[TheForge] Re: on and off topic- botanical forms

[Mike Spencer]

Bruce wrote:

> On a slightly different note, I should add that, having had a bit of
> an education in biology, I'm mildly a stickler for accuracy in
> biological forms.  Go ahead and invent all the dragons, leaves and
> flowers you want, but if you want them to look natural, you should
> at least have an inkling what natural looks like.

In a dragon demo for uni freshpersons, I made a point that something,
imaginary though it be, that has big teeth, needs a big jaw.  So you
have to create a visible jaw line to make your dragon intuitively
credible.  Then (so to speak) the eye believes what it sees.  One of
the students later came to me to say how pleased he was with that
insight. FWIW.

For books, I also like Ernst Haeckel's "Art Forms in Nature" and
Kessel & Kardon, "Tissues and Organs: a text-atlas of scanning
electron microscopy".

As for going outdoors, the humble mallow -- ca. 12"-24" stalks with
numerous white flowers -- has a really lovely seed pod that I've been
meaning to do something with for years.  RSN.  (Oh, and a tiny bit of
the root will anesthetize your whole mouth, for whatever *that's*
worth.)



- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^