New paintings and regular art updates.
Two of our (literal) stars of the Mystery Play at rehearsal today. They are only young but they have some acting knowledge, I hope they will enjoy the experience, they certainly had the enthusiasm! Things are gathering slowly but it is getting there and I hope the audience will enjoy the play. Not long to go!
An idea from 2017 for a design for a cat and moon and stars. It’s not a good photo but I like the idea and I wish I’d got round to sorting the design out and getting it printed off. This is only an initial design. I would have strengthened the black areas and line work. It’s nice to remember this.
Darkness is needed for astronomy. We used to drive out at night to try and see meteor showers or comets, or stand in the garden under the shadow of the hedge and try and see Jupiter and it’s moons (we used a telescope) and even Saturn and it’s rings. We saw both planets. Once we drove under clouded skies to chase a massive meteor shower of up to 100 meteors an hour. But we never got out from under the layer of thin low cloud even though we drove at least 40 miles.
On another occasion we went out and drove into a wood so we could see a beautiful greenish comet. That was amazing.
Finally we recently saw the aurora borealis. An amazing thing to see in the UK.
I’ve been trying to paint a galaxy over a few weeks, dots and smudges, dots and smudges…. Then I got a bit bored so I looked up images of the sci-fi classic Dr Who and decided to add his tardis with a bit of a sparkle to make it a bit more dramatic. X
Without flicking paint! Each dot so far and each smudge is from a brush touching the canvas. It’s a bit over exposed. It’s acrylic on a small 7×7 inch canvas. I might paint a tardis on it if it works. There are hundreds of dots and I’m really struggling to find a brush with a decent point. More to do!
What are you most excited about for the future?
See Wikipedia for information https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_Comet.
I don’t know all the information about Halleys comet but I did see it in 1986 although it wasn’t as spectacular as expected. But I watched a TV programme that showed photos of it from a probe called Giotto that had been sent out to investigate the comet. The debris and ejecta from the out gassing of the comet meant that the view stopped before the comet nucleus was fully visible. The idea that a comet is a dirty snowball was suggested around then?
Halleys comet returns every 76 years. It is next due in our skies in 2061. I might just get to see it! That is because it is a short period comet as opposed to ones that have much longer orbits only entering the centre of the solar system again after hundreds or thousands of years.
The comet was named after Sir Edmond Halley who in 1705 worked out its orbit around the sun and calculated when it would return. I believe he was made astronomer royal because of it but I might be wrong!
One thing to also note is that a meteor shower happens each year, I think in March? This is caused by dust and debris blown off Halleys comet by the solar wind. The material is left behind and the Earth passes through this debris over a couple of days each year. The resulting meteor shower or shooting stars are basically tiny pieces of cometary dust and small specks of material burning up in the earth’s atmosphere as they enter it.
I’m interested in astronomy but I’m no expert, but Halleys comet has always excited me.
If you see the face you might be experiencing Pareidolia. It’s one of my favourite things, I love finding faces or animals in or on other objects.
That’s what people did with the stars in the skies… They could see people or creatures and called them constellations. Some constellations are the basis of the signs of the Zodiac. Different civilisations had different myths and legends, so the combinations of stars creating them will be different depending on what part of the world you live in. Even the moon is seen as a boat when it is viewed from the equator and is waxing or waning, because it looks horizontal, not vertical. And what about the man in the moon? A face seen in the moons surface made up of the different craters and seas on it.
I think Pareidolia is really interesting. I read that it helped early people notice animals that might have been camouflaged without that skill. It’s more redundant now. But still there. So if you see faces in wallpaper or bunches of flowers Pareidolia is happening!
Two galaxies in line of sight. Taken by the hubble space telescope. They are not colliding but are completely separate, (like the moon going in front of the sun).
Imagine how big the view of one galaxy would be from the other one? If we were on a planet there half the sky would be dazzling and full of stars, the other half facing the dark of space. It could be amazing!
Just got a phone call. I’ve got my barn owl painting into the Brampton Open exhibition. I’m very pleased. I’ve got to pick the other one up but that’s OK, they were completely different styles so it gave me a bit more of a chance depending on what the selectors wanted. It will be up at the Brampton Museum and art gallery in Newcastle under Lyme from 24th September 2022 for a month.
I’ve wanted to alter this painting for a long time. I had a grey blurred background before but it just merged in to much with the Barn Owl. Now it stands out against the night sky. I also added many tiny stars. I could have flicked splashes of paint but I wanted more control over where they went.
Mallaband-Brown