Inspired by trips through the Cambrian mountains, and those days when there is a sudden flash of sunlight that brightens up a valley, this is mixed media, with lots of gesso as a base on which I painted in watercolour. I enjoy such paintings as I feel to have little control over the final product. This is a far cry from my working lifetime in science, writing papers that were straining in their exactitude.
The green area is a nice technique I use when I place some burlap threads on the paper, drip acrylic ink onto them, let the area partially dry, and then wash off the still wet bits.
I could just as well have called it 'The first glimpse of spring', but that would not have fitted the time of year (now) when it was painted. I hope you enjoy it.
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BrentW
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I see a large cinder cone with a typical white puffy fume - thermal cloud above … reminiscent of the Mount Shasta thermal areas. There is the adjacent lake reflecting some of the shore. A patch of green flora with granite veins showing. Dramatic stormy sky.
Another great mixed media work Brent. Keep ‘em coming. Expressing ourselves, getting relief….. from / thru our art is very therapeutic.
My background was in palaeontology, not volcanology -- although I did produce the first ground-truthed map of the Saddle Hill Eruptive Centre on Nevis, West Indies, when I was teaching maths and physics there through Voluntary Service Overseas, on which the American Peace Corps was based. I found two previously-unrecorded parasitic cones adjacent to the main vents. But then, lacking both knowledge and equipment, I scurried back to micropalaeontology, on which I read for an external PhD on shelled micro-organisms living on seagrasses around the island. From there I was head-hunted to work on Trinidad and the rest, as they say, was history.
Painting came much later, after my taking early retirement because of me having PCa. With the coming of Covid and lockdown, my wife bought be some watercolour paints to prevent me from going stir crazy. I found out how interesting painting is. The rewarding part is that my paintings have started to sell, much to my amazement. I like the way that some other people find them sufficiently interesting to put them on their walls.
My apologies if this seems a bit garbled. I am high on painkillers right now.
Sorry about being slow to respond to this, I’ve kinda been mostly asleep for two or three days .. still there this morning too.
We have kinda similar interests in many areas especially microbiology. Someone has to be the nerds don’t they…. It’s “ us “ buddy. Yayahahahaya yayahahahaya.
You’re making great art , impressive use of mixed media too. I’d really deep dive that and make a body of work for your family. 30 years from now, people ( not us ) will be seeing your work on antiques roadshow. Yayahahahaya
Wow. Impressive indeed. Makes my set-up seem childish in its simplicity.
I deal almost entirely with shelled micro=organisms, and so use reflected light, not transmitted.
I have published three papers so far this year, including one in which I announce my finding of a new species in Liverpool and Cardigan Bays -- though I am sure its distribution will turn out to be much wider now that micropalaeontologists know what to look for. I see that my colleagues over at WoRMS (World Register of Marine Species) have already picked up on it -- see marinespecies.org/aphia.php... for Asterigerinata murraynhaynesi.
A little deep dive will turn up that the vast majority of my papers this past decade have been with a statistician colleague at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., at which I am a research associate. No small feat for somebody who was employed at a University in the Developing World.
Another of the papers announces my finding of specimens of several species of foraminifera in the Holocene of Liverpool Bay, UK., that are more usually found in tropical and subtropical areas of the Caribbean Sea and off SE USA (see micropress.org/microaccess/... ).
If I will be remembered for anything in that sphere, however, it will be for my discovery of an enormous set of transgressive-regressive marine cycles in the Lower to Mid Miocene of Trinidad, West Indies, which recorded the arrival of the Caribbean plate tectonic plate there. The results were so mind-stretching and scattered over so many papers that they were summarised in a book in which I allowed one of my graduate students to take first author position (try looking up Samdsoondar, Wilson and Farfan [2020], Early Neogene Stratigraphy and Palaeoceanography of Trinidad, West Indies: A Fresh Perspective).
I am sure that Malecare will be screaming at me that people will be able to track down who I am and where I live on the basis of this information, but no matter -- I suspect most of my fellow members of the PCa club will not have read this far in this post, their eyes having glazed over.
I have told myself that I shall not be publishing anything more in the field of micropalaeontology, however. As I say, they are not things for my wife to hang above the mantelpiece, even though my wife and I did publish a few papers together. I want her to have something to hang on the wall.
As a result of that wish, she and I discussed my paintings over dinner today. She tells me that the one she likes most so far is a little painting showing a Welsh stream in flood in spring of this year. She did not get as far as putting it in a frame, but I shall be putting that one on one side and not entering it for sale in any future exhibitions. I have posted a scan of it here.
As you say, some of use here are nerds. That's me: a super-nerd who has been struggling for the past five years to find another outlet for my creativity rather than just academia.
Wow, writing this has stretched my brain so far that my teeth are clenched. Time I gave up and tried to get some more sleep before a visit to my GP in the morning to discuss why I had to call the emergency cancer palliative care team this weekend because my tongue has swollen and made swallowing difficult. I suspect that will lead to my visiting the local A&E for tests tomorrow. Ho hum.
Watercolour painting of a Welsh stream in flood following heavy rains.
Sounds like you dived a lot deeper than what I was doing. I once had started a catalog - collection of diatoms. I sampled dozens of remote unusual ponds , lakes in Nevada and Utah looking for rare specie / specimens .
Basically I discovered that it was a un achievable project as so many catalogues already existed that they defied brain power. Trying to identify and check for a new species was pretty much impossible. It was just a basic personal hobby collection… eventually. I found a microscope Micro manipulator that allowed my to make diatom display / art slides along the same thing done by the victorians.
Eventually my adt screwed with my bg and that with my eyesight. Even on a large screen like my photos.
Supposedly there are 200,000 , more or less, current cataloged species and an additional 2,000,000 remain to be characterized and identified. The internet and PCs were just getting going good, when I did diatoms, and lacked the abilities they have now.
Swollen tounge ??? Kripes …. That’s on par with some of my “ junk “ yayahahahaya. I hope you get that cleared tomorrow, brother… good luck when you go in.
Impressive career and body of work Brent. As a layman, my understanding of your field is limited to Stephen Jay Gould, so you and Kaliber are making my head hurt.
Hope the situation with your tounge was resolved today.
As for your painting, I too have the urge too leave something behind a legacy of some kind for my family. Your work shows that you made a brilliant choice when you took up painting. I see what your wife likes about the flooding stream painting. Would you allow me to save it and use it as a desktop image?
Hi Carlos. My situation was concluded by my GP to be an interaction between my opioid painkillers and the contrast used in my CT scans. Oh what fun! I am jerking around in an unpredictable manner, slurring my speech and having trouble reading and writing.
I would be delighted if you used my painting as a screensaver. Please be sure to tell others who see it where you got it. If it goes viral, I can at least hope other paintings of mine attract the same level of liking.
I was walking the lake near my home and the thought crossed my mind, “I missed Brent’s post this week. I hope he’s still sharing his work.” Then it dawned on me that today was Friday.
When I got home I loaded HU, and right away I saw your painting. Needless to say I was not disappointed. In addition to enjoying the beauty of your paintings, you are increasing my appreciation of mixed media. I really liked the burlap effect in this picture.
Thanks again for sharing. I look forward to each new creation.
Thank you so much for your comment, Carlosbach. It encourages me to keep trying. Such paintings as this are very complex -- much of the 'painting time' is actually spent waiting for stuff to dry! I look forward to posting next week's attempt.
I have been posting here for some time, so there are some people who know what a long, hard slog it has been to get to this standard. But I can say that I am at last having fun also, what with my control of the media I use. Those people know that I have produced some horrors of paintings along the way!
Even Beethoven hit some bad notes at times. Some of his symphonic notes have many scratch outs and revisions. All art is organic, morphing into a final state.
Enjoy each journey, and let others enjoy the state that speaks to them.
I am sorry, John, that my paintings are not to your liking. However, as you will have noted, there is an audience other than you for whom I paint, the principal audience being me.
No need to be sorry Brent. I like your work. j-o-h-n's postings sometimes fall flat or worse -- seems to be trying to make light of the tough situations often seen here on HU.
I am currently living from one CT scan to the next, waiting to be told when my Xtandi has ceased to control my PCa and that I must go to chemo. I have been told that I have little chance of surviving long on the latter, my liver and kidneys being thought to have little chance of coping.
So, I am struggling to find something other than a bunch of dry scientific papers that says 'I was here' -- something that my wife would like to put on the wall once I am gone.
I am sharing the results of my work as I strive to produce that painting -- my work having a very fast learning curve. I am so pleased and encouraged when others like my results. So, thank you for your very much appreciated reply.
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