A Seahorse for Aubrey swims into Zaza's Universe

Partially painted for my friend, Aubrey, who loves seahorses.

Cool seahorse facts: the name is from the Latin, hippocampus, meaning horse sea monsters; the coronet on the sea horse head is completely unique, like a finger print or a snowflake; the seahorse mating dance is beautiful!-they spin around each other, and in tandem, sometimes they change color; the males carry the eggs to gestation, which can take from a week and a half to 6 and a half weeks; the female visits the male daily while he carries the eggs; many species of seahorses are monogamous.

Also, Project Seahorse is a very cool marine conservation organization, check it out: http://seahorse.fisheries.ubc.ca/

Pompeii

I won't be able to paint the ENTIRE history of the universe of course, so I've picked out bits to represent larger categories. I chose Pompeii to evoke a large scale, unpredicted, catastrophic, inescapable human tragedy.

The figures, lacking color or detailed facial features, are simply human. There's a softness to the way they've collapsed, a lingering connection between each other in their last moments of experiencing life as themselves, that I like. They also represent for me, a sense of history; only we humans cling to our ancestors, seek out our roots, go digging to find out more about our past.

The Snow Monkey Enters First

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Japanese macaque live farther north than any other non-human primate, perhaps because they've discovered the bliss of winter hot springs. They have a strong folk tale, astrological, and prehistoric pottery presence among humans, and they're matrilineal. Perhaps these are some of the reasons that the snow monkey got to lead the way onto this creation painting, or maybe it was just those pleading eyes...

Painting the Lightning Storm

The hands may be knitting the yarn into a pattern, but where does the yarn come from in the first place?

The actual lighting bolt that crackles out of the storm clouds and transforms into the yarn of the universe is yet to come....

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The Origin of the Universe

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The universe emerges in sharpie as a long thread being knit into a pattern by two mysterious hands in the sky. It evolves along the thread, with faces and buildings peering out, and empty spaces for more things to appear.

Meanwhile, Zaza Fearless has somehow escaped the constraints of time and space, the ordinary perception of reality. She's packed her gear, hopped on her bike, set her destination as the origin of the universe, and taken off!

Zaza Fearless Rides onto the Canvas

Zaza Fearless is a character I invented over a game of pool with Thorn Michaels, this is her first appearance. It is also my first attempt to take my line oriented improvisational process from small surfaces, using mostly ink, watercolor and acrylics, to a larger canvas.  I started with a sharpie, and Zaza appeared.

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