animals

New Painting - Sand Shrimp

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These creeps have been burrowing through mud flats since the supercontinent Pangea began breaking apart, and the first flowers bloomed. I can find living ones and fossilized ones within 20 miles of each other.

Mud, or sand shrimps are widely regarded as a supurb fishing bait for salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon. A nightmare to keep on a hook, use an egg loop, Miracle Thread or a similar elastic thread.

My reference specimens were dug near Seaside, Oregon, taken home and photographed.

9” X 14” Acrylic on Panel

Detail

Above: A Freshly dug, live shrimp, I pumped fresh from a mudflat.

Opposite: Claw parts; carpus, propodus, fixed finger and dactylus of a fossilized shrimp I found along the Columbia River.

Shrimp anatomy and natural history reference - https://depositsmag.com/2017/07/04/the-abundant-yet-understudied-fossil-record-of-ghost-shrimps/

New Painting

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Slashing its extraordinary tail, a thresher shark breaks free from the water.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the thresher shark is one of the most spectacular fish in the sea. I’ve had this picture in my mind for around 2 years. Originally I wanted the shark to be hooked in the mouth, with the line trailing off to the right, out of the picture, to an unseen sportfishing boat. I changed my mind for two reasons, 1) I thought the line became too distracting and broke the composition flow, and 2) is there any reason to fish for sharks anymore? I don’t know but I doubt it. So I imagined this shark slashed at a school of baitfish, and its momentum caused it to break the water’s surface, and for some really lucky reason, you were there to see it.

* I stole the brownish sky color from Winslow Homer’s Gulf Stream.

*Now available as a print.