Here’s one I just loved doing. Between the vibrancy of the colors of the mahi mahi, and the fact I just let loose with several different kinds of blue, from Prussian blue to Cerulean, Ultramarine to Phthalo….warms and colds, it was fun to just go with it. And then of course, there’s the sea spray…..perhaps that’s the most fun of all. 🙂
As mentioned, I’ve been painting and have 3 new ones done and a 4th almost completed. For a start, here’s one of them I don’t believe I’ve posted yet….Sea Nettles.  While I love to do detail work, with my sea creature paintings, I’ve been leaning more toward “impressionistic.” So here’s the first!
It’s not as silly as it sounds, by the way. The dolphins apparently execute a considerable amount of precision to create these bubble rings. In fact, instead of plain old bubbles that would just rise to the surface, these cylindrical rings stay under the surface and allow the dolphins to push them around, stretch them, play with them.
The reporter noted that researchers were speculating as to why more female dolphins do this than males…..I can just hear the male/female jokes coming on that one….  🙂 Anyway, enjoy!
Okay people. A while back I mentioned that for fun, my husband and I decided to do one of those Uncle Milton Ant Farms again, you know, see how “big kids” like it. When the ant farm got here from Amazon a few weeks ago, I sent in the coupon for the ants. Of course, it being Feb/Mar…the ants aren’t always shipped right away. Well, today’s email held this little missive, so……arrival of ants, is imminent, or as the mails notes: “the ants are in transit!”
From the email:
Hello.
Thank you for your order of ants from Uncle Milton Industries. We are emailing to inform you that the ants have left our facility and are making their way to your location as we speak! Please try to limit the amount of time the ants spend in transit by checking your mailbox everyday.
Thank you for choosing Uncle Milton Industries.
Okay….the softie in me couldn’t stand it anymore. Admiral Byrd all alone in the tank for the last couple months. I’d expected he was on his last legs, so to speak, but he actually molted, came out bigger, stronger and has been out in the tank waving his claw….to no one in particular since he was now all alone.
Today I decided that even if he died tomorrow, he deserved company and I was tired of viewing this as a death watch instead of life. So today I went out and bought three female fiddlers and added them to the tank. They’re small…miniature compared to him….hopefully they’ll survive, but they were the biggest ones I could find. PetsMart’s – forget it. Tiny and you just couldn’t find anybody to wait on you to get them. I went to Pet Supermarket and the kid there was most helpful and dug out the three largest females in the tank for me. I had tried to go back to Fish Pros….but their storefront was empty and no one answered the phone. Alas, they may be out of business.
So, since I can’t tell the three ladies apart, at least not yet, I have named them “en masse” and call them, The Three Muses. So…..we shall see how the “introductions” go……
“Squid have excellent eyesight, a keen sense of smell, and the ability to squirt jets of dark ink that mask their escape. But these skills provide little protection against toothed whales, like the sperm whale, which hunt them ruthlessly and easily.”
Apparently sperm whales consume more squid that all the squid captured by man. The article has a bit of myth, mystery, controversy and science. So enjoy!
My husband pointed this article out to me, and the fish is just great. I love the guy. So sharing a “psychedelic fish” with you all!
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2009-02-26-psychedelic-fish_N.htm
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
Eleanor Roosevelt
For years now, I’ve collected nature articles, everything from monkeys in the zoo, to whale fall carcass ecosystems, to little kitty cats stowing away on an airplane. I don’t know why, I just love them. I feel like I’m supposed to do something with them, but haven’t been sure what. Yet I expect it will make itself clear eventually.
I do know that I will spend more of my time in my blog focusing on interesting nature tidbits as that is my real love. After working on the Under the Pier novel, I have set it aside because I wanted to take a break from fiction, and focus on the nonfiction, nature aspects of life. When I decide to create a new story, I’ll know, but for now, I want to explore and indulge my love of nature. In fact, what reinforced that was all the research I did on Narragansett Bay creatures for that novel. That always just lit a fire in me. So….for the time being, I will focus on nature.
In fact that brings me to the other aspect of my blog – my art. That is the other thing I’ll begin to focus on because that is the other love in my life – my oil painting. In a nice sense of synergy, all my research on sea creatures has led me to begin developing a collection of sea creature paintings, as well as seascapes and such. I want to build a full collection of those creatures to eventually put on display. I’ll continue my detailed seascapes and landscapes and such, but the sea creatures paintings have a slightly freer, more impressionistic quality (at least as impressionistic as I’ll ever get 🙂 ) than my usual work.
Oh, and re – nature – still waiting for my ant farm ants. 🙂
Soul Mosaic 