Hey: you even incorporated the corporate Virgin logo here - with your usual lettering expertise!
Great view! That's how, from a stratospheric point of view, Ohio skies at 6.00pm look like...á la James Gurney. Much more entertaing than any in-flight movie: Great sketch.
I did a sketch of the wing of my plane last summer on my way back to Ontario fro British Columbia! It was a very elegant, "scimitar" design, and as I was drawing it in my journal, I noticed the familiar shape of the western end of Manitoulin Island, with Cocburn Island just off it, moving into view beneath us. I quickly sketched their outlines, even forgetting to take a reference photograph in my haste to get them sketched before they slipped out of view! Later I tinted the scene in watercolour, from memory. No geckos, though... I'd like to share the image with you, if there is some way to do that.
Looks like the Virgin logo was collaged onto the painting.
It's puzzling how bored and oblivious the majority of airline passengers are to the spectacle of viewing clouds from above and at close range. In the space of three or four generations we went from euphoria to dismissiveness.
Of course, having the occasional pair of hands appear outside the window mid-flight might drag some eyes away from their screens.
I, too, have been doing some paintings of the view out the window. The most recent was approaching Amsterdam; the cloud shadows on shallow water, the clouds themselves, the airplane wing.
You know where "gremlins" came from? During the early days of aviation, especially early war planes, they were pushing the machines harder than they'd ever done before. Strange things would happen that were impossible to reproduce during normal flight or while the aircraft was parked on the ground. Eventually they figured out what was going on at extremes of low air pressure, high gravity maneuvers and the like and one by one the strange phenomena vanished... or at least became more rare. Electrical systems act strange; oil, fuel, air lines, water lines, gaskets, all these things can change at extreme temperatures and pressures. The space era brought in a whole new set of gremlins - but by then there were enough engineers who had experience with the weirdness and could figure out what it was and fix it - but there'll be a whole new slew of problems as the old space engineers are retired/replaced by people who only have degrees and not years of experience.
Looks like you sit in the far back as I do, when I fly, James ... always the best views. I also sit on the opposite side to the Sun.
ReplyDeleteHey: you even incorporated the corporate Virgin logo here - with your usual lettering expertise!
ReplyDeleteGreat view! That's how, from a stratospheric point of view, Ohio skies at 6.00pm look like...á la James Gurney.
Much more entertaing than any in-flight movie: Great sketch.
...´that Gecko as well, clinging on here, from outside on the window:ö)
ReplyDeleteWilliam Shatner or John Lithgow?
ReplyDeleteI did a sketch of the wing of my plane last summer on my way back to Ontario fro British Columbia! It was a very elegant, "scimitar" design, and as I was drawing it in my journal, I noticed the familiar shape of the western end of Manitoulin Island, with Cocburn Island just off it, moving into view beneath us. I quickly sketched their outlines, even forgetting to take a reference photograph in my haste to get them sketched before they slipped out of view! Later I tinted the scene in watercolour, from memory. No geckos, though... I'd like to share the image with you, if there is some way to do that.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the Virgin logo was collaged onto the painting.
ReplyDeleteIt's puzzling how bored and oblivious the majority of airline passengers are to the spectacle of viewing clouds from above and at close range. In the space of three or four generations we went from euphoria to dismissiveness.
Of course, having the occasional pair of hands appear outside the window mid-flight might drag some eyes away from their screens.
I, too, have been doing some paintings of the view out the window. The most recent was approaching Amsterdam; the cloud shadows on shallow water, the clouds themselves, the airplane wing.
EWR? James Gurney was 10 minutes away from me and I never even knew it.
ReplyDeleteNeat painting
ReplyDeleteMy first jet flight was out of Newark.
You know where "gremlins" came from? During the early days of aviation, especially early war planes, they were pushing the machines harder than they'd ever done before. Strange things would happen that were impossible to reproduce during normal flight or while the aircraft was parked on the ground. Eventually they figured out what was going on at extremes of low air pressure, high gravity maneuvers and the like and one by one the strange phenomena vanished... or at least became more rare. Electrical systems act strange; oil, fuel, air lines, water lines, gaskets, all these things can change at extreme temperatures and pressures. The space era brought in a whole new set of gremlins - but by then there were enough engineers who had experience with the weirdness and could figure out what it was and fix it - but there'll be a whole new slew of problems as the old space engineers are retired/replaced by people who only have degrees and not years of experience.
ReplyDelete