBhYgivjc6A3rwE/s1600/20160425_163850.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">That texture you can see there underneath the femur is done with paint, just to make the panel a bit more interesting. I've got a tube of Payne's Grey that's kind of old and claggy and it makes some great impasto effects, of which this is an example.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The other two panels use much the same process of layered paint, with some red to highlight the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haversian_canal"><span style="color: cyan;">Haversian canals</span></a> which carry nerves and blood vessels in real bone.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvDoE-OvtJGgg26nMkP_fwMmU7QiIaM6r8ySG87f-U_sN3TmQMRpWAi1UhniK559qaeaPLai-VVacwSLv5mJXeBW8kE1vf7th4d2T0UEcnDh_By327J91gcqMTs6dMQ3acc2PGg1a_q4/s400/20160425_163816.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="300" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close up of panel two</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvDoE-OvtJGgg26nMkP_fwMmU7QiIaM6r8ySG87f-U_sN3TmQMRpWAi1UhniK559qaeaPLai-VVacwSLv5mJXeBW8kE1vf7th4d2T0UEcnDh_By327J91gcqMTs6dMQ3acc2PGg1a_q4/s1600/20160425_163816.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGa9l6tcEyoryc8J8z697gaWI65wcYcLYlMe-37S93i7X4J3bqTzbx8XoEldLoLe6LwbEiKLyn6aqksHeJKIUVosjue1SjKUy_VMDj4VhAkATDTUuWhldcmIXqqD0QfW7qWTaVpcYwL0/s400/20160425_163829.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="300" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close up of panel three</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyGa9l6tcEyoryc8J8z697gaWI65wcYcLYlMe-37S93i7X4J3bqTzbx8XoEldLoLe6LwbEiKLyn6aqksHeJKIUVosjue1SjKUy_VMDj4VhAkATDTUuWhldcmIXqqD0QfW7qWTaVpcYwL0/s1600/20160425_163829.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-61574767138817300252016-04-23T11:46:00.000+12:002016-04-23T11:46:15.084+12:00Osteons, again<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Like <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2016/04/osteons.html"><span style="color: cyan;">the last post</span></a>, this one is about osteons. Actually they're the same osteons I posted last time, but with a greater level of magnification. The point is that we're looking at the same thing, at successively higher levels of magnification.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">They don't look a lot like bone right now, but that's largely because they're blue. The first layer of paint is blue because I find using a blue undercoat helps to create a satisfactory creamy bone colour. That'll be the next stage in the project.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMtEXWwR-86Ur_qhHtLfhvhTkxrIzYxpKvV6Sj-vaONyN2K192sQA-fCvHh7aTlEhX8OE6LB7L3PBOtZfC5wnsuWIoHEbNeGo5Xj3WZ3gQnPl8vOl2Zg4zSDB84XLo6pxSthKvvsilypY/s1600/20160422_173251-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="206" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMtEXWwR-86Ur_qhHtLfhvhTkxrIzYxpKvV6Sj-vaONyN2K192sQA-fCvHh7aTlEhX8OE6LB7L3PBOtZfC5wnsuWIoHEbNeGo5Xj3WZ3gQnPl8vOl2Zg4zSDB84XLo6pxSthKvvsilypY/s320/20160422_173251-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All three panels with their first layer of paint.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBd4sYYra9ZAW5yVRf24BT_K23qaMUai_sk3uiYFqrTrr7yu2P-YRxLS2yXJpdyhPcCI3YzCqarrK4P0xn4a1uQkDUXMSlHD42jZM9Y5pPEYzRzoFTjia5Mbua7qX-HnaJTG-K0q_1pE/s1600/20160422_173340.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbBd4sYYra9ZAW5yVRf24BT_K23qaMUai_sk3uiYFqrTrr7yu2P-YRxLS2yXJpdyhPcCI3YzCqarrK4P0xn4a1uQkDUXMSlHD42jZM9Y5pPEYzRzoFTjia5Mbua7qX-HnaJTG-K0q_1pE/s320/20160422_173340.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close up of panel number three, which I hadn't started on last time I posted.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2016/03/trying-some-ideas-for-new-project.html"><span style="color: cyan;">As I said earlier</span></a>, I'm interested in the shapes of osteons that you can see in a piece of bone under a scanning electron microscope. They look almost abstract and are highly textured. Under very high magnification, osteons are made up of concentric rings of bone tissue, full of small holes and little channels, which is what I've depicted in panels two and three. Here's a photo of the real thing for comparison:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~anatomy/Histo/lab_2/bone/DMS070/69.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Picture from <a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/~anatomy/Histo/lab_2/bone/DMS070/popup.html">Dartmouth</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Panel two was done freehand, but since panel three is a magnified version of part of panel two I drew the shapes on a piece of paper, and then sculpted them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxucYfnp7UM9nZcBaQlc5W6LC9uY0fs0zpMnI_1hYZAswCaAWWzTn-XO770tuYJ13sStVqe3cRU7ct4AtLJ0m2XAUo78PFaf7lINOA74Hqaa_YfEQIAp78frbUtO0AP_fvgZ3erIVXZ8/s1600/20160417_091816-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxucYfnp7UM9nZcBaQlc5W6LC9uY0fs0zpMnI_1hYZAswCaAWWzTn-XO770tuYJ13sStVqe3cRU7ct4AtLJ0m2XAUo78PFaf7lINOA74Hqaa_YfEQIAp78frbUtO0AP_fvgZ3erIVXZ8/s320/20160417_091816-1.jpg" width="274" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">They're made of paper and glue. It turns out paper is a good medium to portray the concentric rings of an osteon.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIP2juUUPDp-75OQ48bnpatp_ZhBeWIzivV0yCsLVVloxVBV_mvDwa0HG9otG4evgshl-7_YsbUqpG7sWzGJDCuwziqhQvOwrwk2B3uc7J7PpdKbQDW2ydXIbu-5A28OChCUpchRvJqzI/s1600/20160417_112834.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIP2juUUPDp-75OQ48bnpatp_ZhBeWIzivV0yCsLVVloxVBV_mvDwa0HG9otG4evgshl-7_YsbUqpG7sWzGJDCuwziqhQvOwrwk2B3uc7J7PpdKbQDW2ydXIbu-5A28OChCUpchRvJqzI/s320/20160417_112834.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This project will rely heavily on colour to bring out the shapes of the bone structure, so my task now is to paint the three panels.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-13456824000396628392016-04-12T14:24:00.000+12:002016-04-12T14:24:17.462+12:00Osteons<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.com/2016/03/trying-some-ideas-for-new-project.html"><span style="color: cyan;">Last time I posted</span></a> I talked about a project I'm doing inspired by what bone looks like under a microscope.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6Bf4eeR3jGsrv0ILUDLQGJf6UK-EpNRAZJaRaISZAnh7vGG2sejoP_gXjH9XYlc2XGM6oJHLHlklVeLVBjqWg_IY-7Z0X5TnKeqgNSJCk-cc_1F9epI_7skMMj_G2NMdggWWm2iOuD8/s1600/20160409_190649%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy6Bf4eeR3jGsrv0ILUDLQGJf6UK-EpNRAZJaRaISZAnh7vGG2sejoP_gXjH9XYlc2XGM6oJHLHlklVeLVBjqWg_IY-7Z0X5TnKeqgNSJCk-cc_1F9epI_7skMMj_G2NMdggWWm2iOuD8/s320/20160409_190649%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">If you recall the first panel has the whole cross section of the femur, slightly magnified, and looks like this:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha-LfLCoUfS8lvqkK7JcsCtdhehUPcNsyb96vvWn_o51RctwE8oFyrHuWjyfczzJWTdAfNhmtFq7X68Mn-hqGlIwiqWjtkPln4RvuoBOYoFpr2An38ZMRuH-t7FlV_LobaVcZpMJVzCEk/s1600/Panel+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha-LfLCoUfS8lvqkK7JcsCtdhehUPcNsyb96vvWn_o51RctwE8oFyrHuWjyfczzJWTdAfNhmtFq7X68Mn-hqGlIwiqWjtkPln4RvuoBOYoFpr2An38ZMRuH-t7FlV_LobaVcZpMJVzCEk/s320/Panel+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This second panel is the same thing magnified again, so you can see the circular osteons inside the bone itself.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8ISoJEC35hSB-e4Fyy4GDmE_XxeRB6FTA8cNUQhhiwV3VYEt-igdAN2lYII6gOSqIhSE1zfrlgPLhSh1yZJJuAHR9yzhxOIkFMKVDwPOQomBdMfKwz5nRplDNuYjO0ksO97Dh-tU2g0/s1600/20160409_190703%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8ISoJEC35hSB-e4Fyy4GDmE_XxeRB6FTA8cNUQhhiwV3VYEt-igdAN2lYII6gOSqIhSE1zfrlgPLhSh1yZJJuAHR9yzhxOIkFMKVDwPOQomBdMfKwz5nRplDNuYjO0ksO97Dh-tU2g0/s320/20160409_190703%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO6MsbvHv6uxxx9ZLWk9LkJKBxEJNrSVWR3J-cP-LMyDSMV5yYBB9NiEWLHlQ4aVCstDAf2EPEh6c8Tu5buIyZQuyjNjp8zkuBgKJQv616kl7hlOnW6l3c47T7NZxaap6uHQZb6G2b0Wk/s1600/20160409_190712%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO6MsbvHv6uxxx9ZLWk9LkJKBxEJNrSVWR3J-cP-LMyDSMV5yYBB9NiEWLHlQ4aVCstDAf2EPEh6c8Tu5buIyZQuyjNjp8zkuBgKJQv616kl7hlOnW6l3c47T7NZxaap6uHQZb6G2b0Wk/s320/20160409_190712%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Panel number three will be the osteons magnified yet again.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-23291593164616211922016-03-29T14:39:00.000+13:002016-04-08T00:21:22.527+12:00Trying some ideas for a new project<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">When you look at the natural world, and particularly when you look at it under a microscope, it starts to look very abstract.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This image, for example, isn't a piece of contemporary art, it's a cross section of bone seen under a microscope.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Compact bone, from human femur. Bone is made up of two types of tissue: the compact bone forms a shell around the spongy cancellous bone that makes up the marrow space in the centre. Compact bone provides strength and rigidity and is solid in appearance. It is composed of a layered matrix of organic substances and inorganic salts that form around an intricate network of vasculature called Haversian canals. Credit: Ivor Mason, KCL, Wellcome Images.: " height="290" src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/da/8a/b7/da8ab76736f03211e0faf731915a1af4.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="http://wellcome.ac.uk/"><span style="color: cyan;">Wellcome.ac.uk</span></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">This is the same thing at an even greater magnification. These round structures with the little holes in the middle are called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteon"><span style="color: cyan;">osteons</span></a>, which are essentially the building blocks of bone.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="COMPACT BONE. in electron microscope. looks like weird sand dunes. central hole, haversian canal obvious. lacuna are the tinier holes: " src="https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/5e/2b/20/5e2b206ee9f475b14b6e51057c5d0a4c.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="https://www.pinterest.com/source/psmicrographs.co.uk"><span style="color: cyan;">Psmicrographs.co.uk</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I've been playing around with three little panels showing cross sections of a femur at progressively greater levels of magnification.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_w41dE5MI0dHqYxK7qkHsD86htQnxZrEnWw-4QUa6tVtY0a4DMyoBJ6izk2KAbohRzp0tC_SxXCCdCj0a0vvczVJwYMkfhyzz_qBgQ6NF-9cS9HTjYrBFN5Etf1vYjwAEJaQ8F67i8Ds/s1600/Panels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_w41dE5MI0dHqYxK7qkHsD86htQnxZrEnWw-4QUa6tVtY0a4DMyoBJ6izk2KAbohRzp0tC_SxXCCdCj0a0vvczVJwYMkfhyzz_qBgQ6NF-9cS9HTjYrBFN5Etf1vYjwAEJaQ8F67i8Ds/s320/Panels.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br />Panel number one is a cross section showing the compact bone around the outside, and the spongy bone in the center of the femur where the marrow sits. This piece is made from paper and plaster.</span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4VLM9uQam1EjYqBSgiWX-L3zOJKEXGsk5NAsc21EUDO8Hmxd2T4Ri06Qn_hRLZzC9jAakWpoUVUTXTIl0X_zRQetMMKjTv2gylTMRYcxbusp6S9fAfPeWLwHUkdTKcmK1qgIx77zKDPM/s1600/Panel+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4VLM9uQam1EjYqBSgiWX-L3zOJKEXGsk5NAsc21EUDO8Hmxd2T4Ri06Qn_hRLZzC9jAakWpoUVUTXTIl0X_zRQetMMKjTv2gylTMRYcxbusp6S9fAfPeWLwHUkdTKcmK1qgIx77zKDPM/s320/Panel+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">The next one is all paper, and shows the osteons in the compact bone, like that second picture I showed in this post. It's very much a work in progress at this stage, but hopefully you can get some idea of what it will be like.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMQooNL31KP7X9ZTO7Ml7nFAp-4i6Jwdar8qUthA5N_kXFnAEzHm_C8CtTsCs0VRbOnMCGkRjLaCYG_nutiUu33wW8hcWMnERcj8AT2-m5w5ydKBQyV98ll93QVv1sNLAL-P34jTxqnU/s1600/Panel+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjMQooNL31KP7X9ZTO7Ml7nFAp-4i6Jwdar8qUthA5N_kXFnAEzHm_C8CtTsCs0VRbOnMCGkRjLaCYG_nutiUu33wW8hcWMnERcj8AT2-m5w5ydKBQyV98ll93QVv1sNLAL-P34jTxqnU/s320/Panel+2.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">I'll talk about the third panel another time, because so far I don't really have anything there to talk about. What I'd like to achieve is something that captures the abstract look of bone structure under a microscope - something that's all about colour and shape. </span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-51436914048095074372016-03-20T18:41:00.003+13:002016-03-20T18:41:56.341+13:00Just for fun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">No, I haven't abandoned this blog, nor have I stopped making sculpture. I've just been really, really slack about posting. For reasons that aren't entirely clear to me I've been having something of a creative dry spell and I have a largish project that I started on, but which just doesn't seem to be coming together. Eventually I thought screw it, I'll just play around with some fun things instead.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">One result of this was a number of little paper beads made to look like shark vertebrae.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFOu2i-48y7csHUNCOioza_d26OGp58NqEqNlh9GslurkkRlZNAjCQ9Kn6j1FTcE4qvtGWB5RmlCsiQckidthl9v_gcjULAbiEdQHpA25veAPKhNmTltWe4Wpm9zi6ZPbVlbOT1Sltdfg/s1600/20160320_135511.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFOu2i-48y7csHUNCOioza_d26OGp58NqEqNlh9GslurkkRlZNAjCQ9Kn6j1FTcE4qvtGWB5RmlCsiQckidthl9v_gcjULAbiEdQHpA25veAPKhNmTltWe4Wpm9zi6ZPbVlbOT1Sltdfg/s320/20160320_135511.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;">Shark vertebrae have a really cool texture along the side, made from tiny bone septa (ridges). This is primarily what attracts me to them; the texture is interesting and I wanted to see if I could reproduce it in paper.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjca5Uj7ACnqj_6oWpW0gNZwCOl2kFT8bXB5uxwpHh1r70931C-sA6YotGTDIE3wO8xHASFxTL6jlZ2M3hOIcJrQ_4g86fKX6Mubqbk9MLTFgCWB_q1oGV1TbK4N99ZACjcFlii_eQWLXU/s1600/20160320_182900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjca5Uj7ACnqj_6oWpW0gNZwCOl2kFT8bXB5uxwpHh1r70931C-sA6YotGTDIE3wO8xHASFxTL6jlZ2M3hOIcJrQ_4g86fKX6Mubqbk9MLTFgCWB_q1oGV1TbK4N99ZACjcFlii_eQWLXU/s320/20160320_182900.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">For comparison, here are some real shark vertebrae. The little holes you see in the picture are where the vertebral spines would have attached when the shark was alive. I included vertebral spines on the ones I made.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="213" src="http://www.sharkwatchsa.com/userdocs/image/Blogs/fishsharkvertebrae.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image found <a href="http://www.sharkwatchsa.com/en/blog/category/482/post/1209/age-white-shark-how-old/"><span style="color: cyan;">here</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-77534845699296670522015-10-29T13:42:00.001+13:002015-10-29T13:42:53.730+13:00Finished hand sculpture<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Last time I posted I was very close to finishing the hand sculpture, and in fact I've had these photos and been meaning to post them for a while, but various things got in the way.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWiaHFVBT5NzWBcUSBjFA1givJ2BF98vvdow3vPqjaJybaIfY0hcsc-xHmGVBZ9BH-0RoUNNlAUymRegqARogjuVe1CZGXLdNO-w7Eo9JgM51WheaRSI8ZXHI9z3zFEtQD95juTsDXF0/s1600/20151021_184137%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiWiaHFVBT5NzWBcUSBjFA1givJ2BF98vvdow3vPqjaJybaIfY0hcsc-xHmGVBZ9BH-0RoUNNlAUymRegqARogjuVe1CZGXLdNO-w7Eo9JgM51WheaRSI8ZXHI9z3zFEtQD95juTsDXF0/s320/20151021_184137%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99CHGlJMT270gxZ1SdLc51Cm966GhiafnYYRDtta1meJ1HVQrsHWacEsF2OP23ibk-v9SFgT7PNHY-qy2LhjHCm8Fm4fMMI9O2n_ityphHlmqca0bclAlP4o5j73-yTnn-akcFISps3g/s1600/20151021_184144%25280%2529%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99CHGlJMT270gxZ1SdLc51Cm966GhiafnYYRDtta1meJ1HVQrsHWacEsF2OP23ibk-v9SFgT7PNHY-qy2LhjHCm8Fm4fMMI9O2n_ityphHlmqca0bclAlP4o5j73-yTnn-akcFISps3g/s320/20151021_184144%25280%2529%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVavladWqQroXUdWc2RrHlFi3DNC0IjARGa2j42dgwGoG33u8EjkMGvpxgxaaNZlVlPHj8V0KIZJscHZnMRFntW2TSdS_vu8YPpzilar2j7Ps815Q1PjZVOcPgG4FhUfFQL3n4L8C0Qvw/s1600/20151021_184201%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVavladWqQroXUdWc2RrHlFi3DNC0IjARGa2j42dgwGoG33u8EjkMGvpxgxaaNZlVlPHj8V0KIZJscHZnMRFntW2TSdS_vu8YPpzilar2j7Ps815Q1PjZVOcPgG4FhUfFQL3n4L8C0Qvw/s320/20151021_184201%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The late, great Brian Sewell <a href="http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/exhibitions/damien-hirst-tate-modern-brian-sewells-review-7618751.html">once said of Damien Hirst</a> that "all his ideas were borrowed from things seen as a boy on frequent prowlings in the university’s anatomy museum before, at 19, he left Leeds for London." Substitute internet for anatomy museum (I should be so lucky), and that's a pretty fair description of my own creative process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The hand is the focal point of this composition, and since it's highly detailed I've balanced it with a <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2015/10/more-on-thumb-print.html"><span style="color: cyan;">very simple background</span></a> - just a plain canvas and a thumb print. There isn't any reason why it's a thumbprint specifically, it's just that the linear nature of a thumbprint ties in nicely with the linear linear blood vessel structures on the hand. In general, I like to think the composition works fairly well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've really enjoyed this relief sculpture, and I have ideas for a couple of others.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-24474994632342946402015-10-19T15:56:00.002+13:002015-10-19T15:56:27.883+13:00More on the thumb print<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've made some more progress on the thumb print I <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2015/10/what-to-do-with-that-hand-now-ive-made.html"><span style="color: cyan;">discussed last time</span></a>. From this angle you can see the shape of the ridges and how they blend into the canvas. I wanted them to look as if they were part of the canvas rather than simply stuck onto it, and overall I think I achieved that fairly well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCUnPshyRYpQddYEqP70u9MWET6oZ_yj2mURiucUam4AK2FSfC2tuvHQmnhqJm9g83iuKeT7OS8RJSitfvI6ct2jkg85GrFIgqWMdVKYzM3_-n13u8nmo4-tX3LZC53GGw9eFMKTWCB8/s1600/20151018_130438%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqCUnPshyRYpQddYEqP70u9MWET6oZ_yj2mURiucUam4AK2FSfC2tuvHQmnhqJm9g83iuKeT7OS8RJSitfvI6ct2jkg85GrFIgqWMdVKYzM3_-n13u8nmo4-tX3LZC53GGw9eFMKTWCB8/s320/20151018_130438%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">From a more traditional viewing angle, the thumbprint shape is reasonably subtle. It's a background, after all, and I don't want it to overpower the whole composition.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVKmzIBE63UDFxBK_Xu0Uv8TB02FfRhBBhHiIpEQwnEPhKBcTKZtDP1juL8t3TIMZ0NOmP2vsHNwBVHR5eB-5wt7ofpHn9DV7FiEMXNs5mVbsmN_xOoygUcGypXU5XhyphenhyphenBYT3L4k1UoeFA/s1600/20151018_130408%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVKmzIBE63UDFxBK_Xu0Uv8TB02FfRhBBhHiIpEQwnEPhKBcTKZtDP1juL8t3TIMZ0NOmP2vsHNwBVHR5eB-5wt7ofpHn9DV7FiEMXNs5mVbsmN_xOoygUcGypXU5XhyphenhyphenBYT3L4k1UoeFA/s320/20151018_130408%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next time I post, I probably will have finished this piece and will have some nice finished photos to show you.</span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-80984749538948341492015-10-07T14:23:00.002+13:002015-10-07T14:23:38.533+13:00What to do with that hand, now I've made it? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I want to make a relief to hang on the wall with my <a href="http://seditiosus.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/even-more-vascular-system-because-its.html"><span style="color: cyan;">skeletal hand</span></a>. It's a simple composition which just involves the hand superimposed on top of a thumb print. Currently the thumb print is about half complete.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKM6TeLivaIp-klIVDVICQBY8s5LMuhHevRt4evo6mY0hENh1QVMOjGMkNEHN1Ue2dbivHe3bQD5smsCbivjj3QQF09OTLgNVPhCTY9ErUrn_xKwA_YzLGS-W1KhcolW5i7eSc9d-EVDE/s1600/20151004_100336.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKM6TeLivaIp-klIVDVICQBY8s5LMuhHevRt4evo6mY0hENh1QVMOjGMkNEHN1Ue2dbivHe3bQD5smsCbivjj3QQF09OTLgNVPhCTY9ErUrn_xKwA_YzLGS-W1KhcolW5i7eSc9d-EVDE/s320/20151004_100336.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Though it's a little hard to see in that photo, the whorls of the thumb print emerge from the canvas background a little like the ripples that happen when you drop a stone into water. </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I've done this by taking the same lengths of wire wrapped in paper that I used to make the hand's vascular system, gluing them onto a canvas, then using paper to build up the forms and blend them into the canvas surface.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhThnbUphEdcAumkdF5zTxpAVFCEYeGvkGpEzYoeGsFFWZ_4K1JZQ40b7dNUjTUq2lulkgIAVI00mqkPPUhppvKph3dnid5v_5d3-G6TSDU729eA-wXtZUhqvVADFT8fF21RWpUs5mmieg/s1600/20151003_113215%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhThnbUphEdcAumkdF5zTxpAVFCEYeGvkGpEzYoeGsFFWZ_4K1JZQ40b7dNUjTUq2lulkgIAVI00mqkPPUhppvKph3dnid5v_5d3-G6TSDU729eA-wXtZUhqvVADFT8fF21RWpUs5mmieg/s320/20151003_113215%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First stage of making the thumb print: wire ridges glued onto the canvas background.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The background looks black, but is actually indigo. It looks black in person, as well as to the camera, but it is richer and deeper than black acrylic, and it does a better job of blending into the blue and red tones I'm using to paint the thumb print. These are the same colours that I used on the blood vessels of the hand, which will hopefully tie the whole thing together.</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNhyIAK_syU548J9QKe5P5VxkMAnsh83qBhzJX8JXet2RMKpiwYQjyeew0Vr-KSVgeGQf-qHpiPwWzsMuEKbpvShZHG9d7-ac4rnyRdVX2lbwDyQhWJC4XK7CkvloX0kTyxUtxMigrs5U/s1600/20151003_223533%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNhyIAK_syU548J9QKe5P5VxkMAnsh83qBhzJX8JXet2RMKpiwYQjyeew0Vr-KSVgeGQf-qHpiPwWzsMuEKbpvShZHG9d7-ac4rnyRdVX2lbwDyQhWJC4XK7CkvloX0kTyxUtxMigrs5U/s320/20151003_223533%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The thumb print, of course, is my own. I took a print and blew it up on the photocopier to make it easier to see, then used that to copy the ridges.</span></div>
<br /></div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-39562376112939156112015-09-28T13:21:00.001+13:002015-09-28T13:21:24.179+13:00The stupidity of New Zealand Flag Idol<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sometimes I write posts about things that are art-related, but aren't my sculptures. The great farce that is the New Zealand Flag Referendum is both vaguely art-related and too good to miss. It's a comedy of errors worthy of Shakespeare or Aristophanes, and we haven't even got to the voting yet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Changing the flag is essentially a vanity project for the Prime Minister. He wants a new flag to be his legacy and he's determined to get it, even though everybody else would rather he left a legacy of better legislation and maybe one of those surpluses he keeps promising. The Labour party, eager to show voters they can provide more sensible leadership, vigorously oppose changing the flag - even though changing the flag is a <a href="http://campaign.labour.org.nz/internal_affairs"><span style="color: cyan;">Labour party policy</span></a>. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Later this year there will be a referendum in which we all get to vote on a shortlist of alternative flags, then next year the alternative with the most votes will go up against the current flag and we vote again on which one we want.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It's just like a reality TV show, and it's depressing because it's a waste of a good opportunity. From a design perspective our flag is clunky, and it looks too much like Australia's. Changing it for something better and more recognizable is a good idea, but the process has been managed so badly that this is not going to happen. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The problem stems from the way the alternatives were chosen. The government put no effort or resources into finding an alternative flag, they simply invited the public to submit designs and then got a panel of bureaucrats to choose a shortlist. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Predictably, this approach generated some quality joke candidates (the <a href="https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/the-nz-flag-your-chance-to-decide/gallery/design/3127"><span style="color: cyan;">kiwi with laser eyes</span></a>, for example), but no truly brilliant designs. Nothing that inspires us to say "THIS is what our flag should be". For that they would have needed to commission entries from experienced professional designers, and they didn't. That's our government all over. They don't understand that if you want a high quality result, you have to get a professional who really knows what they're doing, and you have to pay them. It made sense to invite public submissions, but they should also have commissioned a couple of designs from an expert. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The whole process might as well have been specifically designed to produce mediocre flag alternatives, and it has. Ye gods, but it has. These are the four finalists:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Four promo v2" height="107" src="https://www.govt.nz/assets/Uploads/Four-promo-v2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from the <a href="https://www.govt.nz/browse/engaging-with-government/the-nz-flag-your-chance-to-decide/?gclid=Cj0KEQjwm4mwBRCni-ivmePYivkBEiQAdGkklsaM6rMts4T9MVyFu_ZL1IOwpCSRb9qF7htNh3CIK68aAmow8P8HAQ"><span style="color: cyan;">Flag Consideration Project website</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">They aren't bad as such, but they're boring. They're exactly the kind of flags you would expect to get if you invited public submisions and then had a committee of bureaucrats choose a shortlist. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Unsurprisingly, the New Zealand public is unimpressed, and </span><a href="http://m.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11516067" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;">a recent poll</span></a><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> by 3 News Reid Research </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">indicates only 25% of kiwis want to change the flag. I think a lot of this is because the choices are so uninspiring. There are plenty of people who like the flag we have, but also a lot of people who would be open to changing it if there was a really good alternative.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Now, however, we have a fifth option. Red Peak, shown below, didn't make it onto the shortlist, but a few people obviously like it. They started a</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">n online petition and got 50,000 signatures, so the government has agreed to include Red Peak on the ballot. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The Prime Minister seemed happy enough to include it and has said that while he would prefer a silver fern, he likes Red Peak better than our current flag. Those who want it will now have the opportunity to vote for it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="NZ flag design Red Peak by Aaron Dustin.svg" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/NZ_flag_design_Red_Peak_by_Aaron_Dustin.svg/300px-NZ_flag_design_Red_Peak_by_Aaron_Dustin.svg.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Red Peak. Image from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Peak_flag"><span style="color: cyan;">Wikipedia</span></a>.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This isn't as democratic as it sounds. 50,000 is less than 1% of the population. In fact, Red Peak is a consistently unpopular design. A <a href="http://umr.co.nz/sites/umr/files/umr_flag_referendum_full_edition_-_aug_2015.pdf"><span style="color: cyan;">UMR Research study</span></a> which investigated what people thought of the 40 possible designs found that Red Peak featured in the top five least preferred designs for every demographic they surveyed. None of that matters. A small but vocal minority got a petition together, so on the ballot it goes. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">If it wins the PM will get more than he bargained for, because look what happens if you take four copies of Red Peak and arrange them with the corners together:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcd_7OcwxWUyNhyC7AJcSfKA2BMk8grptRvd3kF6sBy5UTkqLVkHAxMFrbcyjpA_K3sc1_ITHKJQJHs54aIby4lcsk-TWJz6PYm46WJdsIgPFaoiioMwXX2uGuNsRHaAfSmGaE5zHXYR0/s1600/Oh+dear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcd_7OcwxWUyNhyC7AJcSfKA2BMk8grptRvd3kF6sBy5UTkqLVkHAxMFrbcyjpA_K3sc1_ITHKJQJHs54aIby4lcsk-TWJz6PYm46WJdsIgPFaoiioMwXX2uGuNsRHaAfSmGaE5zHXYR0/s320/Oh+dear.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oops</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It will be great fun for students and drunk people at sports events. It is guaranteed to get international recognition. But is it really the type of legacy the PM had in mind? </span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1688310170781864735.post-66817338948121671622015-09-25T15:50:00.000+12:002015-09-25T15:50:50.200+12:00Even more vascular system, because it's fun<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The standard convention is to depict arteries in red and veins in blue. I've followed this convention with my hand structure, and it now has some nice blue veins to go with the palm arteries.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0kfJtFMrU1EBDDi5rOGBoYhh6x8Gp3p7FVAE-jic4g_bvkLAt25UFVe4fBBRe5SQ9VLv_OW1Q88_Vu3YbPQ313sk_6u5abllWP_SDYWhqsk0El_KeWmnanLhk5qcKG7vwqpi-MnsNtqU/s1600/20150923_213013%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0kfJtFMrU1EBDDi5rOGBoYhh6x8Gp3p7FVAE-jic4g_bvkLAt25UFVe4fBBRe5SQ9VLv_OW1Q88_Vu3YbPQ313sk_6u5abllWP_SDYWhqsk0El_KeWmnanLhk5qcKG7vwqpi-MnsNtqU/s320/20150923_213013%255B1%255D.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I'm really pleased with my hand's vascular system. I like to think those twisting, curling blood vessels capture the look of the real thing. They have a nice, organic sense of movement that's very satisfying. Compared to the vascular system of a real hand, this is simplified, because I don't want it to be all veins and arteries with the bones hidden underneath them. The bones need to be visible too.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz_8hLotGuuQ-qeipomYH759YZStb20blZqos7lQND4t8Vfq7gAt7GbgJZelQieRu2uBWpKqsvaw_Z5DInjREq96rAQiui9mG6s6kui860cDR_CMH-OpqTotVCBoKlKTFNeXtvms-Vvs/s1600/20150923_212659%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaz_8hLotGuuQ-qeipomYH759YZStb20blZqos7lQND4t8Vfq7gAt7GbgJZelQieRu2uBWpKqsvaw_Z5DInjREq96rAQiui9mG6s6kui860cDR_CMH-OpqTotVCBoKlKTFNeXtvms-Vvs/s320/20150923_212659%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This next photo is taken from the side looking at the thumb, and shows how the blood vessels twist around the bones.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDwChnKHzbWTWcBnSzDGEUzzyxpU86AmnCVLiiujnDMYfWkwJvbv74_8TQaRMNcg-8tO3DKRXmQa0Eh4nOmHByZkr2SRndss5y8lftwd5m4gIZHvnHVy631AYaVkNq3vtwJTgRQKxEF4/s1600/20150923_212806%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBDwChnKHzbWTWcBnSzDGEUzzyxpU86AmnCVLiiujnDMYfWkwJvbv74_8TQaRMNcg-8tO3DKRXmQa0Eh4nOmHByZkr2SRndss5y8lftwd5m4gIZHvnHVy631AYaVkNq3vtwJTgRQKxEF4/s320/20150923_212806%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">And here's another shot of the palm. Having little blue veins as well as the arteries looks better, because that's what we expect to see and because having both the red and blue colours gives the sculpture more depth.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-0pgOx-ZH1mRR7qai3PlUcRVaJCS6iw6FhHdTEP0Gq7uima-ECxrDOpp2jwmkyxaupBz84z_0HVGfk4v1w2veKlvyl1mnQ_wJ0OKC-m_EYusCCq7gvWlJO6KLH9aMC39dQX-0lK_UkA/s1600/20150923_212734%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg-0pgOx-ZH1mRR7qai3PlUcRVaJCS6iw6FhHdTEP0Gq7uima-ECxrDOpp2jwmkyxaupBz84z_0HVGfk4v1w2veKlvyl1mnQ_wJ0OKC-m_EYusCCq7gvWlJO6KLH9aMC39dQX-0lK_UkA/s320/20150923_212734%255B1%255D.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That's all I'll be doing with the vascular system for now, but I want to use this hand as part of a relief sculpture and the background will echo the shapes of the hand's blood vessels. </span></div>
</div>
Stella Andersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05469996244394603024noreply@blogger.com0