Nutty

You can probably tell from my profile icon that I have a thing for horse-chestnuts. I usually have a few hanging around the house, & it suddenly occurred to me that I should paint one for IF's kernel prompt!

Acrylic on horse-chestnut kernel, ~2" wide

Fructus Reborn

I don't usually like to show older pieces here, but with Mother's Day & IF's "kernel" prompt coinciding, this oddment insisted it belonged here, & it just wouldn't shut up! So I spoke with the crazy lady who makes the rules for this blog & she said I could do it just this once.
;-) I've actually made some (slight) changes to the piece since I last posted it on Curious Art, so it isn't 100% old, anyway. Can you spot the tweaks?

Acrylic on text & illustrations (from 19th c. botanical textbooks) on canvas, 6"x6"
2008

Happy Mother's Day, everyone! And happy kernel week too!

Quadripartite

I love seedpods & tend to pick up a few whenever I take walks in Autumn. They can have amazingly complex & fascinating interior structures (though I've never yet found one that contained quadruplets as this curiotype does).

I also have a serious thing for cross-sections & cutaways. It's so much fun to get to peek inside something & see how it all works. Peacay of Bibliodyssey has posted some beauties & I was filled with absolute giddy glee when I first saw the "Let me tell you about my boat" scene from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. {Sorry this is such a lo-res copy-- if you know of a better link please let me know.}

And have you seen this wonderful animated version of "Man as Industrial Palace" by Fritz Kahn?

Oh yes, back to the curiotype. It's Photoshop with text from Gray's Introduction to Structural & Systemic Botany, 1876