092718: Paris Revisited

Posted on September 27, 2018 by artandfossils

I recently donated a print of the above image to a charity auction to raise money for the Southern Poverty Law Center (a most worthy cause, to my mind). The image, a favorite of mine, was taken on an upper floor of the d’Orsay Museum in Paris.

Digging up that print got me thinking about my other Paris images and that led to a pleasant afternoon rediscovering that photo library. Here is some of what particularly caught my eye. Above is another from the d’Orsay.

Louvre Window Study

Sortie (Exit)

Windows, Gare d’Austerlitz

Grand Palais

Sainte-Eustache

Pantheon

Staircase, Museum of Comparative Anatomy

Sainte-Chapelle

Graffiti

Louvre Entrance

Montmartre

Book Stalls on the Seine

I’ll finish today with this picture postcard image of the Seine as it passes through the heart of the city.

I hope you enjoyed the visit.

092018: A Devonian Sampler

Posted on September 20, 2018 by artandfossils

For today’s post I have gathered together a selection of images of fossils found in the vicinity of my studio in Catskill, NY. Those viewers familiar with the subject will, I hope, enjoy these images, some new, some reworked.

For those new to this blog, perhaps a brief explanation of the subject matter is in order. The Devonian is a period in geological time that ran from app. 420 to 359 million years ago. In my “neighborhood” one can find fossils from the Middle Devonian (app. 387 mya). And this mix here is all marine invertebrates, mostly coral and brachiopods. One more note – at the time these animals existed this land resided well south of the equator. Thank the enormity of the time frame and land movement due to plate tectonics for that.

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Thanks for the visit.

091318: Nature!

Posted on September 13, 2018 by artandfossils

A few years ago, our neighbors, Dorian and Jim, gave to me two rather large hornet nests. They had been hanging in their barn for years and thought they might be good subjects for me – a very kind gesture that I much appreciated.

Over time I photographed them enough (on the outside) and finally decided to take a look inside. These first five images were taken as I slowly broke the nests down to the honeycomb.

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Fascinating structures they are! The hexagonal pattern that defines the honeycomb is a pattern found throughout nature (See “Why Nature Prefers Hexagons.”). And it has been around for a long time.

The image above is not an old or even fossilized honeycomb. It is, rather, a favosite, more commonly known as honeycomb coral. This fossil coral is approximately 387 million years old (during the Devonian Period) and was something I dug up locally.

Brachiopod and Mollusc

“Geometry in nature” seems to be a good segue into more of nature’s designs – an image sampler of fossils, all locally founded and all as old as the honeycomb coral.

Brachiopod

Cephalopods and Brachiopods

Gastropod

Brachiopods

Tabulate Coral

I’m closing today with three mixed media drawings. I had trilobites on my mind so I created some generic versions – each one app. 36″ x 48″.

*****

Thanks for the visit.

090618: More from Maine

Posted on September 6, 2018 by artandfossils

Today’s post delves once more into our recent trip to Maine. The first half are images of the broken shells I brought back to the studio (along with a rock from Jasper Beach). The shells came from a small, narrow strip of coastline that also provided me with the second half – more images of the coastal rock walls.