The Artist Depiction Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign seeks support for a three part documentary series about the history of space art at NASA:
Artist Depiction is a documentary series about artists who have helped bring NASA projects to life. Their incredible artwork is ubiquitous, and yet these artists have been behind the scenes until now. We seek to give a voice to these artists: Don Davis, Charles Lindsay, and Rick Guidice. These oral histories will be lost to time without a series like this.
Inside of a toroidal space colony as envisioned by artist Don Davis
Why is the work of these NASA artists important in 2018? [Director Brett Ryan Bonowicz] explains that not only are these old space colony images still being used today to represent “the future,” they’ve also inspired so many of the designers that would come after them.
“Neill Blomkamp and Elysium. Christopher Nolan and Interstellar. Almost every day of our [crowdfunding] campaign someone mentions how ‘that artwork looks like Halo man.’” Bonowicz told me over email.
“It’s important to have these first-hand accounts from the artists that were depicting Gerard O’Neill’s original ideas about these colonies. Without these films those accounts are lost.”
“The Blue Horsehead Nebula in Infrared”. Image Credit: WISE, IRSA, NASA; Processing & Copyright : Francesco Antonucci
Note that processing of an infrared image allows for considerable freedom in how the final rendering appears. In this case, it was rendered with great artistry by Mr. Antonucci.
From the caption:
The Blue Horsehead Nebula looks quite different in infrared light. In visible light, the reflecting dust of the nebula appears blue and shaped like a horse’s head. In infrared light, however, a complex labyrinth of filaments, caverns, and cocoons of glowing dust and gas emerges, making it hard to even identify the equine icon. The featured image of the nebula was created in three infrared colors (R=22, G=12, B=4.6 microns) from data taken by NASA’s orbiting Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. The nebula is cataloged as IC 4592 and spans about 40 light years, lying about 400 light years away toward the constellation Scorpius along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy. IC 4592 is fainter but covers an angularly greater region than the better known Horsehead Nebula of Orion. The star that predominantly illuminates and heats the dust is Nu Scorpii, visible as the yellow star left of center.
Behind every architect and builder is an artist who takes designs and ideas, morphing them into beautiful images for everyone to understand. Chesley Bonestell was this artist, yet very few know his name. He worked on the Golden Gate Bridge and the Chrysler Building, as a matte artist on famous movies like Citizen Kane, and his mesmerizing paintings of planets and star systems helped jumpstart America’s space program. His iconic “Saturn As Seen From Titan”, became known as “the painting that launched a thousand careers.” Discover the power of the forgotten man whose art inspired Americans to conquer “The Final Frontier”.
“Saturn As Seen From Titan” by Chesley Bonestell
Note that back in 2013 the AIAA Houston Section‘s Horizons Newsletter posted hi-res reproductions of the famous and influential series of articles on spaceflight by Wernher von Braun in Colliers Magazine in 1952-54, which included many illustrations by Bonestell. I wrote about this in these postings:
Anna Fox, a seventh-grader from Virginia Beach Middle School in Virginia Beach, Virginia, was named as the grand prize winner of Langley Research Center’s Student Art Contest.
“I was very excited when I heard that I won first place for my grade,” Anna said. “But when I heard that I won grand prize, I was speechless.”
A record 831 entries were submitted from hundreds of children in 39 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with 13 students earning first-place honors in grade levels K-12 and the opportunity to be considered for the grand prize, said Kristina Cors, Langley Student Art Contest coordinator.
“We hope this contest continues to grow and provide a place for students to explore science and technology through creativity,” she said.
The art contest theme, “The Next 100 Years,” was intended to illustrate how NASA research and innovation propels science to new discoveries.
“This year’s artwork was particularly remarkable, and represented the theme ‘The Next 100 Years’ with imagination and immense talent,” Cors said.
Anna’s winning piece shows a deep-space scene with an astronaut planting a flag on a planet’s mountain while watching a rocket fly off in the distance in a sky populated by stars, galaxies and a moon.
“When I started drawing, I had no idea what to do, so I had looked at a bunch of videos on how to do galaxies for inspiration,” Anna said. “After that I randomly placed colors together until I found something I liked. It all started coming together from there.”
Once she got an idea in motion, Anna did her work using old and new techniques.
“I created my artwork digitally on Photoshop,” Anna said. “I had started with basic colors for the background, including the explosion behind the rocks. Then, on another layer I created the rocks, planet, astronaut and rocket ship taking off. Later I added detail on all the layers to look more realistic. The last step was to add all of the stars and galaxies, which I did with a special brush.”
Anna, who has been an artist for as long as she could pick up a pencil, said she started drawing digitally when she was 11, inspired by her father’s work on a computer.
“I think the best part of creating art is having fun with it and inspiring others to do art as well,” she said.
Anna said she always had an interest in space and the art contest was a perfect vehicle to express that.
“I think that the coolest thing about NASA is that they help so many people achieve their dreams, and send people to do what not a lot of people get to do,” Anna said.
For her grand-prize victory, Anna received a certificate, and a NASA Exploration Package of posters, pens, stickers, patches and lapel pins. Her artwork will be displayed at the Virginia Air & Space Center in Hampton, Virginia.
The 13 grade-level winners were selected by a panel of five judges from the Hampton Roads art community, and the grand champion was picked by Langley employees. Each piece was evaluated on originality, interpretation of subject matter/theme, creative techniques, composition and overall art appearance.
While working in an exciting field that has seen a swell of innovation might seem hectic and stressful, for Vaughan, being able to participate in the NewSpace age has enabled him, in some ways, to live out his dreams.
“I get to make important and far-reaching dreams take on believable and inspiring sense of reality,” Vaughan said, noting that one’s imagination is almost as important as a degree in aeronautics. “In order to build and advance, we have to be able to imagine. What I do helps to make these possibilities seem attainable.”
