First Drawings at LPL

Well I'm now officially a first year PhD grad student at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, at the University of Arizona.  Now that I'm fairly well settled in, and I'm in a class/research routine, I've found some time to actually do some drawing!

I'm currently taking "Space Systems Engineering" for fun - and as part of the class, we must design a complete  unmanned, planetary space mission.  (This involves designing all of the subsystems, such as propulsion, communication, etc., and integrating them all together over the course of a semester.)  Between the options of a mission to the Trojan asteroids, or Mars, I chose the asteroids.  And since I'm me, I made an unnecessary mission patch for the project. 

And since I was in the mood, I made a mission patch for the other project: a Mars mission:

My current research project at LPL is analyzing Herschel Space Telescope observations of transition disks.  Transition disks are protoplanetary disks (aka young solar systems, less than ~10 million years old), that are in the process of losing their gas disks.  In a moment of spare time while some of said data was being downloaded and processed, I drew up a cover for my binder of associated papers.

Making use of the nice Tucson weather, I spent one Saturday afternoon outside of LPL, enjoying the sun, and  drawing a sketch of the Kuiper Space Science building:

Resorting to my usual repertoire, here's a drawing of a Saturn Ib:

Since I wanted to draw something different, I asked one of my officemates, Kelly, what to draw.  She suggested a meteor shower...

...now I'm just waiting for the other officemate(s) to give me suggestions...

Quick sketches from Istanbul

It's been a long while since I've had time to update this blog --- mostly since this past semester was hell (22 credits + 2 senior theses), and I've been out of the country, doing a field geology program in Turkey.  In what time I have before I begin graduate school at the University of Arizona, I'm hoping to do a bit of drawing to catch up, and maybe show some of my more 'artistic' photos from my summer travels abroad.  (Some photos are bound to come out looking nice, when I take a couple thousand photos.)

Below are two relatively quick sketches I did earlier today of architecture in Istanbul.  The first is the Hagia Sophia, and the second is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque (or the "Blue Mosque").  They were done with graphite pencil on simple sketchbook paper.

Barrage of Thank You Cards

Well now that I'm in the thick of my final semester here at Maryland, I do not have much time for drawing.  Taking twenty two credits, working on two theses, and visiting graduate schools (Wash. U. this coming weekend, and University of Arizona the following) makes taking a few hours off difficult.  However, it is my goal for this semester to do a new post on this blog at least once every week or two, so here's this week's!

Over this past winter break (before I returned to the craziness of geology thesis, petrology, or quantum physics II), I did a considerable amount of drawing - in the form of thank you cards.  Using some blank stationary, and my huge supply of crayola pencils, I went to work...

First up on my thank you card lists were my research advisors and professors who wrote letters of recommendations for my graduate school applications. Over the winter break, I applied to a total of six different graduate schools in a range of astronomy, earth sciences, and planetary science programs - which meant I kept my letter writers busy!  This drawing is of Buzz Aldrin, along with the Apollo 11 Lunar Module in the background and a seismometer (alongside Buzz).

This is card is of the space shuttle Enterprise, during the approach and landing test flights.  What's unique about this drawing is that I avoided my usual, saturated pencil technique.  Normally I don't really like leaving blank paper exposed (i.e. un-colored white space).  This means that most of my drawings (like the Apollo 11 drawing previous) tend to be very heavily saturated with pencil (i.e. there's lots of graphite on the page).  While I generally like this, it frequently doesn't photograph that well, since streaks of pencil will sometimes reflect and highlight particular pencil strokes, which then make the drawing as a whole look somewhat less professional.  This also means I break my pencils very frequently, and spend a lot of time angrily resharpening.  (This was one of the reasons I recently purchased some more expensive, but higher quality prismacolor pencils.)  Maybe I should do a few more of this style in the coming weeks...

The last of the letter writer thank yous, this is a drawing of Voyager II, as it flies past Uranus.  I based this drawing off a combination of self-composed Celestia images, and NASA diagrams of Voyager.

Now on to my Christmas and birthday thank you cards.  This was a somewhat quick sketch of a Atlas rocket, which was used during Project Mercury (America's first manned space program).

A space shuttle, landing at Kennedy Space Flight Center in Florida.

An SR-71 Blackbird being refueled by a KC-135.

Mars Global Surveyor - for a certain someone at LPL, and her delicious cookies.  This image was composed in Celestia.

This is a slightly more detailed drawing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, during launch.  In these two pictures you can see how I typically do these sort-of quick drawings (quick meaning on the scale of an hour or so).  Usually, after finding my reference material (say a NASA image of the shuttle launching), I usually use a black pencil or a higher quality graphite pencil to outline my subject, and draw details.  (This is another reason why I am constantly running out of black pencil.)  I then go in and basically redraw the whole thing on top of it using color.  (I say redraw, since the colored pencil typically overrides or smudges out all of the underlying guide pencil marks.)

Now, while I like doing it this way, since it's quick and gives everything a nice sharp look - I do so realizing that this is sort of the easy way out.  Yes, these drawings look good, but in real life objects do not have black outlines.  Take this photograph (that I stumbled upon on in NASA's image of the day) for example:

 

While there are certainly shapes that are outlined in black (such as the nose of the space shuttle), most boundaries or edges are not actually defined by black (or even white).  Rather, edges are defined more so by shading and highlighting of a given object.  For instance, look at the vertical rocket booster running up through the middle of the page (and behind the orbiter).  Notice how there are no 'magical' black boundaries to the edge of the booster - rather the edge of the booster is defined by a juxtaposition of white and blue.  In order to draw a picture like this (without the use of black edges), requires a lot more time and patience.  Basically I must start out drawing in color, and rely heavily on dealing with negative space.  While this has the potential to yield some really nice drawings, I typically don't have the patience to do this.

Here again is another progression of images of a drawing I did of the F-15 ACTIVE - a very colorfully painted test aircraft.  Again, you can see that I like my colors bold and saturated!

And my last thank you card (for the moment) - a drawing of a Blue Angel F-18.  Again, you can see my progression from outline (this time, actually navy blue, since I was out of black, and I already knew this was going to be a very blue-heavy drawing), to final product.

Now to make a jump to an entirely different kind of drawing:

I drew this sketch from life, during the Geology department graduate student talks at the beginning of this semester.  It's a fairly big drawing, and took a lot of time (and I undoubtedly annoyed my fellow undergraduates in front of me with sharpening my pencils during the talk), but I was very pleased with this drawing.  Drawing figures is extremely difficult, but something I like to try occasionally.

Well, I've now exhausted my supply of already drawn images.  This now will put pressure on me to actually do some drawing over the next couple weeks to make some all new material to put up on here.  (Although I'm also working on a post showing how I incorporate art into science).  Until then, I better actually read my assigned paper on magmatic-hydrothermal ore deposits for economic geology (blah).

Old Artwork ... from High School and Beyond pt. 2 (Paintings, etc.)

Well this morning I woke up nice and early for my 8am class, only to find that UMD has a 'delayed opening' due to snow.  So, while I am up, I might as well finish off my 'old artwork' post.  These are in no real order, just basically the order I found them in on my computer.

 This is a watercolor painting of a Russian Soyuz launch vehicle, based upon stock internet images.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

This is a watercolor painting I did of a telescope I used while at the University of Arizona Astronomy Camp, a while back.  The painting was based off of a photograph, and I obviously took a few liberties with the color scheme.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

An acrylic painting of the Russian Buran space shuttle.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

An acrylic painting of a Soyuz rocket, again.  While this post tends to be Russian-spacecraft-heavy, I think that was just because they're spacecraft, launchpads, and even color schemes, seemed more interesting to me from an artistic perspective.  For instance, the Soyuz rocket above is legitametly greenish colored, unlike most American rockets which are painted white.  It might also have to do with the fact that I didn't know as much about these foreign spacecraft, and therefore were intriguing in that regard.  This is from when I was in high school ('02-'06).

This is a mural I did a couple years back as a commission for my cousins up in Minnesota.  This was done on a very large piece of canvas (probably about 6 feet long, and 2 feet tall), and is my cartoonish depiction of the solar system.  I was actually very happy with this painting, and of course had to throw in the U.S.S. Enterprise in the upper left.

And here is another commissioned mural I did for those same cousins (my cousin James in front for scale).  This was an acrylic painting of a sort of cartoonish Earth.  I actually had to get a little help (from Amy Godwin), in building and stretching this huge canvas (this is about 6x4 feet).

This is a hypothetical still life, acrylic painting I did back in high school.  The reason I really got into still lifes is because when I first started doing real painting (back in my freshman year of high school, I believe), I really grew attached to the work of Impressionist, Paul Cezanne, who painted many really beautiful still lifes. (Technically, I guess Cezanne was a post-impressionist, but I'm not an art history major).  Impressionism is, by far, my favorite art movement.

A (blurry photograph) of a watercolor painting of some flowers that I did back in high school.

A landscape, done in acrylics very early in my college career.

Back in high school, I also did my fair share of murals.  Below is a large, six-part mural I did on the walls of the stair case leading to the band and choir rooms back in my high school.  The six panels were meant to represent six major musical periods.  First, here's two images showing the large scale context:

And now for the individual images:

The ballerina was by far my favorite.  You also don't want to know the dangerous ladder contraption I had to make in order to paint high above stairs...

And lastly, I'll end with some non-paintings, from a summer ago when I worked in Tucson.  During that summer I was occasionally tempted to do artwork (between writing miles and miles of IDL code), and so I bought a set of nice markers and went to work...

The 4-meter telescope from Kitt Peak.  Based upon a photograph I took.

A Saturn Ib, based upon a NASA image.  The Saturn Ib is my favorite rocket of all time (it was the little brother of the big Saturn V that launched men to the Moon.)

A quick gesture drawing of the 4-meter telescope control room, I did while observing on Kitt Peak.

A still life of some flowers, based upon a photograph I took.

And lastly, a sketch of a VLA telescope dish.

Well that is all of the photographs of old artwork I could find on my computer.  To all of my friends in Maryland, enjoy the snow day!

Old Artwork ... from High School and Beyond pt. 1 (Drawings)

Before I get to my more recent stuff of the past month, I thought I'd put up some of my photos of past artwork that I've done (and have photos of).  In this post, I'll share drawings and sketches that I have photos of, and in a following one I'll show paintings.  (Basically, I'm clearing out my old DeviantART webpage.)

This is me, oh so long ago, on the cover of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art newsletter.  I used to take little summer classes there, and remember running around their exhibits, full of Grant Wood's landscapes, and Marvin Cone's clouds.  Later I did a fare share of volunteering with the Museum.

This was my first drawing in a sketchbook that I used sporadically through high school.  This is an Ariane V launch vehicle, that I remember drawing based off of an image in a science or aerospace magazine.

A completely fictitious rocket.  My high school art typically fell into one of two categories, highly detailed ink drawings like this one (and the following ones), and paintings (see further below).

The successor of the previous image, another fictional rocket.  While these drawings are good, and very detailed, I did them only with standard office ball point pens, which aren't so great.

Yet another fictional rocket, semi-inspired by 2001: A Space Odyssey, which is one of my all time favorite movies.  The imagery in that movie is really astounding, and the spacecraft and universe in that movie are really fascinating.

While not the best photograph of it, this is one of my premier 'technical drawings.'  (I took the photo of it, as it hangs on a wall at my grandparents house now.)  Basically I got my hands on some fantastic Micron Pens, and just went to town.  I started it in a random position (the lower left), and made everything up as I went on.  I actually took this piece to a couple local art shows.

Another technical drawing.  Perspective drawings are always fun.

And one more technical drawing.  Here I substituted fine details for using some really nice Prismacolor markers.

This is my recreation of the 2001 movie poster (shown here), but done on something called contrast paper.  Basically this was special, layered plastic material: the top layer is white, and using an Exacto knife, you can cut off the white layer, revealing a black lower layer.  This was used as a demonstration of working with negative space.

This is an ink drawing of the Hart Senate Building, based upon a photograph I took during a high school band trip to Washington D.C. and New York City.  (I played the Trumpet and Baritone.)  Yay Cherry blossoms.

These last three images I'll show are what are called gesture drawings.  Basically they're drawings from life, that are done rather quickly, with fast, 'gestural,' pen moves.  This one is a drawing I did while taking standardized tests.  I'd finish sections very quickly, and just sit there drawing.  (For those from my high school, this is of Dr. Drey's room.)

This is a gesture drawing of the band room, from my perspective in the back line.  I *think* I was either sick this week or didn't have an instrument, hence why I was drawing.

Lastly, this is a gesture drawing based off a photograph I took while at the University of Arizona Astronomy Camp.  This camp was probably the first time I really got to know the field of astronomy, and I think ultimately made me go into my undergraduate as an astronomy major - as opposed to aerospace engineering.

I'll continue my 'Old Artwork' in my next post, with paintings!  But now, I must get ready, for today is the first day of my last semester of my undergraduate career.