Posts Tagged ‘drawing’
Finding the way…
Almost 30 years ago a Japanese custodian sat in front of a large A1 size sheet of white paper, whipped out a pen and started drawing the beginnings of diabolically complex maze, each twist and turn springing spontaneously from his brain onto the paper without aid of a computer. The hobby would consume him as he drew in his spare time until its completion nearly 7 years later when the final labyrinth was rolled up and almost forgotten. Twitter user @Kya7y was recently going through some of her father’s old things (he’s still a custodian at a public university) when she happened upon the maze and snapped a few photos to share on Twitter…
Read the full story at Colossal; see more photos at Spoon & Tamago.
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As we get in touch with our inner Perseus, we might recall that it was on this date in 1535 that 12 Anabaptist men and women ran nude through the streets of Amsterdam, shouting “truth is naked”; in the event, they roused more anger than contemplation, much less fear. They were detained by authorities, tried, and put to death.
A quote from Martin Luther, reformer and inspiration to Anabaptists. The rest of the passage: “There is, on earth, among all dangers, no more dangerous thing than a richly endowed and adroit reason. Reason must be deluded, blinded, and destroyed.”
The Art of Drawing Science…
Horse Anatomy
From: Anatomia del cavallo, infermità e suoi rimedi by Carlo Ruini, Published in Venice, 1618.
Many more lovely lessons at Scientific Illustration.
As we sharpen our pencils, we might wish a feathery farewell to zoologist Alfred Newton; he died on this date in 1907. One of the foremost ornithologists of his day, he was appointed (in 1866) the first Professor of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy at Cambridge University. Though he suffered from injured hip joints and walked with the aid of two sticks, he traveled throughout Lapland, Iceland, the West Indies, and North America 1854-63. During these expeditions he became particularly interested in the great auk– and was instrumental in having the first Acts of Parliament passed for the protection of birds. He wrote extensively, including a four-volume Dictionary of Birds, and the articles on Ornithology in several 19th century editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Fractured Fractals…
From the art and design blog Colossal:
Artist Sagaki Keita was born in 1984 and lives and works in Tokyo. His densely composited pen and ink illustrations contain thousands of whimsical characters that are drawn almost completely improvised. I am dumbstruck looking at these and love the wacky juxtaposition of fine art and notebook doodles. See more of his work here, and be sure to click the images above for more detail.
Indeed…
More, at Keita’s site…
As we search for ever-finer nibs, we might recall that it was on this date in 1945 that Britain observed its first British Empire Day, celebrating the colonial reach achieved from the first Irish “plantations” in the 16th century through the 19th century– a reach that, by the outbreak of World War II, encompassed a quarter of the world’s population and almost a quarter of the world’s land mass.
But of course World War II, and the new global regime that it spawned, spelled the end of empire. While 14 “overseas territories” remain under British dominion, colonization effectively ended with the hand-over of Hong Kong to China in 1997. Indeed the process of decolonization was sufficiently advanced by 1958 that– on this date that year– the name of the holiday was changed to “British Commonwealth Day.”
The British Empire, with British Overseas Territories underlined in red (source and larger version)
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