My atheist billboard












The Freedom from Religion Foundation has a fast, neat little application to make your own atheist billboard.  Mine's above and you can see more of them here. I learned about it from radio-show host Mike Haubrich.

When thinking about a quote, I thought about how a lot of people will possibly reference science or morality for these quotes (you can see them all here).  As an artist and an atheist, I thought I would try to sum-up some of the feelings I wrote about it in this post two years ago: Gift from God? I don't think so.

In the post, addressing the 'compliment' of artistic ability being a 'gift', I said;
Just because something is hard to understand, just because complicated processes occurred that you did not witness, does not mean it was caused by a benevolent mythical being who hands out aptitudes like Santa with presents...
...That was studying. That was attempts at keen observation. That was making countless mistakes I attempted to learn from. Feedback. Crits and criticisms. Learning from indifference. Trying new materials. Replicating happy accidents. Sharing techniques. 

I received a lot of support in the comments. When I re-posted it at my RedBubble (online store) account, I ended up with concern trolls.

Far too many artists believe in the divine - probably more in New Age nonsense than organized religion, though there are plenty of those types too. "Meant to be" is the cause of many happy accidents to many artists, when in fact, happy accidents have a lot more in common with Richard Dawkins' ratcheting up Mount Improbable: you hang on to the successes, duplicate them as close as you can and eliminate the artistic attempts that fail in your eyes. Developing a skill, technique and style in art has a lot in common with natural selection. 
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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow

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Trilobite Boy Tumblr

Trilobite Boy now has his own Tumblr. 




After a lot of discussion and suggestions from various peeps on Twitter and elsewhere, I thought Tumblr might be a good way to collect the new Trilobite Boy daily sketches.  I've made some of my feelings about Tumblr before, and the culture of non-credited artwork that seems to exist there: so this will be an experiment for me.

Do more eyeballs actually translate to greater popularity (and hopefully, as an artist who needs to eat, revenue)?



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Trilobite Boy Daily Sketch #2 - Waking

Trilobite Boy - Waking.
©  Glendon Mellow 2011, using ArtRage. Share under Creative Commons, see sidebar.

The second daily sketch that's part of my new regimen. I'm giving myself a 30 minute time limit for each sketch in the Trilobite Boy story in an attempt to loosen up and in some cases, sharpen my style. And quite frankly, to crank this story out. As a new dad with other items on the go, it's been pushed back far enough.

What do you think?

First Trilobite Boy Daily Sketch is here.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow

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Daily Regimen

Since our little scamp was born at the end of December, it's been difficult to maintain routines.  This week, I plan on going back to being an early-riser by getting up everyday at 5:30 to draw, paint or sketch for 30 minutes, even if I go back to bed afterward.

I'm not going to restrict myself to what little sketch I'll do, but then again: what better way to make some headway on the Trilobite Boy story than this in my time-crunched schedule?

At the moment, I'm envisioning Trilobite Boy less of a traditional comic book and more of a series of captioned illustrations, tied to a single narrative. Let's see how it goes.

Day 1, click to enlarge: 

Trilobite Boy - Late. 2011, ArtRage.
©  Glendon Mellow, share under Creative Commons, see sidebar.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow

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Dimetrodon-Sphinx - a continuing wip

Still playing with digitally colouring this image of a Dimetrodon Sphinx.  It's become an idle work to spend a few minutes on when I need to take a break from more pressing projects. 


I think I'd like to use her as a character in the Trilobite Boy story. That's coming along, but I'm starting to think it will be more of an illustrated story than full-on comic with my schedule. 



Most recent dabble at the top, older descending. Click to enlarge. 











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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
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Flying Trilobite Etsy

There's a lot of new original art and signed prints in my Etsy store. 


Encrinurus trilobite






Eremotherium (extinct sloth) and Glyptodon skulls


Mythical Flying Trilobite Fossil IV


Young Darwin Discovers Glyptodon sketch

 Admittedly, freelancing has been pretty rough and I'm in some immediate need, so I've put a few originals in here I haven't attempted to sell before. Consider buying one of these on Etsy and help me keep the lights on. Or you can contact me at theflyingtrilobite@gmail.com about them.

I also continue to sell prints, calendars, stickers, posters, postcards and greeting cards through my RedBubble Print Shop. As usual, my work appears online under Creative Commons and can be enjoyed digitally for free minus the cost of the weirdness inflicted.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow

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Two Arthropods Meet - a teeny commission challenge

After meeting the tireless Karyn Traphagen at ScienceOnline11 in January, she asked me for an unusual commissioned painting: something on slate, no larger than 1.5"x2".

It was more difficult than I had thought.  I have often painted creatures and details that small -I knew I had the right brushes- but I had never tried to fit a whole composition in something that small.

The challenge was on.


Apparently I drink too much coffee to reliably use the camera's up-close feature.
The piece languished on my desk for a little while, unfinished, until I came up with the idea of adding the ladybug, an image that I've done in a similar way before in pencil. I added a bit of gold-coloured paint (actually titanium-coated mica flakes) to the ladybug to give it a shimmer.

Here's the final piece:




Thanks Karyn!
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Interested? I have a couple of larger, similar pieces painted on slate for sale and I remain available for commissions.

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Upcoming SONSI Gallery Show

Really excited about this!

Postcard design by Jennifer Osborn. Illustrations © individual artists of SONSI.




Postcard design by Jennifer Osborn. 


For the month of May, I'll be taking part in the Southern Ontario Nature & Science Illustrators first gallery show at the Burlington, Ontario, Royal Botanical Gardens. You can view the press release here. 

I'll be showing the original oil painting of my popular Darwin Took Steps, and a high-quality print of my Pink Parasaurolophus, which will be for sale with the frame included. Here they are below, all framed up for the show:



We've got upwards of 25 members in SONSI, and I can't wait to see this show.  I also think this show will be Darwin Took Steps's sawn song - it's easily my most popular image, but I don't want to keep pushing it. Time to put my best foot forward with something new.

Actually, I'm hoping maybe to do a series of prehistoric critters as brightly coloured and as stylized as the Pink Parasaurolophus. Maybe an alphabet? I think framed like it is above, it could make a nice series of prints for a child's bedroom.

If you're interested in this print, you can also get them framed or unframed in my online store. 

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow


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