Its time for another edition of the Curio Folio, the serious series where I paint things that no person has ever seen (or heard of) before. In this case, its a painting of something that people have heard of before, the solar wind. In fact, a group of solar astronomers at the university heard about my famous Curio Folio and asked me to help them out with a project they were working on with Federal funding. They built a solar wind tunnel in the Astronomy and Solar Science (ASS) building and had difficulty in obtaining photographic evidence of the solar wind. Any camera that got near the solar wind was instantly erased and drained of battery. Hearing of my ability to paint incredibly realistic and accurate watercolours of various phenomenon, they asked me to stand in the solar wind tunnel and make a painting for further scientific study. For protection I had to wear a welding mask and lead underpants, but it did not bother me. It was quite a sensation, kind of a mixture of being hot or ticklish, but I got the painting of solar wind done, which you see above. The solar scientists made statistical analysis of the painting and asked me to do more with various settings of the machine. Apparently the data is so good, it will published in a prestigious journal called "Sceince".
Curio Folio: Solar Wind, watercolour 6 x 7.5" cold press, July 2025
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