amazing video

image of the day

The image here (the left one) is a photo of a famous fossil called "ida" It was thought to be a missing link etc etc and etc. it was later learned it is not a missing link to anything but it is one of the coolest images I ever saw. In my mind this scientific photo is as good as any piece of modern art I have ever seen ..The colors, the energy--- it is just beautiful. I would rather have this on my wall any day than some hacked out piece of abstract depressionism. I am going to paint my own version--I am compulsed to do so.


God is the greatest artist and Leonardo ran a close second.

Know your clouds--- cumulus

The name cumulus is Latin (I believe) and it means resembling a pile or "heaped up." These are your puffy "cotton like clouds." They are low level clouds (unlike cirrus) They are made of water droplets as opposed to Cirrus and higher altitude clouds that are made of ice crystals. They generally are fair weather clouds but they can turn into cumulonimbus which can produce rain, storms and even tornadoes. NC Wyeth painted a lot of these clouds. I do believe in the painting above that the horizontal cloud the goes across the picture plane is a stratus cloud. I will explain this cloud later. Kids tend to love these clouds the best because they can turn into roosters and aliens and giants and the like... The reason NC used those horizontal stratus clouds is to A) break up the strong verticals and B) Give a sense of scale of the Giant.

Two birds---one cloud--genius...

know your clouds: Cirrus

Cirrus clouds:

Cirrus are high altitude clouds they are thin and wispy because there is very little water vapor at high altitudes. They are usually "fair weather clouds" but many of them can signal an approaching frontal system. Jet planes leave their vapor trails at these altitudes. Cirrus mean curl or hair and this makes me think of Leonardo who saw a connection in nature (rivers, clouds, etc. to a woman's hair) artist's should know science and I do not think I need to explain why.