Art 4/28/09

Today in Astronomy they showed us a Tesla Coil and it was neat. I drew a picture of it on top of a bisected star chart, for art, in my sketchbook. Tesla Coils are neat because they shoot electricity and can light up things that are not touching them. I slightly was not paying attention to the reason they work, because I had to finish my sketchbook for art. But Professor Vogt said that there are fields around us all the time, but we can't perceive them. Then we got little rainbow maker slides and looked at different elements burning in tubes, such as neon and sodium. They all burn different colors, and when you look at them through spectroscopic (rainbow) film, it divides them into their component colors. It is interesting to see. Professor Vogt said that the city of San Jose is replacing their sodium lamps (they look orange, and only take up a little part of the spectrum) with LEDs, and then Lick Observatory won't be able to see very well because LEDs fill the spectrum.

I am really pleased with this drawing. The assignment was to do a drawing from our mentor and push it into personal territory. I started with the lower part of the center panel of Bosch's The Temptation of St. Anthony and for my personal territory component I picked loving my bed.

This is kind of based on the Wee Planets, especially because the lower planet is the same kind of photograph as the Wee Planets.: a wide angle photo of the milky way, with the horizon all around it as a border. And then I tried to draw an alien rocket ship, but it looked too much like the fish I had just drawn. So I drew a plesiosaur rocket.

I am soooo tired. I have been needing huge amounts of sleep, like 13 hours, or two 7 hour shifts. Yesterday and last night I had to make do with a 7 hour shift and a 5 hour shift. It was very very hard to get out of bed, and I managed not to feel tired until about an hour ago, when my legs actually got weak while walking home, and I have collapsed on the couch. Possibly I am ill. Normally you get sick right in your center, in your head and your chest. And my head and chest are fine. I don't know.