Diane Fiedler Floating Watercolors Art Installations: Polar Bear Effigies 2015

Explorer/author Milbry Polk and members of the Adventure Canada staff floated and photographed my 55 x 99 inch watercolor painting of polar bears off the Western Coast of Greenland in the The Bay of Eternity in summer 2015. This painting is meant to be an acknowledgement and offering of polar bear "effigies", offered to the forces of the elements in order to protect living bears from the ravages of sea ice loss and climate change.

The first photograph below shows the West Greenland installation near Ililussat Glacier. 

Shortly after returning the heavy, soaked painting back into the zodiac, a portion of the glacier, seen in to the left of the photo in aqua blue, gave way and calved into the sea, chasing the zodiac and its artwork with a dangerous wave...

The second & third photographs below show the installation in Nunavut, Canada, off the waters of Baffin Island at (approx.) 65 01 0901 N, 60 19 1321 W.  

Shortly after laying the painting into the water, the currents surrounding an iceberg began to drag the painting under the passing berg.  The amazing Adventure Canada crew & Polk struggled to save the painting, ultimately laying it to rest onto of the very berg that would have towed in under its belly... So my polar bears did, indeed, struggle with the turbulent meltwaters and then found a resting place on the quickly melting, moving sea ice... 

Arctic Suminagashi Polar Bear

First effort at using suminagashi technique for adding interest to my painitings.  Definitely looking into more work with this technique.  Suminigashi is created by taking a waxy ink, oil paints, or even fingernail enamels, floating them on the top of water in a large, flat pan, then using a brush or chopstick to drag the pigments into patterns.  Then drop a dry or slightly moistened semi absorbent paper on top of the water, and peel the paper up slowly.  It's a transfer technique with paint floating in water.  In Italy, it's also called marbling; in Turkey, the name translates to "clouded paper."   Great overview article in wikipedia here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_marbling\

Transitions: Photographs by Robert Creamer

The Neuroanatomy Lesson