Stardust VII, Study

New detailed study available Sunday morning on EveryDayOriginal.com

"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff."

This quote from Carl Sagan represents one of the most poetic truths of our scientific reality. That heavy elements that we are made of weren't created at the beginning of time. Only hydrogen and helium came out of the Big Bang. The rest of the elements were created in the nuclear furnaces of earlier generations of stars that have since exploded and spread their material across the universe. We are literally made of stardust.

Detailed Study
Oil on Panel
8 x 6 inches

Detail

Painting A Galaxy Within

A time-lapse that I've slowed down in a few places so you can see some of the marks go down, and see that they don't always go down the way I want them to on the first try.

This has been available on my Patreon for a while but I'm releasing it to the wild and adding a new video there: Painting the Face of Inertia.

 

A Galaxy Within

We are each a little galaxy of our own. It's a mind-bending exercise trying to comprehend the 100 billion stars found in a typical galaxy. Yet, each of us has roughly the same number of neurons in our own brain, performing a symphony of consciousness. Similar too, is the number of atoms that write out our DNA code. We are a staggeringly complex and unique collection of natural components, come together for a short, precious moment. 

Large numbers are difficult to fathom, but to be disappointed in the realization that we are "just" collections of atoms moving in accordance with the laws of physics, is to misunderstand the depth of this astonishing complexity, and the billions of years it took to evolve.

"We are the miracle, we human beings. Not a break-the-laws-of-physics kind of miracle; a miracle in that it is wondrous and amazing how such complex, aware, creative, caring creatures could have arisen in perfect accordance with those laws [of nature] … Our emergence has brought meaning and mattering into the world ... It bequeaths to us the responsibility and opportunity to make life into what we would have it be." 

-Sean Carroll, The Big Picture