Mixed Medium

I was painting a background on a canvas the other day when I noticed how the sunlight was dancing across it. It was really beautiful, and I thought to myself I wish I could paint that. Instead I took a series of photos of the light as it came through the trees and onto my painting. I think they came out really pretty, Like light shimmering on water.

An Old Hang Out

This tiny (3"x2") painting is of one of my old  favorite hang outs in south Florida.
Good times!

A Study in Jellies

I haven't painted in months. Part of the reason is that I paint outside on my patio, and its been winter. And the other half of that is that I just haven't been in the mood. But today was spectacularly sunny and warm, and it just so happened that I didn't have much to do. (OK, well I do have stuff to do, but...) And I suddenly felt inspired to paint!
My muse? Jellyfish, and the idea of making up a new method of painting. I know, it's weird, but that just  my crazy brain works! I don't know why it thinks what it does. I just do my best to go along with it.
Anyway, I gave it a shot. I have to say I am (mostly) pleased by the results...the only disappointment is that the (acrylic) paint looks so much brighter and prettier when it is wet than it does when it dries. I haven't figured out how to keep the colors vibrant, or maybe I'm going about it all wrong and have to think in brighter and lighter colors when I initially paint. At any rate, thanks to Instagram and their awesome filters, I was able to tweak the paintings to look just how they did when they were wet and fresh and...brillant. (Not intellectually brilliant, but in terms of color intensity;)
Anyway, these are the manifestations of my random mind on this very lovely Friday afternoon. I.e. here are the results of certain impulses that just happened to fire in my brain earlier today....Making something physical from only electrical/chemical energy (well, and some paint too). I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Brains are awesome!

Study 1

Study 2

Study 3

The Finished Product!

I finally gave my brother his painting! It was originally done for his birthday, but I actually gave it to him at his graduation party. (The frame was his grad gift). I never got to see the whole thing put together and framed, so I asked him to send a picture of it once he unwrapped it. Over all I think it looks pretty nice! Check it out!

Voyager

I was asked by my brother to do him a painting of the Voyager spacecraft for his birthday. I wasn't sure if it would turn out because most of my paintings sort of decide for themselves what they want to be, but I gave it a try. Except for a few sizing errors on my part (which I will keep to myself), I actually think it came out pretty well. My intention was that it would be more abstract, so I wouldn't have to worry so much about the details. But as I was painting I decided to try a more artistic background, and a more technically accurate spacecraft for two reasons. The first was that I thought the contrast between the two "styles" would give the painting some depth (i.e. the background almost looks out of focus) and the second was that I wanted it to look like a painting. I didn't want it to be mistaken (from a distance) as a poster or something. Anyway, here it is!

Voyager (Full Paining) by J. Smith

Close up of spacecraft.

iPad Art

I got an app for my iPad called Brushes. It's a painting program that uses your finger as a paint brush! It's like finger painting, but not quite as great, since you aren't covered in sticky paint when you are all done. I have tried a few "paintings" and it's much harder than it looks. But since it's just for fun I am taking my time getting used to it. Here are a few of my preliminary creations. 

New Paintings: Origins 1 & 2

Origins 1 by J. Smith

Origins 2 by J. Smith

These are acrylic on 5x7 size flat canvases.

The Lorenz Attractor

"Lorenz Attractor" by J. Smith

Similar to the last one, the book for Book Club is about physics again....they are killing me! It's great stuff, but pretty far removed from almost anything I can relate to. So once again I am trudging through the book, in this case Chaos by James Gleick, at a snails pace.
Anyway in my reading I came across something called the Lorenz Attractor which is basically a graph, or model created by one Edward Lorenz, that depicts how non-linear things can behave in an organized kind of way that can be...predicable, but at the same time can display abrupt and unexpected changes at any time. It's similar to the "butterfly effect", where one small change can create (unpredictable) consequences farther down the road, but then somehow the system rights itself eventually and it starts again. It's a picture that describes chaos.
One prime example of something that follows this pattern is the weather.
For example you could say that for any August 15th (in the Northern Hemisphere) it will probably be warm to hot. And for the most part that "normally" true. But that doesn't mean that next August 15th it couldn't snow or hail. We've all experienced that sort of unpredictability. A hot day in the middle of December, or an ice storm in May.
There are lots of things that can be modeled using the Lorenz Attractor besides weather. Populations of species, the stock market, anything that seems pretty stable most of the time, then does something really crazy and unexpected. I think in my field of geology the periodicity of ice ages, and volcanoes would fall under a similar model.
Anyway, I was so inspired  and impressed by the notion that chaos could have a shape, that I decided to paint my own version of the Lorenz Attractor. The image was stuck in my head for days, so it was easy to paint. Trying to mimic the unpredictable side of chaos I didn't approach it with any sort of strategy though, I just started anywhere and kept layering on the paint until the image in front of me looked "right". And then I stopped.

The above is a 3D model I found on the internet. For a more in depth (and probably accurate) description of the Lorenz Attractor, click here, or you can Google it.

Pepper Tree

I was out on a walk the other day, and realized that some of my favorite trees out here in California are Pepper trees. I love their droopy branches and leaves,  gnarled trunks, the spicy way they smell, and the pretty pink pepper seeds that hang in clumps like grapes and litter the ground beneath the tree. I was thus inspired to paint one. I had a canvas already started, so instead of beginning a new one, I just added my pepper branches to it. Enjoy!

Meet Braylon

My fish Braylon Edwards.

I finally got a pet! What I wanted was a border collie, but what I got was a fish. Not that I am complaining, fish are great. My last fish, Dennis (who has now become my olive tree Dennis) was pretty great. Anyway this time I opted for a Beta Fish. They are less maintenance, and best of all they fit in my wine bottle. Before you get all upset, and start shouting fish abuse, you should know that the wine bottle is HUGE, (the size of three regular ones), AND that he seems to really like it in there.
Anyway, for no reason that would qualify as "good" I named him Braylon Edwards. For those of you that don't know, the original Braylon is a wide receiver in the NFL, and was just recently traded to the San Francisco 49ers. Other than that I don't know much about him (meaning the guy). But you know how sometimes you just look at an animal, or maybe even a baby, and a name just jumps out at you? Well, when I saw my Beta at the bet store the name that popped into my head was Braylon Edwards, so I went with it.

A Beta Fish, painting by me.

I've had him a couple weeks now, and he is a pretty good fish. I got him the best food they had at the pet store (blood worms...eeeewwww) and he seems to dig them. He looks awesome on my kitchen table, and likes to see what's going on. He will follow me around his bottle when I am at the table. He has become a bit of a beggar though. When I'm eating breakfast or dinner he swims back and forth on my side of his bottle and stares at me with his little fishy eyes pleading for a snack. I try not to give in, but it's tough. Anyway next time you are over, don't forget to say hi to him!

From Coldfoot With Love

(Painting by me.)

My brother sent me a letter from Coldfoot Alaska a few weeks back. I found the postage stamp he chose ironic considering the CPU is above the Arctic Circle, and so was inspired to paint it. Afterward it was still missing something, so I ended up tearing out the corner of the envelope that had the stamps, and gluing it to the painting!

Can't Beet It

I "painted" this picture of a beet using a beet. Kinda blows your mind when you think about it long enough doesn't it? Don't ask why I decided to draw with vegetables today. It's just the mysterious (and random) way my mind works.
The upper one is how it actually looks, the bottom one is enhanced a little to bring out the organic nature (i.e. little bits and pieces of beet and leaves) of the medium.

Blue Water

The Blue Water Bridges

I made this painting for my Dad. It's of the Blue Water Bridges that connect Port Huron Michigan with Sarnia Canada. (The photo I painted it from is behind.)

Totally Nautical

Nautilus in Stained Glass

Just to be clear it's a painting of stained glass, not actual stained glass.

Painting of the Day

Bottle and Apple

Party of Five

I have suddenly found myself into "mini" paintings. The canvases are only a couple inches wide/tall (see fruit in background for scale), and I had to buy special little easels to put them on, but I think they are pretty cool. These particular ones I painted with the intention that they would be separate works, but after I was all done I decided that they should stay together as five parts of one whole, and that they look better as a team than as individuals.

Summer of Painting

Fleur de Cocoa

Riley

Tomato

I have been on a painting kick the last month or so, and I am just now getting around to posting some photo's of the ones I've done. So stay tuned! BTW all paintings by me:)

Coldfoot Alaska: The Aurora Borealis

Aurora over Coldfoot Camp (Painting by me)

Besides the sled dogs (and getting to see my little brother of course) the best thing about Coldfoot in the winter/early spring are the Aurora. I have to admit that when I was planning my trip viewing the Aurora was not on the top of my list. I'd seen them as a kid in northern Wisconsin and even once when I lived in Michigan.
I begrudgingly waited until three in the morning to see them for the first time in AK (and they did come out), and after that I was so impressed that every night after that I stayed up till 3 or 4 in hopes they'd put on a show for us.
First of all, the aurora I saw in the Midwest were nothing at all compared to the ones in Alaska. From the latitude of Michigan the Aurora take up only a sliver of the sky, to the north just at the horizon. And while I remember the green tint of the light...it looked like it could have come from the ground up, like light pollution from a city. It was neat to see, but not very impressive. But the Aurora in Alaska...WOW! To put it simply there is just no comparison.
It's partly the staying up all night in anticipation that makes it exciting. Our first night we tried to see them we hung out in our hotel room and checked every 45 minutes or so from 11:00 to about 1:30. Then our expert Aurora watcher (aka my little bro) thought he saw the beginnings of some action. We bundled up as best we could and headed out back of our hotel. It was FREEZING! We didn't know at the time but Jay was right, and the Aurora were starting. It's really hard to tell them at first because they look like wispy clouds, and are so dispersed (or faint) that they look more white than green. If you've ever seen the milky way (sort of a faint white band that stretches across the sky) that's what it looked like. Needless to say standing out in the frigid cold (and it was really windy that night) to look at barely there Aurora was not my idea of a good time. So we went in and headed to the front of the hotel, near the lobby where we thought we would close the lights, sit by the windows and watch to see if anything happened.(Then we would run outside.) Apparently some other people had the same idea. There were two women from Oklahoma City, a couple from Prescot AZ (parents of one of Jays co-workers), and a girl from Taiwan I think. We all sat in the dark and chatted while taking turns to get up and smush our faces to the window to see if we could see anything. I definitely recommend this strategy if you are planning on staying up all night to watch. It is just too cold to stay outside the whole time while you are waiting for them to start. And you want to be comfortable enough to enjoy them when they are in full force, and not be worrying about whether or not your toes are going to freeze and fall off.

Ribbon of Aurora (paintings by me)

 Around 3:30 one of the Oklahoma ladies came rushing in from outside shouting "Come quick! They're starting!" We all cut our conversation short and grabbed our hats, mittens, scarves, zipped up our coats, grabbed our cameras and dashed out the door after her. At first it was hard to see there were little spots that were definitely green, but you had to sort of look at it out of the corner of your eye to see it move. Eventually more spots formed, and they became shadowy curtains floating in the night sky. For some reason they reminded me of the robes that the ghosts wore on the Scooby-Doo cartoons. They got brighter and dimmer and sometimes you'd be scanning the sky in front of you when all the action was to your back, or above your head even. It was a full 360 degree experience, and we found ourselves turning in circles in hopes of catching every particle (or wave if you prefer) of light. Everyone was so excited, and shouting "Oh, look there!" "Oh wow! Look at that one!" I couldn't smile on account of my face being frozen, but I was smiling on the inside for sure. While it was really beautiful it was hard to ignore the fact that my legs felt like they were being pricked with needles (although I was happy I could still feel them) and the moisture in my nose was freezing to my nose hairs and pulling them whenever I took a deep breath. Had I been better dressed I am sure it would have made a big difference, but I live in California and have no need of snow pants and -50 degree rated coats. Anyway they were worth it. The aurora gave us a pretty good show rising up over Coldfoot Mountain and slowly flashing across the sky to the southeast. I tried to take pictures which was utterly hopeless, so I finally gave up and just enjoyed them. They faded out after about 40 minutes, so we all went back inside to warm up and we waited until about 3:30 or 4:00 before calling it a night.
 Two nights later Jay and I stayed up again keeping watch and around 1:30 or two the show began. It was apparent right away that this one was going to be much bigger. The green was brighter and deeper. It was as if someone had increased the contrast, and so the sky looked blacker and the lights shone more. It had been cloudy all that day, and we thought the chances of us seeing anything were slim to none, but then right around midnight the sky cleared. (So let that be a lesson to any of you who might make it up there to see them sometime, don't be fooled by a cloudy day!) And what a show! Just in the first ten minutes we were out there it put our whole previous viewing to shame! There was more movement, and more...shapes I guess you could say. At one point a there was a giant, elongated  "C" extending from Coldfoot Mountain hovering above us and continuing all the way to the south (see painting). When I looked straight up I could see the bottom of the curtain moving up and down like it was riding along top of invisible waves fifty miles up. I saw curtains and ribbons of alien green light all over the place and they all swayed silently in the invisible solar wind above my head. It was...magical. If I didn't know already how the Aurora formed, I would have been convinced of magic that night. It was (is) just that...awesome and weird. I was again cold, but the lights were so spectacular I forgot about it (well, that and I borrowed Jays coat:) It was just a beautiful experience. I'll never forget it.
In real life they look nothing like they do in photos. For one they move and form in a dome above you. You have to look sideways and up and around back over your shoulder to really see everything. And the other thing is that especially when they are right over you, you realize how big they are. In real life they look 100 miles long by 20 miles tall! They are just enormous! But I feel like in photographs they look about the size of your average cloud, and that is not at all the case. Jay and I stayed up (drinking lots of coffee and hot chocolate) and watched till the end.

Paintings switched around (paintings by me)

It is absolutely worth staying up all night, or three nights if necessary, to see. Even if you have seen them before at lower latitudes, there is no comparison to seeing them in the winter above the arctic circle. The cold, the utter darkness, the mountain air, the coffee freezing in your cup, the tingling in your fingers, the eerie dance of the Aurora....it's surreal, and almost feels supernatural. It almost felt like I was born to live just to experience that moment (but that could have been the bourbon talking:) It's probably the closest I would say I have come to feeling like the earth itself is alive.
Sometimes for no reason at all, it's like my brain takes a step back, and sees the bigger picture, and I am in awe of it. It's mind blowing to think that this place is my home! This is where I belong! Out of all the universe I was lucky enough to  be born here, on a planet where in the winter, in the far north, green lights dance across the sky in time to the cosmic tune.

Explanation of paintings:
First painting is of me, Jay and our Aunty Paulette watching the Aurora behind the hotel. I tried to take photo's but none of them came out, so I specifically tried to remember that moment so I could paint it when I got home. While it might not be an exact likeness of anything or anyone, I feel like it accurately depicts the scene as I remember it. The essence of the moment was captured.
The second and third are the same two paintings. The first is how I intended them to be set up and the second is just switched and looks cool, but somewhat inaccurate. The first setup is of my favorite view I actually saw in real life where the Aurora formed a giant ribbon in the shape of a C across the sky. On the left is Coldfoot Mountain and on the right is the other mountain to the east (don't know the name) so it's supposed to be a panorama kind of. The second switched set up looks cool, but isn't accurate in that I never saw the lights diverging from each other, and the mountains are no longer in their accurate positions or shapes.