Since I'm In 'Artist' Mode ... Uffda ...

Over a year ago my sister suggested I try a painting that would look something like the one in the post this LINK will take you to.

Well, what with one thing and another, it completely flew out of my mind ... until recently.

I've been looking on line at relevant photos, found some rather impressive ones of both outer space and geologic formations that would be awesome to use.

I'm NOT going to even try to shoot for anything even close to the photo created by the person who created the beauty you'll see in the photo the link will take you to, and have serious doubts whether or not I'll be able to even come close to getting the general concept put together, but the thought intrigues me so I'll likely give it a try anyway. We shall see what we shall see when the time comes.

If you click on the link, you'll read that I thought 'PHI in the Sky!' when I saw the photo - that's because in HELL AND HIGH WATER (it's fiction, in case you're not familiar with the SONG series) there are references to relatives back in the far ancient days (think mammoth and saber cat) who went 'Hiving' in the stars, up there out there, before the advanced civilization of Phi got wiped out by the Extinction Level Event which triggered what we call the Younger Dryas. It took the mammoth, the saber cat, and many other species, that ELE did, and it annihilated a mighty big hunk of Earth in general.

Some of our Characters are separated from family members when they are caught on Earth away from those who are up there out there among the stars. Communications, let alone access, between Earth and the Star Folk are severed irreparably, one more loss to bear when the ELE and its aftereffects are already too much for people to cope with.

At any rate, I have no idea if I'll ever be able to portray what one of the 'hives' of the Star Folk might have looked like, but it's going to be fun just going through the photos of the Universe, and whatever I can find that might be used to represent the settlements up there out there. They're not going to be Space Station things, though. That much I can tell you!

I'm daunted, and I don't daunt easy.

Still gonna be fun though!! Pop that image, or one along the same lines, up to a four foot by six foot canvas and see what you think ... me, I'm thinking 'Challenge!' and I'm thinking 'Oh boy what am I getting myself into?' and I'm thinking 'My sister is either a genius or she hates me.' She wants it in high relief sculpted form no less. 

Uffda.

How about I just paint one and display it on a frame at a 45 degree angle or some such?

Heh.

I can make it the cover of a big triangular box and store stuff in there. It'll have to go out in my lean-to since this little house I'm living in now ain't got space for no such thing. 

Lord have mercy.

Like I don't have enough to do. I'm supposed to be rewriting the first book of SONG, making new book covers, concocting trailers, updating ALL of the books, yada yada and MORE yada. Do I have time to ding around with a huge painting? Well, maybe. Procrastination is my middle name. One of my middle names. I'm going to try to shoot for Spring Equinox to have this stuff all done, but it's not like there's any real 'deadline' for which I'm eternally grateful. Summer Solstice would be just as good a time, right?

I'll say it again, with emphasis.

UFFDA! 

O_O The Wheel Goes 'Round and 'Round O_O

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryYMPh6z86Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuet3t9geXo

The first of the above is a bit of a video about the effects of volcanic activity in relation to an impact event and resulting earthquakes ... it's a few seconds shy of four minutes.

The second one ... well ... that one is, to me at least, enlightening ... or maybe I should say it's one of those O_O things. This one is almost an hour in length, and worth the watch just for the visuals, at least for me, that help make the PHI part of our Story Line 'real'. 

While the documentary goes back to the dinosaur days, sixty-six million years or so ago, the sequence it covers applies as well to the time 12,800 years ago when 'Something Happened' in North America, perhaps on a 'smaller' scale but the sequence would have been the same.

It might also provide a hint about what the 'much smaller' impact event in the 530s/540s (the other half of our Story Line) could have brought (to a lesser but still significant degree) to our 'more recent' Characters. 

Finding out about that put an unexpected twist into our Story Line(s), yep it surely did. Truth be told, it still kind of freaks me out a little. 

I write FICTION, not 'real' stuff, but from the get-go reality has kinda stuck its nose in where I didn't particularly want it to be. At first I welcomed the 'validation', but quite frankly I think it's getting a bit out of control here. If the myths and legends of our 'Dimensions' and 'Realms' and such turn out to be 'real' as well I might have to have a heart attack or something. 

Aside from possibly the size of the impact, the main difference between the two ELEs, as I see it, was the impact site. 

The one that doomed the dinosaurs apparently hit in shallow water near Mexico, striking at an angle pointing north, maybe a bit northwest. The one 12,800 years ago that took out the big mammals and pretty much everything else on North America (again) apparently whomped into the glacial ice up north. That may have 'cushioned' the blow a little, but it surely made for some horrendous flooding, an 'inland or overland tsunami', so to speak. In addition to the already existing waters going into 300 foot high tsunami mode, throw in one hell of a lot of abrupt icemelt.

I've only just found references to some of this stuff, but had already included it in our story line because it made sense to me.

A whomp anywhere on Earth is liable to have a ripple effect, above and below. Fire, flood, and a rather thick and dimly-lit atmosphere on the above side of the equation. Equal and opposite ... below would show up in earthquakes and pressure on volcanic sites.

So there's the Hat Trick ... a hockey term for a triple whammy ... Earth, water, air ... body, mind, spirit ... all facing massive challenges ... 

There are times I have to wonder if I'm really writing 'fiction' ... when what I put down in words I later find to have been 'real'.

Sometimes, though, like now - it comes in right handy. I can 'see' for myself, kind of, what it must have been like back when 'Something Happened' so very long ago. Replace in your mind while you watch, the dinosaurs with North America's large mammals including humans, and the effects on the rest of the world ... you'll see what I mean.

O_O

They're called Extinction Level Events ... ELE ... 

I want to add a PS here:

Both the National Bird of the United States and our (apparently soon-to-be) National Animal/Mammal - the Bald Eagle and the Bison - were both around for that last big ELE - and somehow survived. 

In much more recent years, both were on the verge of extinction (again) and both were 'brought back' from that verge by the collective will of the American People. 

That we as a people, once we recognized what we had done, were doing, did what we had to do to correct ourselves ... something about that is reassuring, gives me hope.

As it happens, I live where I can take a local drive and see both eagle and bison pretty much any time I want. I like that, yes I do.