Paint with "fire!"

I was born in Wisconsin and a fisherman since childhood, and I started drawing the fish I caught in the crystal waters of Canada, the surf in Mexico and Florida, and the blue waters of the Pacific. In my paintings I try and show the effects of light and shadows and how they play and reflect and reveal a beautiful underwater world.

Claude Monet, started the Impressionism movement with his painting, “Sunrise.” In it, the sun is orange, and it undulates against the blue water, in a cacophony of colours, that we distinguish in the mind, but perceive differently in the heart. That's the magic of light.

I love the blue waters of the ocean. To me,they are the same colours of the most beautiful, and famous diamond in the world, the Hope Diamond, which now resides in the Harry Winston gallery in the Smithsonian. A french trader, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, stole it from the Hindu god Siva, a many armed gold idol, of which this diamond, had it's home as Siva's third eye. The eye represented fire. Tavernier sold it to Louis XIV in 1668, which is how it's color became known as "tavernier blue."

In the Smithsonian, the phosphorescence of the diamond was checked by gemologists. If you shine an ultraviolet light on a diamond, and the diamond glows afterwards, that's known as it's phosphorescence. The presence of one boron atom, a conductor of electricity for every million atoms of carbon, allows this to happen. The Hope's phosphorescence was expected to be light blue, but instead it glowed "orange red like a fireball." The eye did represent fire! That's the magic of light!

Lately I've done some wonderful mixed medium works, with an "impressionism" touch of historical places in Florida. I'll be putting some of these pictures up, along with more works from the blue waters of the ocean.

Painted, with the magic of light!