Dot by Aardam studios

From the makers of Wallice and Gromit, Aardman have proudly produced the worlds smallest animation. Using only  a Nokia phone and Microscope made especially for the phone.

The making of the animation is below:

Life from up above

The following photos are taken from NASA's orbital satellites. Landmarks are recognisable from such a far distance. It is the colour palette in these photos which keep my attention.

I will recreate these images but in an educational way, so the audience is learning something looking at my artwork.

Growing bacteria at home

1. The Agar must be heated at 95 degrees Celsius and no higher. The Agar took 1.5 hours to melt into a liquid form.

2. Allow to cool for one hour

3. Pour 1/6 of an inch into the antiseptic Petri dishes.

4. Seal with tape, store in the refrigerator upside down until use.

Studying the seed

Throughout this project so far, I have been concentrating on natural forms, and everyday phenomenas regular people do not experience. For example this small seed from my garden.

By using charcoal I have been able to really emphasise its shape and texture.

I am not totally satisfied with this drawing as it doesn't educate the audience.

Drawings

Drawings from last week, including sketches from my new Ocean book.

Ernst Haeckel's Natural Forms

Star Sea Squirt




Shapes taken from 'Ocean'



Section taken from E.Haeckle's Natural Forms

Colour studies from the 'Ocean'

E.H Natural forms

Underwater snake

The Guardian 09.07.10

I am very excited to read that Marine Scientists have descovered 10 new underwater species. The work took place along the mid Atlantic ridge, where the warm water of the South meets the cold water from the Gulf stream in the North.

"The terrain looked the same, mirror images of each other, but that is where the similarity ended. We were surprised at how different the animals were on either side of the ridge which is just tens of miles apart. It seemed like we were in a scene from Alice Through the Looking Glass." Professor Monty Priede from the University of Aberdeen

Here are four out of the ten beautiful photographs taken by David Shale:

A Benthic Holothurian (Peniagone Diaphana) from the mid Atlantic ridge, which was caught swimming above the sea floor.

Bathypelagic Ctenophore from the benthic boundary layer, was found attached to seafloor by adhesive tentacles.

The delicate Polynoid Polychaete worm was caught at appoximately 2,500m below sea level.

Basket Star. Cousin to the starfish, it feeds on plankton and shrimp and uses its arms to walk.

Saturday's inspiration...

Went fishing in Waterstones; Ocean, The World's last wilderness revealed

Westminster Degree Show, fabric based on a Spider's web

Back to nature

I have spent the afternoon in my garden at home. What better way to get in touch with nature...

Fridays inspiration

Today I have been busy writing up my evaluation and proposal for Monday. However, I have just stumbled(literally) across this interesting blog...

www.macrocosm-magbook.blogspot.com



oh and this ugly creature....

Todays inspiration...

Paper cut out, showing the link between the flower and the space around it

Jamie's watch as the light bounces off it. This reminds me of a small seed.

Large Hadron Collider

...scientists are interested in the behaviour of our universe in the first instants after it was born, 13.7 billion years ago.
This is interesting because we have found that our complex and baffling world today is made up of just a few simple building blocks. In fact you only need three things to make up you, me, the earth and every star in the sky.

These building blocks are hidden from view today, locked up inside matter, but in the very early universe they roamed free. Two of these little building blocks are called quarks, and the other is the electron.

The collider is the giant 27km circular machine buried in a tunnel under the Swiss city of Geneva and has been out of the headlines recently. That's because it is quietly working away recreating the conditions that were present in our universe less than a billionth of a second after it began.

Tomorrow, at an enormous international conference in Paris, the first results from the LHC will be presented to the scientific community...

More info: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/3062238/Sun-Professor-Brian-Cox-on-the-highest-energy-explosion-ever-seen.html

Elegant Universe

Natural forms : The Deep

A Tribute to Ernst Haeckel

Haeckel was a biologist and an artist, and he merged both disciplines into a study of natural forms, shapes, symmetries and patterns from every aspect of the natural world.



"Today, we have nearly eliminated natural forms from our lives. We live in shoebox shaped houses and drive cars shaped like shoeboxes with rounded edges. We pave the landscape with geometric grids of asphalt and design characters for animation out of triangles, rectangles and circles. We have isolated ourselves from natural shapes; and in so doing, we have isolated ourselves from ourselves." (Animation archive 2010)

The Deep: Photos

The Deep

Whilst visiting The Deep exhibition at The Natural History Museum I drew a microscopic image of the thousands of fish bones at the bottom of the Sea. The images were beautiful and in black and white.