Across Psyche
Therese Manesia Cook
November 22nd, 2024
Major: Physics
Genre/Medium: Digital (Procreate, Photoshop, Heavypaint)
About the work:
The piece “Across Psyche” is a set of three wide landscape illustrations of the asteroid Psyche’s surface, imagined from a perspective showing an expansive display of features. Overlayed above the illustrations are three sweeping arcs, which, upon closer inspection, trail behind the very tiny orbiting spacecraft Psyche. The inspiration for this piece was to convey the size of the asteroid. It is meant to give the viewer a sense of scale: the asteroid Psyche is not just any space rock–in comparison to the spacecraft it’s very big, measuring over a hundred miles across! And, it is bound to have interesting topology and features across this expanse of surface. As no one has seen the surface of the asteroid Psyche yet, the artist hoped to use dynamic shapes and curves as a way of expressing the excitement of the mission, which will discover many new sights across the asteroid.
To create this artwork, the artist used a combination of different drawing programs. A number of initial concept sketches were created in the Procreate app for iPad, three of which were chosen to paint in more detail. The art was then brought into Adobe Photoshop for subtle color/contrast adjustments. Additionally, the program Heavypaint was used to introduce subtle hue shifts that created some minor hue variations in the drawings. The artist wished to remain conservative with the colors to offer perhaps a more realistic view of what the metal asteroid might look like. To create this piece, the artist found it uniquely challenging to paint landscapes that did not have any familiar features, like atmospheric scattering (gradients in colors of the sky, or features that fade off in the distance) but tried to make the scenes look interesting with an abstract, painterly art style and contrast in the values and types of shapes used.
Psyche Inspired is a program that brings undergraduate students from any discipline or major together to share the excitement, innovation, and scientific and engineering content of NASA’s Psyche mission with the public in new ways through artistic and creative works. This year’s Psyche Inspired cohort is known as the Iridium Class. These works are posted in the gallery and highlighted on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. View the full resolution images in the image gallery. There are many ways to get involved with NASA’s Psyche mission. Learn how you can be a part of the Psyche mission through our “Get Involved” pages at https://psyche.asu.edu/get-involved/ and https://science.nasa.gov/mission/psyche/ways-to-participate/. To learn more about the overall Psyche mission, visit nasa.gov/psyche or jpl.nasa.gov/missions/psyche.
Download Image (5 MB)
