0 comment Friday, May 23, 2014 | admin
When reading Hubble: A Journey Through Space and Time the other day, I was astonished to discover that that a bubble nebula exists in the constellation Cassiopeia.
Source
The bubble has formed due to extreme stellar winds and radiation from a nearby star which is 10 times more massive than our sun. This means that the bubble itself is six light years across, that is one big bubble!
I was excited by this discovery, as I have been working with soap bubbles in my art work for about a year now. I'm interested in the universality of roundness from the micro to the macro, so of course, bubbles fascinated me for this reason.
This is a photogram I made from blowing soap bubbles on to photo-sensitive paper and exposing the paper to light for 4 seconds. The result looks astonishingly like a far-away galaxy.
I have made lots of posts on soap bubbles in art and science, here is a directory of bubble-related entries:
"Bubbles" / "A Child's World" by Sir John Everett Millais
How To Make A Photogram With Soap Bubbles
Artist: Kim Pimmell / / Soap Bubbles & Ferrofluid
Artist: Jane Thomas // Soap Bubble Experimentation
Artist: Richard Heeks // Soap Bubble Planet Photographs
Nature.com // Hurricanes On A Soap Bubble
Do Bubbles Freeze? // Emmanuel Coupe
Living Inside Your Own Bubble
BBC: Bubbles In Space
Melanie K's Bubble Planet
Artist : Pery Burge // Inksplosions & Bubbles
Soap Bubble Popping In Slow Motion
Artist: Tomas Saraceno // Bubble Sculptures
Artist: Simon Thomas // Studies Of The Soap Bubble
Bubble-Smith Sterling Johnson
Labels: Art, Bubble, Bubble Directory, Bubbles, Emmanuel Coupe, Jane Thomas, Kim Pimmel, Melanie K, Ngc 7635, Photogram, Richard Heeks, Science, Soap, The Bubble Nebula, Tomas Saraceno, Universe
1 comment Sunday, May 4, 2014 | admin
During my research on soap bubbles in art, I found this painting by Sir John Everett Millais on loan at the Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool.
The painting can sometimes be misread as a celebration for childish naivety, but in fact, the depiction of soap bubbles is steeped in art history.
For example, in the 17th century Dutch artists painted children blowing bubbles to convey the brevity of human life, the transience of beauty and the inevitability of death.
Gerard Dou - Still Life with a Boy Blowing Soap-bubblesThis painting by Gerard Dou for example, is painted in the symbolic "Vanitas" style. Vanitas are still life paintings that are famous for using objects associated with "Momento Mori", the latin phrase which means "Remember you must die".
"Although 'Bubbles' may appear sentimental to modern taste, it has a serious meaning. Millais was using a symbol with a long tradition behind it. 'Bubbles' are fragile and have a brief moment of beauty before they burst." source
Interestingly, Pears soap printed images of the paintings as an advertisement, against the will of the painter. Critics claimed that this had a degrading effect on the painting but I think the original message of the painting is still clear. Bubbles are still used in art today to evoke transience and beauty.
Labels: Bubbles, Gerard Dou, History Of Art, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool, Pears Soap, Soap, Soap Bubble, Still Life With A Boy Blowing Soap-Bubbles, Unilever
0 comment Friday, April 25, 2014 | admin
Soap bubbles are a staple feature in this blog, so I was excited to see this video on TodayAndTomorrow by Kim Pimmel.
Compressed 02 from Kim Pimmel on Vimeo.
Kim Pimmel has included some more stills of this video on his flickr profile.
Compressed 02 from Kim Pimmel on Vimeo.
Kim Pimmel has included some more stills of this video on his flickr profile.
Labels: Bubbles, Ferrofluid, Iron, Kim Pimmel, Liquid, Soap, Video, Videos, Vimeo
0 comment Wednesday, April 2, 2014 | admin
Over the past year, I have been becoming increasingly interested in soap bubbles, and it seems like I am not the only one.
In writing this blog, I have come across many artists using soap bubbles in their work and each artist finds something unique about the soap bubble that they focus upon.
Richard Heeks has been taking photographs of bubbles for years...
"While watching my nieces play with soap bubbles in the summer of 2008, I suddenly realized how beautiful these fragile spheres are, how they continually change the colors around them and how their surfaces reflect their surroundings. For weeks afterwards, I played with soap bubble photography, trying to understand these reflections and capture them with my camera."
source
Unfortunately, I don't have permission to publish any of Richard Heeks photographs on this blog, but you can view some amazing bubble photographs on his profile at Red Bubble and Flickr.
I am particularly intrigued by this particular shot of a soap bubble, which looks like an alien planet landscape. Heeks has compared the refraction of light through the bubbles surface, to light passing through the Earths' atmosphere.
In writing this blog, I have come across many artists using soap bubbles in their work and each artist finds something unique about the soap bubble that they focus upon.
Richard Heeks has been taking photographs of bubbles for years...
"While watching my nieces play with soap bubbles in the summer of 2008, I suddenly realized how beautiful these fragile spheres are, how they continually change the colors around them and how their surfaces reflect their surroundings. For weeks afterwards, I played with soap bubble photography, trying to understand these reflections and capture them with my camera."
source
Unfortunately, I don't have permission to publish any of Richard Heeks photographs on this blog, but you can view some amazing bubble photographs on his profile at Red Bubble and Flickr.
I am particularly intrigued by this particular shot of a soap bubble, which looks like an alien planet landscape. Heeks has compared the refraction of light through the bubbles surface, to light passing through the Earths' atmosphere.
Labels: Bubbles, Digital, Flickr, Macro, Micro, Photography, Red Bubble, Richard Heeks, Soap
0 comment Thursday, March 20, 2014 | admin
When researching the soap bubble photographs of Richard Heeks, I came across another artist specializing in the art of bubbles; Jane Thomas.
Whilst writing this blog, I have come across many artists who have used soap bubbles in their work and each artist has shed some light on the way soap bubbles behave in different situations.
In this video that Jane has uploaded to her Flickr, you can see how soap bubble mixture moves around within a fixed frame.
Jane Thomas' flickr profile has some delightful psychadelic-looking images of soap bubbles that are unique to her own style of processing.
Jane is so interested by the images that soap films create, she has opened a soap films flickr group where members can submit their own pictures of soap films. There are 547 photographs submitted to the group, and each photograph is different.
Jane is also a member of The Physics Classroom flickr group, which is a collection of photographs which relate to The Physics Classroom website. The Physics Classroom website is particularly good for refreshing knowledge on basic physics, but provides a good set of tutorials which could be altered for artistic merit!
Whilst writing this blog, I have come across many artists who have used soap bubbles in their work and each artist has shed some light on the way soap bubbles behave in different situations.
In this video that Jane has uploaded to her Flickr, you can see how soap bubble mixture moves around within a fixed frame.
Jane Thomas' flickr profile has some delightful psychadelic-looking images of soap bubbles that are unique to her own style of processing.
Jane is so interested by the images that soap films create, she has opened a soap films flickr group where members can submit their own pictures of soap films. There are 547 photographs submitted to the group, and each photograph is different.
Jane is also a member of The Physics Classroom flickr group, which is a collection of photographs which relate to The Physics Classroom website. The Physics Classroom website is particularly good for refreshing knowledge on basic physics, but provides a good set of tutorials which could be altered for artistic merit!
Labels: Bubbles, Film, Jane In Colour, Jane Thomas, Soap, Soap Film, Soap Films, The Physics Classroom, Video, Videos
1 comment | admin
Soap bubbles are a fascinating phenomenon.
In this video, you will see mini-vortexes forming due to the soap bubble heating up to 45 degrees centigrade.
The thermal plumes resemble hurricanes forming in the earths atmosphere, but that is as far as the analogies extend.
However, Xiao-Lun Wu a physicist at the University Of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, says that by observing the turbulence in soap films we can find more about turbulence more generally (for example, how hurricanes might react to surrounding turbulent air). source
Labels: Bubbles, Physics, Soap, Video, Xiao-Lun Wu