I am not a kitchen-gourmet….my husband’s forte. But I did a pork loin roast for the first time ever in my life today, in the crock pot, which I never used before, using a recipe from the internet no one I know has ever tried. After 8 hours, it fell apart and was great. The apples I put in with it, became the best applesauce. So tonight, my blog is to give a gift and pass on a delicious, not labor-intensive GREAT meal that even I could be proud of!!
Here’s the recipe: click here
Enjoy!!!! 🙂
Here’s a You Tube video done by someone called “puntocaramelo” to accompany Celine Dion singing Ave Maria. It’s a meditative delight, both visually and audibly. Click here and enjoy.
A gift for all this afternoon:Â A poem by Jimmy Stewart about his dog named Beau, from a Johnny Carson Show clip.
It is such a heart-warming performance. Click here and enjoy.
Here’s a current “painting-in-progress” . All seagulls need finishing, then some ropes around the pilings and one rope connecting the pilings. I’ll update the pics as I go along.
Canvas size is 12″ x 24″Â and the medium is my favorite:Â oils.
Yes, the seagulls have no faces yet! Maybe I should leave them that way as some kind of philosophical statement? 🙂
I so love seascapes, sea birds, wooden pilings, stormy seas….
Stay tuned for pictures of progress.
It’s not dolphins blowing bubble rings….though frankly I can’t blow bubble rings so I consider that talent above me and respect any dolphin or human who can do it.
But ANYWAY, several news outlets carried an article about Tanner, a dolphin at the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys, who was featured for his ability to be blindfolded and still mimic what a fellow dolphin was doing. CNN video of Tanner
I am not familiar with the place doing this study, but I located both a Facebook page for it, as well as their URL and some info on their mission:
Official Facebook Page – Dolphin Research Center
Some mission and history information from the web Page of the Dolphin Research Center:
“DRC evolved out of the Institute for Delphinid Research. When DRC’s founders took over the facility in 1984, research remained a high priority. We have since expanded our in-house research goals, and also worked with world-renowned scientists who have come to DRC to study our resident colony of dolphins. General areas of interest include marine mammal cognition, behavior, and husbandry…….
In addition to maintaining the best possible environment for the dolphins and sea lions at the Center, we also dedicate ourselves to assisting marine mammals in distress in the surrounding waters of the Keys. For decades, DRC operated as the Southernmost member of the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. We rescued and rehabilitated whales and dolphins, providing expert medical attention to help ease the way for our marine friends from the wild. The rescue and rehabilitation procedures provided us with invaluable opportunities for critical research and data collection. DRC extended its rescue commitment to include the endangered manatee and is currently the only facility in the Florida Keys licensed by the Federal Government to assist manatees in distress.
To reach as many people as possible, the Center provides a variety of educational programs that allow the public a chance to learn firsthand about the world of the dolphin.”
I noticed that this facility rescues dolphins that are stranded, helps rehabilitate them, and takes in dolphins rescued from animal shows, or other facilities. So I considered them to be an ethical place. They also have expanded their rescue work to sea lions and the endangered manatees. So all in all they seem like a pretty good place.
Their site also notes that the public can make reservations to get in the water with dolphins, etc….some of the things questioned recently by dolphin researchers as to whether that is appropriate or not. It seems to cross a line from research to human entertainment. I didn’t have a problem with humans signing up to participate in part of their regular routines and care, but I have to admit, I felt like maybe having dolphins provide a “photo-op” for us might be using them a bit.
I have no proof as I’ve never been there and haven’t talked to anyone there. So it may be that the dolphins enjoy us and maybe we provide them with entertainment. This is one of those gray areas where maybe these programs will spawn future marine scientists. Yet I hope the rights of the marine mammals are kept front and center.
In any event, check out the sites. At the main page for the research center you can read a bio on all their creatures and even “adopt” one to help out with the cost of its care.
Enjoy….
In my last post I talked about a turtle rescue facility here in NC, the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center . One of the things they do is to attach satellite tracking devices to some of the turtles being released. A link on the site explains how satellite tracking works, and best of all, has links for each of the turtles tagged! You can see the story of that turtle, how they were injured, and then see the map of their activity after being released. It’s pretty cool!
There’s also a link to another site, seaturtle.org, that is just FULL of all kinds of turtle and their journeys – HUNDREDS of turtle journeys all over the world!!!! One of the maps shows the routes along Florida taken by about 12 turtles. The map looks like rainbow–colored fireworks! The site description reads: “SEATURTLE.ORG’s Satellite Tracking Program has been developed in cooperation with the Marine Turtle Research Group (MTRG).”
If that isn’t enough, there was an article on Yahoo.com , Sat-nav turtles go on trans-ocean trek, that also has information and maps on sea turtle journeys tracked by satellite. I don’t know for sure if they’re part of MTRG, (possibly, since these researchers were at the University of Exeter in England, and MTRG has a group there), but they’re doing the same kind of work.
If you love turtles, if you’ve ever stayed awake at night wondering where sea turtles go once they scramble off the beaches and slip beneath the waves, if you’ve ever wanted to be a sea turtle and wondered where they go….these sites are for you! Enjoy!
Let’s switch animals for a moment and move to sea turtles, another favorite of mine. And maybe a personal connection. My mother-in-law always promised to come back as a sea turtle and I bet she kept her word.
But anyway…. being an oil painter, that means I keep 4-6 oil paintings going at a time. Given that the paint takes a while to dry whenever I do something, I would be sitting around waiting a week to do something next. Having several going at once means I can keep moving projects forward.
In that vein, aside from the seagull/seascape pic I’m currently working on, and a painting for my niece of the place she’ll be married at in CT next July, I finished everything else. So hence the plans for the dolphin painting. I also want to do a painting for a friend and she loves sea turtles too, so time to start that as well.
I’m not going to get into a discussion…YET…about what canvas and composition for that one, a little pressed for time today. But I would love to share a place with you all that’s one of my favorites on the coast here in NC, the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, on Topsail Island, NC.
Though I don’t have the full details, I know it got started with the efforts of Karen Beasley rescuing sea turtles on her own and expanding her efforts. She sadly died young of cancer and her mom took up the mission. The facility has been going since the mid-90s and is now building a new turtle hospital. Sometimes fishermen give them injured turtles, often they find them. They care for the creatures, heal their wounds – physical for sure, emotional hopefully, but they care for them professionally and with great love. This includes a large number of college students who vie for the opportunity to intern there in the summers.
If you click on the link above you can visit the home page, where there are links to pictures, an index of all the turtles they ever rescued (and their status – MANY success stories), and even a list of turtles you can adopt. As the site states: Â All donations are directly applied to food, medical supplies, and operating costs of the hospital. We receive no state or federal funding
Focus is to release except for turtles so badly hurt they can never be released. I’m trying to track down details right now about one turtle I met at a reptile and amphibian show at the NC Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh, NC a couple of years ago. A lovely, gentle creature who was blinded by human actions, but had a robust spirit and seemed very content in their care. If I can learn more, I’ll share the story.
They also participate in the turtle nesting project – locating and marking turtle nests to protect them, engaging volunteers to find and mark them and watch over them, helping newly hatched turtles find their way into the ocean waters, etc.
They even fit some of the turtles with monitors to satellite track them and there’s some data at the website under Satellite Tracking!!
Its’s a great facility. If you have a soft spot in your heart for sea turtles, please visit their site. Consider donating, but at least visit the site and learn about all the wonderful works they do. Such beautiful creatures…..and people. 🙂
PS If you ever get to go to Topsail Beach on Topsail Island, NC, GO VISIT THEM!!!! They do tours of the facility in the summer. Even though it’s popular and you may stand in line in the sweltering hear for a couple hours, it’s worth it to see the turtles AND to see just how professional and caring these people are!
Okay. So the easy part is over. I know I want to do a painting of dolphins, to capture their beauty, fluidity, personality, intelligence. Now we come to the hard part – how to execute that?
I will say that the short answer is – it comes down to gut feeling about composition and canvas size and shape. And that nothing is cast in concrete. One can get halfway through the painting only to realize you need to turn the painting 90degrees and start again, or paint over the whole thing and get a new composition. However – I do try to narrow some things down then follow my gut. Probably the best I can hope for is to answer three first questions , then identify what other questions need answering as I go through this process.
The first three questions are-
1) what size of canvas?
2) what orientation (vertical or horizontal)
2) what composition?
The size and orientation are determined by the composition, though composition is determined by the size and orientation of the canvas. To get to the final choice, at least for me, it is a working back and forth, see-sawing between all three until the choices are narrowed down to a decision.
I start by going to Google images and just printing some pics of dolphins that “spoke” to me to get an idea of what compositions might work and what they even look like.
Some were “vertical” in orientation, some horizontal. Most had at least a couple dolphins, some had several. All had the “underside of the surface waves” at the top of the picture. So I have a “vague” idea of my own composition –
In thinking about my “vision” I know I want the top of the painting to show that we’re just under the water’s surface – so the top of the painting has to have that quality of “seeing the underside of surface waves.”
Also, at this point my gut tells me “simple vs. cluttered,” so I’ll keep the number of dolphins low. One solitary dolphin feels wrong as they’re social creatures, so I think I’ll keep the composition to two or three at most.
At least one dolphin has to to give us that “look it in the eye” connection, so they all can’t just be a “far away view.”
In looking at the pics I see I could do horizontal dolphins in a horizontal canvas, and it has potential. I can also do vertical ones in a horizontal canvas. However that means dolphins far away. Vertical dolphins on a vertical canvas feels better than on a horizontal one. You can get closer to them. So which is it? horizontal dolphins on horizontal canvas, or vertical dolphins on a vertical canvas?
And of course, my gut pipes up with – you could do something odd like a vertical canvas with an angled down but mostly horizontal dolpin or…..ARGGGHHH! 🙂
Let’s take a break and consider what size canvas.
Re the canvas size:
Let’s face it. This painting could go from 2×4″ to 4’x8′ or a wall fresco. But I work in more intermediate size ranges and avoid the extremes.
My favorite size often is 8×16, which is an odd size but I like it. It’s usually just big enough to capture creatures or seascapes and I just “like” that shape.
But I think that will be too small for what I have in mind here. So we’ll go for a size a little bit bigger.
My other frequent choices are: 18×24″, 16×20″ or 12×24″. So I think one of these will be my choice. Let’s leave size for a minute then and hop over to orientation.
Re: orientation” for the canvas used: Will I paint it with a “vertical” approach, meaning taller than wide? Or will I paint it “horizontally” meaning wide with a narrow height?
If I go tall and narrow width, that means I’m showing many layers of water and I’m probably going to have to paint smaller dolphins….unless I have several in the background and one more forward, diving deep and straight down so I could make the full length of the dolphin apparent. Overall, it’s more of a “long shot of the whole area” with a focus on one dolphin. It could work as a way to show the personality of one closeup. Also, a dolphin is long and narrow, so I could use a vertical oriented canvas and have a diving dolphin to show that. But I’m not sure.
If I go long on the horizontal and shorter on height this means I’m painting a narrower slice of water. Thus any dolphins shown will be larger and more the focus of the painting for sure. However, then the focus instead of being on one dolphin, becomes all of the dolphins as they’ll be about equal in size and close in proximity. And keeping with the long and narrow on the dolphin shape, a horizontal canvas means no diving dolphins – they would have to be horizontal as well to get across that whole “long and narrow” feeling.
Okay, so I haven’t yet identified “which canvas and orientation” but I HAVE listed some pros and cons of each. And in reality, the canvas shape is really a choice between two. The 16×20 and 18×24 are almost identical in ratio, just for a little bit more size on each dimension on the 18×24,whereas the 12 x 24 has a much longer vs narrow feel to it. So the decision really comes down to 12×24 or one of those two.
In the hopes of clearing up the confusion, maybe it’s time to go back to composition.
To recap – most likely, vertical dolphins on a vertical canvas, or horizontal ones on a horizontal canvas. With the surface showing above. With two or three dolphins. And a canvas either 12×24 or one of the other two.
I sense that I want a focus on one dolphin with the others possibly in the background. And to have a full-size dolphin horizontal feels boring. More drama in having one of three “plunging” down to the deep sea. Action. Not just being.
What to do right now?
Feel. Stare. Digest. Incubate.
Stay tuned for ….decisions. At least “best guesses” 🙂
I am not a marine scientist so I cannot weigh in on the scientific merits of the free vs. captive dolphin debate. However, I am an artist and there, I can serve the marine mammals. If seeing them in captivity is supposed to forge an emotional connection, then maybe seeing them lovely portrayed in a painting can do the same.
I also have a friend who expressed an interest in having a painting of a fish underwater. I think the original will have to be hers, but the prints will become my gift to the world and to dolphins in particular.
This morning, on a quest to see how I might approach this endeavor, I spent some quality time on Google images. Did a search on the term “dolphins underwater” and went to the “images” heading. There I found many photos to inspire me. I never actually copy a photo, but I do glean a “feeling” of the animal, it’s emotions, how it holds itself in the water, its soul.
But it’s not just the animal I need to “feel” but it’s environment. I need to “feel the fluidity, denseness, and motion” of the water around it along with how the light cuts through the layers of liquid. I need to feel the “temperature” of the environment – cold Arctic waters or warm Caribbean. And is it clear or cloudy with plankton, debris, dirt.
I often print out a few key pictures and just stare at them. Soak up their soul, shapes, colors….until I’ve internalized the animal and its space.
Next will be “Step 2 – Composition” Stay tuned.
Soul Mosaic 