Watercolor | Black Cliffs

I rode my bicycle out to the Black Cliffs this weekend with my bike trailer in tow along with some art supplies. I did this watercolor painting looking up Car Body Canyon. The Black Cliffs are made up of columnar basalt rock formations. There were small patches of snow on the canyon rim which is depicted on the right-hand side of the painting. A small waterfall was trickling over ice in the very center of the canyon and every once in a while I could hear pieces of ice break off and crash to the rocks below.

Tim Prentice

Tim Prentice does some amazing installations.  I ran across an installation in Coeur D' Alene that was done in 2007.  Of his installations my favorites are "Biplane" and "Yellow Zinger".

Artwork by Deb Jones Yensen

As many of you know my Mom, Deb Jones Yensen, has been attending BSU to achieve her Master of Fine Arts.  I am extremely proud of her for overcoming the daunting task of going back to school and completing the amount of work it takes to achieve such a goal.

This first piece is a collaborative work which she and five other artists produced after reading an article on what it takes to feed our world.  My Mom produced the engraving of the cow.  Below is a quote from her. 

"I engraved the cow.  We had to read an article about feeding the world; the article stated that most grain and corn is used to feed cattle, for people to eat, instead of feeding people the grain and corn."

This second piece is a part of the Oregon Ink Spot exchange project and is entitled "crocus".

The work she produces is very close to nature and has a lot of empathy and sensitivity.  I am excited to see what she will produce next.  Keep up the great work Mom!

~Tad

 

Illusions and Perception

I have been researching "illusions" that can have an impact on a  pilot's perception and actions and/or reactions.  The idea is to gain a better understanding of the "illusions" and the effects they have on the mind and to mitigate symtoms such as "empty field myopia".  I first became interested in these "illusions" while studying under professor Bill Bowler at the University of Idaho.  Bill introduced me to some of the art pieces and installations dealing with light and space by James Turrell. 

Listen to the commentary at the end of the video below in which the woman says,  "When you really start to look, then you start to lose yourself....and that's when it becomes very...disorienting."  It then shows the woman bumping into the solid matter, "Whoa".

The empty field is similar to the effect of flying into a cloud or into a dark night sky with no references in IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) conditions.  Without a horizon or other objects to relate to, the pilot can easily lose directional control of the aircraft and end up in a spiral dive with the feeling that they are still traveling straight and level (if not paying attention to their instruments).  The centripital force of the spinning motion can be misinterpereted giving the pilot the sensation that the airplane is traveling straight and level, when in "reality" the aircraft may be in a spiral towards the ground.  As the woman in the video says above. "Whoa".  Click the link below to see what a spiral dive looks like from inside the cockpit with external references in VFR (Visual Flight Rules) conditions.

From inside the cockpit:

From outside the cockpit: