Fossils at the State Museum

I recently met with the curator at the South Carolina State Museum to discuss some proposals for a lecture series on art and science. After mentioning my interest in fossils to him, he showed me the museum's recent acquisition of a huge turtle fossil recovered in the vicinity of Charleston. It was a specatular specimen - about six times the size of the Harvard turtle of my previous blog. The synchronicity of it all!I have a series of paintings of fossils that were exhibited at the Lancaster museum some time ago. Revisiting this series makes me want to do a few more - perhaps based on the State Museum collection. Sometimes you can travel far and wide to find specimens for inspiration only to find that the true gems are just around the corner. I've posted here, however, a painting made from a drawing I made of a fossil in a natural history museum in the Netherlands. The painting is in private collection in New Orleans and had survived hurricane Katrina.
There are a number of new paintings and mosaics in the works right now. But most of my studio time this week was spent on an elaborate commission of a painting with a mosaic border - something I've been working on slowly since August. One more hour of work and it will be finished. Check in next Sunday for my new work - paintings of unusual architecture.