Our Cassini tribute, posted on Instagram. (p.s. I started an instagram account. Not a lot to see yet, but I’d be delighted if you went over there and followed the heck out of it….)
-cvj
From Instagram
From Instagram
New Job Search!
Dear colleagues far and wide. I’m delighted to share the news that we are having a job search in Astrophysics! Please note the link’s contents, and share it to those who might be interested. Thanks!
https://usccareers.usc.edu/job/los-angeles/assistant-professor-of-physics-and-astronomy/1209/5668638
-cvj
It’s Time for the County Fair!
It’s that time of year again. For me, County Fairs have a charmingly old-fashioned quality to them, and I love to visit what might be considered some of the more boring aspects – the various crafts on display (shelves of pots of jam, pies and cakes, and so forth, knitted and crocheted items, and so forth), and the old games (hitting things with hammers, etc.) And of course sampling a tiny bit of the the terrible (but tasty) foods you get to eat!
I have a story (told within another story) in my forthcoming book that takes place at a fair (that illustrates an interesting scientific idea – but not one you’d guess at all, I’ll bet), and two years ago I went location scouting at the LA County Fair to get reference material for some of the various drawings I did for Click to continue reading this post
Angel’s Flight Lives!
Today marks the day when, after a long closure, the lovely tiny railway called Angel’s Flight in downtown Los Angeles re-opens. There is a news piece here for example. It was a common feature of what some called the “Asymptotia Tour”, meaning that back in the day, readers of this blog who visited LA and happened to meet me might well be shown this hidden gem of the city. Well, all those years ago (before it closed) I ended up capturing it (or a version of it) on the page as part of the setting for one of my dialogues in my forthcoming book, The Dialogues: Conversations about the Nature of the Universe (MIT Press, 2017). The images above show some fragments of two pages in the book, featuring the railway.
In Spring 2010, I took a sabbatical semester and decided to spend most of it in hiding (in some cities in Europe), telling nobody what I was doing and focusing on answering the question – “Can I write and draw this graphic book myself?”, and I began to study the whole business of art and sequential narrative art rather closely, learning how people actually go about making comics, and teaching myself to draw at the consistent level that you need to in order to produce a whole book of stories. I emerged from hiding with an affirmative answer, and then I began to draw in earnest. These pages with Angel’s Flight are two of my earliest pages for the 250 page graphic book.
I think I did them in mid-late late 2010 and into 2011, when I was still figuring out lots of things about drawing for a graphic novel. They took forever because I was experimenting with so many techniques and workflows at the same time. So they are a hybrid of working with pencils on real paper, digital inks and colour (vector art on a computer that couldn’t handle it well – ugh), working from reference photos I took, making up bits out of whole cloth in different kinds of perspective, way too much old-school cross-hatching (I’ve removed a lot since then), and so forth.
I love setting myself a challenge, getting myself to step out of my comfort zone, and this was one of the grandest I’ve ever faced. Many thousands of drawings later, I’ve a whole book to show for it. By the way, I’d be delighted if you took a few minutes to pre-order* it from your bookstore, or from Amazon (the amazon in your country should have it at a special price).
It’ll arrive in the mid-late Fall.
-cvj
*Pre-orders are very helpful! And no, I don’t know why they call it pre-ordering. It’s actually just ordering, isn’t it? Anyway…
Book Notifications!
I wonder if others get notifications from Amazon about my book as often as I do… anyway, please note that it is due to appear (depending upon who you believe) in 6-8 weeks or so, so please consider beating the rush and pre-ordering… also note that the discount for doing so is shrinking a bit as compared to earlier, so move fast! Amazon link here, but your favourite store (local or online) will likely have it at that price too!
-cvj
‘Tis the Season…
The fig trees in the garden are in full production mode. (As was my wife on the pancake side of things*.) Made for a delicious combination for family breakfast! There’s something magical about eating figs fresh from the tree that are still warm from the sun.
By the way, there are some major changes coming up for the garden which should allow me to expand some of the variety of things I grow there. I’ll fill you in on this later…
-cvj
*Thanks aef!
Viewing the Eclipse
It’s an exciting day today! Please don’t lock your kids away, which seems to be an alarmingly common option (from looking at the news – many schools seem to be opting to do that; I wish they’d use they use some of those locked classrooms as camera obscura). Instead, use this as an opportunity to learn and teach about the wonderful solar system we live in.
Actually, to enjoy the experience, you never have to even look in the direction of the sun if you don’t want to (or if you don’t have the appropriate eclipse glasses)… you can see crescents everywhere during the partial eclipse if you look out for them. You can make a safe viewing device in a minute or two if you take the time.
Here’s an NPR video that summarises the various viewing options: Click to continue reading this post
A Skyline to Come?
I finished that short story project for that anthology I told you about and submitted the final files to the editor on Sunday. Hurrah. (Don’t confuse this with my non-fiction science graphic book to appear in the Fall!) The anthology will appear next year and I’ll give you a warning about when it is to appear once they announce the book. It was fun to work on this story. The sample above is a couple of process shots of me working (on my iPad) on an imagining of the LA skyline as it might look some decades from now. I’ve added several buildings among the ones that might be familiar. It is for the opening establishing shot of the whole book. There’s one of San Francisco later on, by the way. (I learned more about the SF skyline and the Bay Bridge than I care to admit now…)
I will admit that I went a bit overboard with the art for this project! I intended to do a lot rougher and looser style in both pencil work and colour and of course ended up with far too much obsessing over precision and detail in the end (as you can also see here, here and here). As an interesting technical landmark, Click to continue reading this post
The Big USC News You Haven’t Heard…
So here’s some big USC news that you’re probably not hearing about elsewhere. I think it’s the best thing that’s happened on campus for a long time, and it’s well worth noting. As of today (4th August, when I wrote this), there’s a Trader Joe’s on campus!
It opened (relatively quietly) today and I stopped by on my way home to pick up a few things – something I’ve fantasized about doing for some time. It’s a simple thing but it’s also a major thing in my opinion. Leaving aside the fact that I can now sometimes get groceries on the way home (with a subway stop just a couple of blocks away) – and also now more easily stock up my office with long workday essentials like Scottish shortbread and sardines in olive oil, there’s another reason this is big news. This part of the city (and points south) simply don’t have as many good options (when it comes to healthy food) as other parts of the city. It is still big news when a grocery store like this opens south the 10 freeway. In fact, away from over on the West side (where the demographic changes significantly), there were *no* Trader Joe’s stores south of the 10 until this one opened today**. (Yes, in 2017 – I can wait while you check your calendar.) I consider this at least as significant (if not more) as the Whole Foods opening in downtown at Click to continue reading this post
Future Crowds…
Yeah, I still hate doing crowd scenes. (And the next panel is an even wider shot. Why do I do this to myself?)
Anyway, this is a glimpse of the work I’m doing on the final colour for a short science fiction story I wrote and drew for an anthology collection to appear soon. I mentioned it earlier. (Can’t say more yet because it’s all hush-hush still, involving lots of fancy writers I’ve really no business keeping company with.) I’ve Click to continue reading this post
I Went Walking, and…
Well, that was nice. Was out for a walk with my son and ran into Walter Isaacson. (The Aspen Center for Physics, which I’m currently visiting, is next door to the Aspen Institute. He’s the president and CEO of it.) He wrote the excellent Einstein biography that was the official book of the Genius series I worked on as science advisor. We chatted, and it turns out we have mutual friends and acquaintances.
He was pleased to hear that they got a science advisor on board and that the writers (etc) did such a good job with the science. I also learned that he has a book on Leonardo da Vinci coming out in the Fall. Leonardo da Vinci is Click to continue reading this post
It Can be Done
For those interested in giving more people access to science, and especially those who act as gate-keepers, please pause to note that* a primetime drama featuring tons of real science in nearly every episode can get 10 Emmy nominations. Congratulations National Geographic’s Genius! (Full list here. See an earlier post on the show here.)
-cvj
*(whatever your view of awards)
A Street Scene Materializing
Well, I finished all the line art on that SF short story I was asked to write and draw. And the good news is that the editor of the anthology it will be part of is extremely pleased with the story. So that’s good news since I put a lot of work into it and it would be hard to change anything significant at this stage! So all I have to do is paint the 20 pages, which should be fun. The line art is in a pencil style, and so I might do some colour that is in a loose style to match. In any case, below is a video capture (2 mins long) of the complete process of me drawing a panel for part of a page of the story (unpainted panel is at top of this post). I did this on the plane back from Europe a short while ago. It’s an Click to continue reading this post
Those Helpful Algorithms
Random Machinery
Making up random (ish) bits of machinery can be lots of fun!
(Click for larger view. This is for a short story I was asked to write, to appear next year.)
-cvj
