Four Jellyfish

I often like to doodle and paint whenever I'm watching a movie or television show or doing pretty much anything that involves listening (Note to my instructors: I'm still paying attention even if I'm doodling away. Probably paying more attention than if I wasn't doodling!). The other day I was in the mood to paint, but not really paint anything in particular. So while watching way too many episodes of True Blood (Yes, I'll admit it. I'm hooked), I painted whatever was in my mind at that time. Apparently jellyfish were on my mind. Why not? They are amazing creatures! Now, I'm hooked on painting them. Here's a picture of the ones I painted yesterday.

Titration!

I've been working on a couple watercolor paintings of labware recently. I've always loved glassware and glass sculptures. Labware is no different. Though its purpose is almost always utilitarian, I can't help but find it beautiful in its own way.

This is a painting of a titration in an Erlenmeyer flask. Titrations are used to figure out the strength (concentration) of a solution. A common titration often used in general chemistry labs is to start with an unknown acidic solution with an indicator (in my painting it is phenylphthalein) added. Carefully measured amounts of a known concentration of basic solution are added until the original solution briefly changes color. From that point, calculations are made to determine the concentration of the original solution.

My painting captures the moment when the phenylphthalein has changed color due to the addition of drops of basic solution.

I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Painting through the Universe: Eskimo Nebula

I've been taking a little break from planets for a bit and have gotten very excited about painting nebulae. At first I just played around with some different methods of painting them but last week I attempted my first real nebula.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of beautiful nebulae to choose from and so sent a quick request out to twitter for suggestions. The Eskimo Nebula came back as a suggestion from Adam P. Knave. I have to admit, at first I was not very confident about attempting this particular nebula but I decided to just go for it and see what happened. This is the result!

Squids in SPACE!

This little guy is a bobtail squid that I painted yesterday. Squids like this one are currently on their way to space on Endeavour's last mission to the International Space Station!

Painting through the Universe: Venus

After many attempts at Venus, I am finally somewhat happy with this one. I may or may not have several "practice" (aka failed attempt) Venuses laying around all over the place. But this project is about more than just making pretty paintings, it's about learning and trying new things too! That definitely happened while painting Venus...

Venus is a pretty awesome planet. Super hot, crazy atmosphere. Check out the NASA Venus profile and a Windows to the Universe Venus page.

I hope you like it!

Note: Venus isn't really purple. I found some false-color images in which the planet was purple-ish. Once I saw them, I knew I had to paint my Venus purple.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and suggestions!