RMW Ramblings

  Wood Panel Painting Fortuna   Found frames often need custom size panels for painting if the frame is not a common size.  For this found frame painting I cut a birch plywood panel and used the wood grain as an element of the painting.   "Fortuna" is a sculpture in Venice by Bernardo Falconi that's atop the Dogana da Mar, the once customs house, now art museum, on a point directly across the entrance to the Grand Canal from the Piazza San Marco. This gull's eye view faces, not San Marco, but the San Giorgio Monastery.    I thinned the acrylic paint on the sky and water to stain, rather than cover, the wood grain.  This left the grain to suggest the cloud and water surface structure.    

 Euler's Identity Zero On "Pi Day," 3.14 (March 14), I posted about my books on the fundamental constants of Euler's Identity:       Missing from my set was zero.  I have since, acquired, and read the missing  biography of that component.        Here's the Euler set now... Charles Seife, in his Zero, fills the void, or rather, illuminates the void.  Zero's inseparable companion, infinity... ∞ plays a major role.    

  Rockford Horrors The Biker The Biker is roaring around the Tower throwing orange flames, followed by his "familiar" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familiar), the enormous bat you saw earlier.   This image was an inspiration for a T-shirt design I did for myself and family, celebrating our many years spraying water, not flames, riding our 1993 SeaDoo.  

  Rockford Horrors The Kong   The monster dragging the blonde up the Tower isn't King Kong, but Bob Kong dangling, not Faye Wray, but Mary.  The face is a self caricature from the 1980s when I had more, and black, hair, as in the blog banner.   This is a self-plagiarism of a Christmas party invitation I did in 2003.     The biplanes are from the 1933 classic movie King Kong , which utilized contradictions in scale as I have here and in the painting High and Mighty posted September 15.

  Rockford Horrors The Vulture This oversize vulture guards the door to the Tower.  Here's a more naturalistic painting, Cathartes, I did of a turkey vulture.    

  Rockford Horrors The Witch She rides her broomstick over the Tower.  

  Rockford Horrors The Gargoyle   Copper lion head gargoyles edge the copper roof of Rockford Tower. Since they are inanimate, I have given the lion gargoyle the threat of a rattlesnake.     The gargoyles were once functional. The gargoyle lions do not longer function as roof drain spouts, gargling or gurgling.       I used a lion gargoyle as a corner image in the commemorative painting/print I did for the 2002 reopening of the Tower for visitors.