"Evolution" wall

Thanks to PZ Myers for pointing out this lovely series of graffiti–not scientifically acurate but nifty and thought-provoking.

Drawing with negative space

This is a basic technique in drawing. It starts out simply but is an important technique for realistic drawing of natural subjects.

Pictures are by Michael Sibley.

I always spoil things

Years ago, when I visited the Museum of Nature in Ottawa, there was a fascinating “humanoid” dinosaur sculpture, life-size I guess. It had green skin, big yellow eyes, and dinosaurian haunches with an upright posture. Clearly it was someone’s guess at how dinosaurs might have looked had they evolved into something intelligent. You could tell because of the shoulders. Intelligent critters in fictional images almost always have human-like shoulders to show that they’re “people.” So did this fascinating critter.

I turned to someone in a museum uniform. “Shouldn’t this have narrow shoulders like a cat? We have flattened shoulders because we went through a period of brachiating, but this one never did. It’s not built for it.”

And you know, the next time I went in, some years later, that pretty sculpture wasn’t on display. I hope they just wanted to rotate something else into view and it wasn’t my fault!

Friday cephalopod blogging—octopus mural

My intrepid companion, LotStreetWiz, is in training for Ironman Wisconsin next September. (You didn’t think people just popped out of bed one morning and decided to swim a few km, bike 120 km, and run a full marathon, did you?) Part of his swim training is at the Innes Community Centre in Toronto, where some of the walls are decorated with nice, semi-amateur, undersea murals painted in 2003 by Amos Danniel. Here’s part of one of them.