Painter artist, Normandy / Artiste peintre, Normandie

Birth of the helicoptere

The last digital print I have done,

“la naissance de l’hélicoptère”

“Birth of the helicoptere”

The Dragon 50 in the Mont St Michel

De Vinci au Dragon 50, Paul Cornu…

175€ framed

Digital print N°on 30,

signed, with the artist dry stamp

graphic work about aeronautism

frame size 40x60cm

size 29x39cm

More digital prints in my Art Shop

http://epiceriedart.blogspot.com/

Pastel, le Mont Saint Michel

 

Pastel is an art medium in the form of a stick, consisting of pure powdered pigment and a binder. The pigments used in pastels are the same as those used to produce all colored art media, including oil paints; the binder is of a neutral hue and low saturation.

Le mont Saint Michel, deuxième site touristique le plus fréquenté de France, est un îlot rocheux sur la côte normande où s’élève l’abbaye du mont Saint Michel. Le premier sanctuaire a été construit en l’honneur de l’archange Saint Michel à partir de 709, suivi par le monastère et l’église pendant le 11ème siècle.

Le Mont-Saint-Michel (English: Saint Michael’s Mount) is a rocky tidal island and a commune in Normandy, France. It is located approximately one kilometre off the country’s north coast, at the mouth of the Couesnon River near Avranches.

view of the pastel from Bas Courtils (Courtil)

Engraving, gravure, eau-forte, aquaforte

A sugar engraving, ou gravure au sucre

I currently use that technique with aquatinte (aquatinta) and eau-forte (acid)

to see more etchings:

http://aquatinte.free.fr/

to plan a hot-air balloon trip in the Mont St Michel bay:

http://selunair.blogspot.com/

http://selunair.eu/

Amazonia, amazonie, sketches and drawings

I have done a lot of drawings and travelings books in many places of the world.

Amazonie is one of the most beautiful space of the world.

To see some of my other sketches:

http://artcoiris.free.fr/

Amazonie, amazonian, indians, shuares, forest, rio…

Etching studio

Here is my new etching and printing studio.

Mon nouvel atelier de gravure

mi nuevo taller de gravadora

 

Artiste peintre et graveur, je vie et travaille  dans le Sud-Manche, en Normandie

Painter and etcher artist, I live and work in Normandy lower, near the Mt St Michel bay

Pintora and gravadora, trabajo al sul de Normandia, proxima de Mt St Mikael

Marine pollution

Marine pollution occurs when harmful effects, or potentially harmful effects, can result from the entry into the ocean of chemicals, particles, industrial, agricultural and residential waste, or the spread of invasive organisms.

Most sources of marine pollution are land based. The pollution often comes from nonpoint sources such as agricultural runoff and wind blown debris.

Many potentially toxic chemicals adhere to tiny particles which are then taken up by plankton and benthos animals, most of which are either deposit or filter feeders. In this way, the toxins are concentrated upward within ocean food chains. Many particles combine chemically in a manner highly depletive of oxygen, causing estuaries to become anoxic.

When pesticides are incorporated into the marine ecosystem, they quickly become absorbed into marine food webs. Once in the food webs, these pesticides can cause mutations, as well as diseases, which can be harmful to humans as well as the entire food web.

Toxic metals can also be introduced into marine food webs. These can cause a change to tissue matter, biochemistry, behaviour, reproduction, and suppress growth in marine life. Also, many animal feeds have a high fish meal or fish hydrolysate content. In this way, marine toxins can be transferred to land animals, and appear later in meat and dairy products.

Pollution from ships

Ships can pollute waterways and oceans in many ways. Oil spills can have devastating effects. While being toxic to marine life, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), the components in crude oil, are very difficult to clean up, and last for years in the sediment and marine environment.^[2]

Discharge of cargo residues from bulk carriers can pollute ports, waterways and oceans. In many instances vessels intentionally discharge illegal wastes despite foreign and domestic regulation prohibiting such actions. Ships create noise pollution that disturbs natural wildlife, and water from ballast tanks can spread harmful algae and other invasive species.^[3]

Meinesz believes that one of the worst cases of a single invasive species causing harm to an ecosystem can be attributed to a seemingly harmless jellyfish. Mnemiopsis leidyi, a species of comb jellyfish that spread so it now inhabits estuaries in many parts of the world. It was first introduced in 1982, and thought to have been transported to the Black Sea in a ship’s ballast water. The population of the jellyfish shot up exponentially and, by 1988, it was wreaking havoc upon the local fishing industry. “The anchovy catch fell from 204,000 tonnes in 1984 to 200 tons in 1993; sprat from 24,600 tonnes in 1984 to 12,000 tonnes in 1993; horse mackerel from 4,000 tonnes in 1984 to zero in 1993.”^[3] Now that the jellyfish have exhausted the zooplankton, including fish larvae, their numbers have fallen dramatically, yet they continue to maintain a stranglehold on the ecosystem.

Invasive species can take over once occupied areas, facilitate the spread of new diseases, introduce new genetic material, alter underwater seascapes and jeopardize the ability of native species to obtain food. Invasive species are responsible for about $138 billion annually in lost revenue and management costs in the US alone.^[4]

Plastic debris

Marine debris is mainly discarded human rubbish which floats on, or is suspended in the ocean. Eighty percent of marine debris is plastic – a component that has been rapidly accumulating since the end of World War II.^[5] The mass of plastic in the oceans may be as high as one hundred million metric tons.^[6]

Discarded plastic bags, six pack rings and other forms of plastic waste which finish up in the ocean present dangers to wildlife and fisheries.^[7] Aquatic life can be threatened through entanglement, suffocation, and ingestion.^[8][9][10] Fishing nets, usually made of plastic, can be left or lost in the ocean by fishermen. Known as ghost nets, these entangle fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, dugongs, crocodiles, seabirds, crabs, and other creatures, restricting movement, causing starvation, laceration and infection, and, in those that need to return to the surface to breathe, suffocation.^[11]

Many animals that live on or in the sea consume flotsam by mistake, as it often looks similar to their natural prey.^[12] Plastic debris, when bulky or tangled, is difficult to pass, and may become permanently lodged in the digestive tracts of these animals, blocking the passage of food and causing death through starvation or infection.^[13][14]

Plastics accumulate because they don’t biodegrade in the way many other substances do. They will photodegrade on exposure to the sun, but they do so properly only under dry conditions, and water inhibits this process.^[15] In marine environments, photodegraded plastic disintegrates into ever smaller pieces while remaining polymers, even down to the molecular level. When floating plastic particles photodegrade down to zooplankton sizes, jellyfish attempt to consume them, and in this way the plastic enters the ocean food chain. ^{[16] [17]} Many of these long-lasting pieces end up in the stomachs of marine birds and animals,^[18] including sea turtles, and black-footed albatross.^[19]

Plastic debris tends to accumulate at the centre of ocean gyres. In particular, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has a very high level of plastic particulate suspended in the upper water column. In samples taken in 1999, the mass of plastic exceeded that of zooplankton (the dominant animal life in the area) by a factor of six.^[5][20]

Toxic additives used in the manufacture of plastic materials can leach out into their surroundings when exposed to water. Waterborne hydrophobic pollutants collect and magnify on the surface of plastic debris,^[6] thus making plastic far more deadly in the ocean than it would be on land.^[5] Hydrophobic contaminants are also known to bioaccumulate in fatty tissues, biomagnifying up the food chain and putting pressure on apex predators. Some plastic additives are known to disrupt the endocrine system when consumed, others can suppress the immune system or decrease reproductive rates.^[20] Floating debris can also absorb persistent organic pollutants from seawater, including PCBs, DDT and PAHs.^[21] Aside from toxic effects,^[22] when ingested some of these are mistaken by the animal brain for estradiol, causing hormone disruption in the affected wildlife.^[19]

 

^Solutions

Marine pollution is part of the problem of too much pollution by humans in general. There are only two ways to remedy this: either the human population is reduced, or the ecological footprint left behind by the average human is reduced. If we do not follow the second way, then the first way may be imposed upon us, as world ecosystems falter and cease to support us.

The second way is for us, individually, to consume and pollute less than we do currently. For this there must be social and political will, together with a shift in awareness, so more people respect their environment and are less disposed to abuse it.

At an operational level, regulations, and international government participation is needed. It is often very difficult to regulate marine pollution because pollution spreads over international barriers, thus making regulations hard to create as well as enforce.

Perhaps the most important strategy for reducing marine pollution is education. Most are unaware of the sources, and harmful effects of marine pollution, and therefore little is done to address the situation. In order to inform the population of all the facts, in depth research must be done to provide the full scale of the situation. Then this information must be made public.

As expressed in Daoji and Dag’s research, one of the reasons why environmental concern is lacking among the Chinese is because the public awareness is low and therefore should be targeted. Likewise, regulation, based upon such in-depth research should be employed. In California, such regulations have already been put in place to protect Californian coastal waters from agricultural runoff. This includes the California Water Code, as well as several voluntary programs. Similarly, in India, several tactics have been employed that help reduce marine pollution, however, they do not significantly target the problem. In Chennai city, India, sewage has been dumped further into open waters. Due to the mass of waste being deposited, open-ocean is best for diluting, and dispersing pollutants, thus making them less harmful to marine ecosystems.

Voici quelques peintures et des détails d’une petite série à l’huile sur bois flottées traitant de la pollution de la mer.
Marées noires, rejets des pétroliers ou autres navires utilisant le fuel, déballastages sauvages posent de gros problèmes du point de vue écologique, car cela rejette à l’eau des polluants.

6 millions de tonnes de produits pétroliers s’échappent chaque année des bateaux et plateformes pétrolières, dont justement 1 million de tonnes de pétrole à cause du déballastage en haute mer des citernes des navires; pour comparaison, les marées noires ne représentent “que” 150 000 tonnes de pétrole perdu en mer chaque année, soit 2% du volume total déversé chaque année…

et pour plus de renseignements

roche torin

in the mont st michel bay

Mont saint Michel

I live and work in Normandy near the Mont Saint Michel, great site for inspiration