Meteor Wing

Kandinsky goes into space! Here's the Kandinskified version of the red squad of space fighters and their colorful decorations and insignia. The bright colors in this are inspired by superhero comics. This is the last in the series of smaller space and abstract pictures that I am preparing for DarkoverCon. This is not a good reproduction image of this picture as it didn't scan well, but I figure a flawed image is better than no image. I'll take its picture with my digital camera when sunlight is available. Space is for heroes!

"Meteor Wing" is 9 3/4" x 9 1/4", acrylic on coated matboard, November 2009.

Calatrava's Bridge

If things had been different in my life, I might have been an architect. But I would not have become the type of architect whose stunning works grace big cities and change the way people think about buildings. I would have been grubbing out a living re-modeling garages and building bathrooms. And I'd probably be unemployed right now. But this picture, in my current series of space paintings, honors an architect who truly merits description as the first kind I mentioned. Santiago Calatrava, from Spain, has designed things which look like they come from another universe where gravity is different. I have never seen a Calatrava building in "real life" but just looking at pictures of them gives me a thrill. Hence my homage to him in this little work. "Calatrava's Bridge" is acrylic on illustration board, 8" x 10", November 2009.

Cosmic Nest

All over this Universe and probably in other ones too, stars form in nebulae. They condense from interstellar gas and dust, the remains of previous stars which blew up. The thicker parts of these clouds fall together due to gravity, and eventually a fresh star is hatched. This image shows one of these star nests, where new stars shine brightly, reflecting in the center of this gathering of nebulosity. When the stars are powerful enough, they dispel the clouds with the force of their radiation, and then they fly away, to arrive on your bird feeder in winter plumage.

"Cosmic Nest" is acrylic on illustration board, 10" x 8", November 2009.

Noantri History Panel

It's been a long time since I posted something from my own imaginary world, the world of the Noantri. Maybe too long, by my standards. I searched on dusty shelves and found a few graphic panels that I had done in September of 2003. At that time I was considering writing a history of my Noantri people, or at least their time on New Earth, done in a graphic novel format. I used markers for these experimental panels. As I remember, I didn't like the look of my finished panels. I couldn't get enough fine detail or smooth texture with my markers and marker pens. After about three pages, I abandoned the project. But here's one of the panels I did, dated September 30, 2003.

Early Noantri New Earth history, about 8" x 4 3/4", markers on sketchbook page, panel 1.

Plasma Flames in the Endless Night

"This could be Heaven, or this could be Hell...." Either place is full of plasma, made of atoms which are ionized by the radiation from nearby stars. It is the light of the Otherworld, manifest in nebulae which are photographed with our religious telescopes in holy rituals keeping vigil through the night. Zoroastrian astronomers of ancient times honored the stars, the sacred lights, which told the stories of the seasons.

Meanwhile, I have an airbrush and plenty of red paint, with words to spare. "Plasma Flames" is acrylic on illustration board, 10" x 8", November 2009.

Space Aurora

Here's another in my new series of nebula and space pictures for my upcoming show. This one, "Space Aurora," features one of my favorite colors, the ecstatic, hallucinatory light blue-green I call "Aurora Green." Auroras happen because of energetic particles from the sun striking gases in the Earth's upper atmosphere and causing them to glow. There are no auroras in space, but there are emission nebulas, which are sort of the same, made of gases that glow when energized by light from a nearby star. This is an image of an emission nebula.

I once asked whether I should "invent" the nebulas and galaxies I painted, making up visual details and patterns as I went along, or should I stay true to "real" views from telescopes like the Hubble or advanced terrestrial scopes in Hawaii and Chile. When I asked an astronomer that question, she said, "Why not? It's a big universe out there and there are a lot of nebulae." The question of whether this is an "accurate" picture becomes even more unusual if you believe the current speculations on a plurality of universes. If there is more than one universe, in fact uncounted bbbbillions of universes, then in one of them there is a nebula that looks just like this. And maybe even a person just like me, painting an image of that nebula and posting it to the Otherworld Wide Web, which is just too disturbing to consider.

"Space Aurora," acrylic on illustration board, 10" x 8", November 2009.

Rand Flashback

Here's a scene from Rand's characters' childhood. Even when young, Rand characters know what they want. At least, the good ones do. For another perspective on Rand, try this hilarious article (warning: lots of profanity) by "Gentlemen's Quarterly" reviewer Andrew Corsello.

I should say, whether you believe me or not, that I am not a "Randroid" and do not agree with many (maybe most) of her ideas. I am more interested in her as a pop culture phenomenon who appeals to geeks. She was one of the first well-known writers in America who made geeks feel good, even heroic, about themselves.