Wednesday, December 14, 2011

#86 High Rider Ducky


The theme of today's still life is buoyancy.  I went to a lecture last night by Dr. Curtiss Ebbesmeyer about the flotsam from the Japanese earthquake in March 2011.  He said that most agencies are expecting the flotsam to arrive on Washington beaches in a year or so because they are calculating drift time due to currents alone.  If you calculate drift with wind, however, it is a much shorter time- about 8-9 months for objects that have a lot of surface area above the water line.  In fact, fishing floats are already appearing on Washington beaches that he suspects are from the tsunami's effects.  The items pictured above are not from Japan (recently anyway), but they would float. Mixed media, 6" x 8" on paper.