Buy My Paintings (PLEASE) Part Deux

Hey-o friends!

First off, thank you all for your kind words. Seriously, your support has meant a lot and I really appreciate it :)

"Caffeine" 10x14in

That said... Guess what time is? Time for me to beg you to fund my funemployment in exchange for paint splatters! wheeee! So if you want a painting, email me: cristina dot tortarolo at gmail and we can talk specs.
[For people who requested something last summer that I wasn't able to get to: I'm really really sorry- ended up getting a job and running out of time. If you're still interested let me know, I just don't want to make any assumptions.]

"Get In" 16x20in

While I started out mostly doing characters from movies I think I'm finally ready to move away from that. But whatever, who am I kidding, I'll do pretty much anything :3 Lately I've been illustrating quotes and that's been really fun. (You can check out past stuff here) Also anything from graffiti is fair game.

"Auguries of Innocence" graffiti

If you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what you'll want we can chat and figure something out. I'm just. that. desperate. :)

"Sound and Fury" graffiti

Rough estimate-wise, I'm thinking a $10 base + $5/hour. So depending on size and the complexity of the image it'll probably fall somewhere in these ranges:
~50in^2 $20-30
~100in^2 $40-50
~200in^2 $100-120
This is definitely something we can talk about more in depth via email per individual case. Just throwing around some general numbers.

"Doors of Perception" 8x16in

Lastly, I've decided to set up shop on Etsy, so that's where I'll be posting anything random that doesn't get sold. Heads up.

Thanks dudes! Much love,
tort

Science is art, art science

—that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know

I'm going through another one of those phases where I obsess over the people I want to be when I grow up instead of working on the steps to become them (like tracking down their address and social security information). Actually that's not quite fair, I have been trying to work on a fun side-project animation for about a month now but keep getting distracted by my job, responsibilities to my future, and fantastic animators who blow my mind open with their science-art.

First up: Candaş Şişman dives into the artistic side of math with F L U X.

Dedicated to the sculptor İlhan Koman, this animation explores new perspectives on his works "Pi, 3D Moebius, Whirlpool and To Infinity" with hypontic audio-visual textures. Remember Peripetics? Similar animation style, but overall F L U X is more fluid and less... strange.

(via Change the Thought)

Next: David Bolinksy's 2007 TED talk, The Inner Life of a Cell. He chats about truth, beauty and the exciting field of medical animation. You can can check out more of his studio's work on their website. Seriously Jeremiah, your dad is a bamf.

Now, I know I've been saying this a lot lately but how has someone not made a live action remake of the Magic School Bus series yet?! WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY. I'm looking at you, Spike Jonze, for apparently not having any qualms rewriting our generation's collective childhood memories anyway. Wait, I take that back. The only person I would completely trust with my favorite book series is Michel Gondry. So you guys should to work on it together. Mmkay, good talk.

Last but not certainly not least, I present to you one of my all-time favorite animations: Procrastination, an unassuming masterpiece that perfectly captures how it feels to resist productivity at all costs. This is Johnny Kelly's graduation film from the Royal College of Art in 2007 and while it might not have anything to do with the science-of-art or art-of-science, I trust in your abilities to figure out how it's relevant.

Aaaaaand that's my cue.

OMGBRAINZ

THAT'S RIGHT KIDS, I GOT A JOB!

Get money, get paid, you know what I'm sayin'?

I have officially survived one week of being a Research Technician in the Computational Psychiatry Unit of the Human Neuroimaging Lab of Baylor College of Medicine (because I'm pretty sure the more prepositional phrases I tag on, the cooler I sound.) I'll be running subjects through giant supermagnets to get both structural images and time-sensitive maps of blood-flow during specific tasks. I could explain it in slightly less layman's terms, but that's really as far as my comprehension of the matter goes: these machines are ridiculously awesome and complicated and I've only scratched the surface of the iceberg that is 'working knowledge of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.' I know I've had lots of fun drunk conversations with my Electrical Engineering buds about how fMRI works on a more fundamental level, but for some reason, I never seem to retain much of the information from these discussions.

I can't even describe how excited I am about this position. Call it the 'honeymoon phase' if you will (but let's just say, I'd be getting A LOT more out of it if this were a honeymoon...) but so far the lab perfectly balances my need for empirical methods and interaction with people. Smash together qualitative Sociology, CogSci, and Neurobiology to find Social Neuroscience nested right in the middle. There is so much I can learn from working here, and the best part is, they're willing to teach! My goals for the end of the year (/semester) will be to operate the scanner solo, pick up some MatLab and get a better grasp on what neuro-niche I'll pursue for grad school. Last but not least... OMGBRAINZ!!! Um and also, I have hand-print access to get into certain rooms. So I'm basically a secret agent now.

Post script: Just so it's out there: If you don't know what the quote from my image macro is from, you really should catch up on your Juggalo-culture references. By watching this Insane Clown Posse vid (circa 1:50). Oh yeah, I went there.

Post-post script: I just realized I never posted my Psych animation presentation here, but it's on my folio-blog. I taught myself Flash for this digital short, so be kind.

Happy day after Pi day!

...

IT IS DONE.

for now.
I'll keep uploading things, but am ready to unveil it to the world!

Drumroll please...

MY WEBSITE (/portfolio)!

Go ahead: click it.