Pizzazz, abstract acrylic 20″x 24″

Finally the holidays are over and I am ready to begin painting in the new year. Since it is such a busy time of year for me, I have painted three smaller abstracts so far. But in this blog post, I am focusing on explaining my process for painting “Pizzazz.”

Pizzazz, paint applied

Starting out, I squeezed some random paint in the colors I wished to use for the painting. I chose white, turquoise, ultramarine blue and cadmium red. These were applied roughly in a pattern that I had in mind.

Pizzazz, first layers

Then I spread the paint around with a large bristle brush, letting them mix and mingle. Using a small cup, I stamped some circles into the wet paint and used a wine cork to apply and/or remove paint from various areas. I placed these circles in a more-or-less cruciform pattern to assure a nice composition. Though I…

New research from Emory University School of Medicine, in Atlanta, has shown that it is possible for some information to be inherited biologically through chemical changes that occur in DNA. During the tests they learned that that mice can pass on learned information about traumatic or stressful experiences – in this case a fear of the smell of cherry blossom – to subsequent generations.

According to the Telegraph, Dr Brian Dias, from the department of psychiatry at Emory University, said: ”From a translational perspective, our results allow us to appreciate how the experiences of a parent, before even conceiving offspring, markedly influence both structure and function in the nervous system of subsequent generations.

“Such a phenomenon may contribute to the etiology and potential intergenerational transmission of risk for neuropsychiatric disorders such as phobias, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

This suggests that experiences are somehow transferred from the brain into the genome, allowing…

Whilst not yet finished you can begin to see the idea of the new Nest sculpture, rather than circular and floor based the piece has been erected where one would expect it to be found.

The structure is still completely self supporting and no bindings of any type have been used in construction