020620: Gastropods Part 3

A few weeks back I posted some images of  Devonian gastropods – all local, all approximately 387 million years old. Today’s images of gastropods are from a different place and a different time.

These go back a bit further to roughly 460 million years ago, during the Ordovician Period, and are found in the earliest reef system known today. The Chazy Fossil Reef is located on Isle La Motte, one of several  islands just below the Canadian border in Lake Champlain.

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Gastropods weren’t the only creatures inhabiting that reef. Crinoids, trilobites, cephalopods and other marine invertebrates rounded out the scene.

Since 1998 the Isle La Motte Preservation Trust  has worked to conserve significant sites of the Chazy Fossil Reef.

There are two preserves on the reef, Goodsell Ridge and Fisk Quarry. Specific information on visiting can be found here.

It’s a great place to visit any time of year.

Fisk Quarry during Autumn. Reach down for a fallen apple and find more gastropods. They do show up everywhere.

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Best wishes to all my ILM friends. I look forward to our next visit!

121219: More Devonian Fossils

Another selection for you today – all local 385 million year old invertebrate fossils. I’m too busy today with the hearings to add any more to this post. I hope you enjoy today’s images.

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I’ll leave you with this pic of my latest painting. Not sure if it will stay this way. It seems like they never do!

Thanks for the visit.

120519: Trilobites and Others

This week’s post starts with three images containing trilobite parts. In this particular area it’s rather difficult to find entire, whole trilobites. So finding something like the impression of a trilobite eye (in the opening image) makes for a very good day in the field for me!

As is usually the case, the remainder of fossil images displayed today are local (Hudson Valley), all dug up by me, and all 385 million year old marine invertebrates.

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Snow finally arrived a few days ago and it looks like it will be around for a while. My first thought was to cut a path to my studio sitting down there in the woods. My second thought was to focus my camera briefly on the newly formed shapes that surrounded the studio.

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Thanks for the visit.

100319: All Local (Almost)

Late afternoon light landed on a shelf full of rocks and fossils here in my studio the other day. Today’s opening image is the result – a brachiopod, a mollusk, and a trilobite. That trilobite is the only fossil in my possession that I did not find myself, or rather, one that I did not dig up myself. It is from Morocco via the Sant’ Ambrogio Market in Florence (where I purchased it for a few euro.)

So, with camera now in hand, I grabbed a few more local fossils and, with an appreciation for their unique shapes, tried to breathe some new life into these ancient relics.

Sometimes even broken pieces can be intriguing on their own.

And it continued from there. Following up on last week’s post, all the remaining images are brachiopods (whole or parts) showing again a few of the many different types (15,000) that existed over a period of a few hundred million years!

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Brachiopods seem to be the most abundant local fossil here in this patch of the upper Hudson River Valley. No wonder then that they continue to find their way into my recent drawings and paintings!

Thanks for the visit.

 

092018: A Devonian Sampler

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!

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″.

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Thanks for the visit.

072618: Three Groupings

I’ve been going in a few different directions lately as today’s post reflects. Group One consists of  images of pods from the baptisia plant. I know nothing about gardening. But I do know when it’s time to cut something down and bring it into the studio! Group Two is made up of new fossil images. And Group Three is a selection of new mixed media pieces I am working on.

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Thanks for the visit.