Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication

A request to my artist friends: Please try to reduce your Ecological Foot Prints

Recently I have watched several videos on various websites, networks and You Tube in which artists showed how they create their works of art. Some were even "trying to teach" others through their videos. But what alarmed me the most while watching them was some of the artists were wasting colors and other art materials! Shall I tell you how? Okay.

When they want to create different patterns first some of the artists use watery solutions (or washes of water colours and acrylics) that run down the papers or canvases and fall on the floors below. Then they repeat this procedure several times with other colors until they get different colour patterns and shades. They are painting the floors too along with the canvases! Some wipe off some of the colours painted on the canvases with sponges, blotting and toilet papers to get artistic patterns and designes and throw them away into dust bins or wash them away in sinks! Some use spray paints which paints easels, tables & everything around the canvases! (I too use spray paint but try not to use it on the edges of the canvas).

Yes, everybody is an "expert" on the internet. Most of the artists want to share with or "teach" others their methods. But I feel most of them are not good teachers! They are showing the world how to waste art materials.

I know as artists you might support your fellow artists and say it is necessary to waste some of the art materials in order to create good works. But to a person like me who is from the field of science and who don't waste even a single drop (if I can say that) of color, it is horrifying to see all that material that is going waste in the art world. Yes, I am very stingy! You have to be one if you are a good environmentalist!

Friends, have you heard about "Ecological Foot Print" and "Carbon Foot Print" ?

The " Ecological Foot Print" is a measure of human demand on Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of Biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Everything we do has consequences. Today humanity's total ecological foot print was estimated at 1.5 planet Earths - in other words - humanity uses ecological services 1.5 times as fast as Earth can renew them! It now takes the Earth one year six months to regenerate what we use in a year! We maintain this overshot by liquidating the Earth's resources. Overshoot is vastly under-estimated threat to human well-being and the health of the planet and the one that is not adequately addressed. We need a collective action in support of the world, where the humanity lives within the Earth's bounds.

A "Carbon Foot Print" is a measure of the amount of Carbon dioxide produced by a person, organization or state in a given time. The measure of greenhouse gases that are produced by the activity of a person, a family etc. The impact of a certain activity on the emission of CO2 to the atmosphere. Your lifestyle or use of a particular product or service impacts CO2 production. The papers, the canvases you use for pastels, water colours, oils &acrylics, the paints, the easels, brushes everything you use for creating art works have effect on greenhouse gas productions - which in turn affect our environment. Therefore, using them judiciously and in a proper way is very important for the well being of our planet.

People who waste art materials might not have realized the consequences of their acts. So they do it so carelessly. But for a person like me who can see like a movie on a screen before my eyes what impact all that waste on the environment we live in have, it is really shocking and scary! Therefore, I want to bring this picture before your eyes too. I don't intend to criticize anybody, I only want to paint the truth before the art world so that artists would realize and appreciate my efforts to save this beautiful planet Earth.

My Ecological Foot Print is as low as 5.02. If everybody has such a low EFP, we would need only 0.3 Earths! Our planet would be green forever!

So may I ask all my artist friends to come with me into a ecologically balanced beautiful world that would be as wonderful as your art works?

(I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own - Andy Warhol)

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Permalink Reply by Zhenlian on January 3, 2011 at 5:17am

I have always thought that painting is the most economical way of spending our time, I am not aware that there are artists who can use so much paint and waste so much materials, I spend Summer in making oil paints and Winter in making Chinese paintings, which is in fact ink plus waters which is the cleanest painting medium, I cannot do Chinese painting in Summer, because the big table which I use to do my watercolors is in the room which in Summer is like an oven, so I prefer doing oil paintings in my sitting room which is cooler, besides in Summer if I spill some oil on my hands I can wash them easily. I am very careful with oil which I am afraid might be poisonous, so I rarely get my clothes dirty, sometimes I even put on plastic gloves. Here 10 tubes of oil colors made in China are very cheap and I can use them for several years, I can see the results are as good as any other oils, though I am not sure how long the effects can last. Do I care how long they can last?

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 3, 2011 at 6:11am

Here in India we get non-toxic oils ( it is written on the tubes that they are non-toxic) but they are very costly. Yes, I am trying to post articles on toxicity of various paints. I will do that when I get time. I posted one or two in research section already. All most all media are chemical based & have some sort of effect on both environment & human beings.

Zhenlian said:

I have always thought that painting is the most economical way of spending our time, I am not aware that there are artists who can use so much paint and waste so much materials, I spend Summer in making oil paints and Winter in making Chinese paintings, which is in fact ink plus waters which is the cleanest painting medium, I cannot do Chinese painting in Summer, because the big table which I use to do my watercolors is in the room which in Summer is like an oven, so I prefer doing oil paintings in my sitting room which is cooler, besides in Summer if I spill some oil on my hands I can wash them easily. I am very careful with oil which I am afraid might be poisonous, so I rarely get my clothes dirty, sometimes I even put on plastic gloves. Here 10 tubes of oil colors made in China are very cheap and I can use them for several years, I can see the results are as good as any other oils, though I am not sure how long the effects can last. Do I care how long they can last?

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 23, 2011 at 7:31am

I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own - Andy Warhol

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Permalink Reply by GOPI KANTA GHOSH on February 4, 2011 at 5:00pm

We must popularize this concept...I am sharing in Facebook

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Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 11, 2011 at 11:59am

Now look at this picture. Some artists refuse to accept this fact :

Argentinean artist Nicolas Uriburu, dressed in green, pours green color into the river Weser in Bremen. AP Photo/dapd, David Hecker.

Is this creating art?

Isn't this a waste of colour as well as polluting the water? Just for temporary glory & doing something that catches the attention of media and people!