Ever had a week where you put too much on your plate? Only me? Well this weekend we can all take it a bit easier but in the mean time here are some things you might have missed while trying to be well rounded.

Lets start with Newcity (what no longer using my YCDToT green color scheme?, reds nice to I guess who had a interesting article a while back about the Spice Barrel District in Near South Chicago being turned into a Creative Industries District for galleries, studios, fashion warehouses & other design/visual art incubator projects is getting more attention on many sites and news articles as the story continues to grow and is worth a look if you missed it. Read more here

Pantone releases next years designer colors for both Men & Women; seems Beeswax will be the hot word this spring lol. Read more here

Why no artist should underestimate the toxcisity of chemicals and value of good ventalation, even though I still refuse to wear gloves while I paint with Flake White or Cobalt Violet. What can I say I prefer to do it nude. Read more here

Swedish outfit called TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) made a highly believable video on portable media ID in 2014 (is it just me that finds it odd thats not far off?) which the least likely aspect isn’t the mirror with email but that Apple still makes a non portable OS? Read more here

The Perfect table after a overly packed week for the person on the move, a zen water ripple table that you can drink tea on and the ripples are real, even in California. So lets say your a young British man who’s been working on you house for some time, teaching classes and making art to pay the bills and trying to expand your art career all at the same time but just ran out of Tetley’s well worry not atleast you will be relaxed while you struggle to swallow what passes for tea in the States. Read more here

For as long as pigments have been made and ground up the rule of thumb has been, the farther along the visual spectrum you go the harder and more expensive it gets to create that color.

Blue has had a double hit to it’s reputation in that the best solutions to it’s creation have the after effects of being poisonous (cobalt blue is a possible carcinogen and Prussian blue, another well-known pigment, can leach cyanide) absurdly expensive (the ground up gemstone lapis lazuli is what makes up ultramarine blue) or if done on the cheap using organic materials apt to fade extremely quickly.

That was until recently when researchers at Oregon State University created a new, durable and brilliantly blue pigment by accident. The researchers were trying to force novel electronic properties into compounds like manganese oxide ( Black ) & other chemicals by using extremely high temperatures (2,000+ degrees Fahrenheit) to force crystal structures.

During one series of experiments the Professor of material sciences, Mas Subramanian noticed that the latest sample of manganese ions absorbed red and green wavelengths of light and reflected only blue. When cooled, the manganese-containing oxide remained in this alternate structure. The compound still is not as cheap as they might like due to the use of indium but work is being done to replace the indium oxide with less expensive oxides like aluminum, which possesses similar properties.

More can be read in the latest Journal of the American Chemical Society.