Many Of Us Have Heard Of The Term,

Razzle Dazzle,

 but where did it come from? and why is it used today? first question first, Dazzle painting emerged in the 1910s as a design solution to a very dire problem, American and British ships were being sunk left and right by German U-Boats, England needed to import supplies to fight the Central Powers, and these ships were sitting ducks in the Atlantic Ocean, they needed a way to fend of the torpedoes, conventional high-similarity camouflage just doesn’t work in the open sea, conditions like the colour of the sky, cloud cover, and wave height change all the time, not to mention the fact that there’s no way to hid all the smoke left by the ships’ smoke stacks, the strategy of this high-difference, dazzle camouflage was not about invisibility, it was about disruption, confusion,

torpedoes in the Great War could only be fired line-of-sight, so instead of firing at where they saw the ship was at that moment, torpedo gunners would have to chart out where the ship would be by the time the torpedo got there, they had to determine the target ship’s speed and direction with just a brief look through the periscope, the torpedo gunner’s margin of error for hitting a ship was quite low, dazzle painting could throw off an experienced submariner by as much as 55 degrees, so dazzle painting did actually work, on to the second question who still uses century's old technology today?

enter the 2015 RedBull RB11 for its first test drive, at Jerez in Spain with a black and white razzle dazzle camouflage special test livery, it is intended to hide design features from their competition during this early R&D phase of the season, crikey before you know it razzle dazzle will be a fashion statement, 

wait a second it already has! Anon, newspaper photograph of dazzle-inspired bathing suits at Margate, UK, from the New York Tribune, 1919.

Hello Sailor!

I can almost hear the cries now,

as New York City’s historic Fireboat John J. Harvey makes it's way up and down river, 

 has been transformed into a dazzling display of red and white marbling in a new piece by artist Tauba Auerbach, Flow Separation is a co-commission by the Public Art Fund and 14-18 NOW, a UK arts program created for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I, 

 for the new piece Auerbach used the visual language of early 20th-century dazzle camouflage, a technique invented by British painter Norman Wilkinson during WWI to distort a ship’s form and confuse enemies who might be tracking its direction or speed,

these are a couple of razzle dazzle ships,

from WW1 to give you an idea of the original concept, if you want to see more of these have a look here, and if you want to see bathing bells from Margate in the UK in a picture from the New York Tribune taken in 1919, showing off their razzle dazzles have a look here,

for the last four years, 14-18 NOW has commissioned four artists to create Dazzle Ships in the UK, including Carlos Cruz-Diez, Tobias Rehberger, Ciara Phillips, and Sir Peter Blake, Auerbach’s vessel will be the last work in the series, and the first boat to appear in the U.S. The ship will be available for free trips through September 23, 2018, and on view through May 12, 2019, 

You can visit the boat at Brooklyn Bridge Park, Pier 6 until August 12, 2018, at Hudson River Park’s Pier 25 from August 13 to September 23, 2018, and at Hudson River Park’s Pier 66a from September 24, 2018 to May 12, 2019, You can find more information about tickets and locations on the Public Art Fund’s website, it all looks so unreal.

Do Not Mess With Fish 236,

and you thought fish were fun!

we have not posted a Do Not Mess With Fish for some time, so here is post number 236 in the series, this post is concerned with the way that some fish, in this case a flounder, (Rhomboidichthys podas), can change or adapt their colour to suit the background that they live on, the photographs comes from a 1911 paper in the Journal of Experimental Zoology by American ichthyologist and zoologist Francis Bertody Sumner, all 581 pages of it, the images were captured a year earlier at the Naples Zoological Station in Italy and at the U.S. fisheries Laboratory at Woods Hole, in a series of experiments in which Sumner puts a various types of flounder through their paces as regards camouflage ability. Placing them against bold and striking patterns (more than they’d experience in nature), Sumner photographed them at various states of adapting to their new although the fact that the photographs are in black and white (a limitation of the time) might slightly impinge on their scientific usefulness, it does somewhat enhance their aesthetic qualities, at times lending them an almost pop art air, I have used the original texts which accompanied the photographs below them,

Plate 2 — Views of specimen no. 1: f, on painted squares, 2 cm. sq. (after four days); g, do., 1 cm. sq. (after seven days); h, do., 1 cm. sq. (after four days); i, do., 2 mm. sq. (after one day).

 Plate 3 — Views of specimen no. 1: j, after three days on background figured; k, after fourteen days on white marble bottom (the fish was in reality much paler than the photograph would seem to indicate); l, after three days on the background figured; m, after six days on the background figured.

 Plate 4 — Views of specimen no. 2: a, on dark mixed sand, partly covered with this material (after two days); b, on white glass plate, shortly after transfer to this following sojourn on dark sand; c, on coarse gravel (after two days); d, on white glass plate, shortly after transfer to this, following sojourn on coarse gravel. (Compare this with b. In d, the gravel pattern has persisted to some degree, despite an immediate partial disappearance of this).

 Plate 5 — Views of specimen no. 2: e, upon fine gravel (after two or three days); f, upon dark, mixed sand after two days). Views of specimen no. 3: a, after one day on present ground; b, taken on the day when first placed on this sand. (Note the inferior power of adaptation shown by this fish, as compared with the last. The harmony with the backgrounds increased little if any beyond the condition shown in the photographs).

 Plate 6 — Views of specimen no. 3, in the ‘sand’ and ‘gravel’ phases. Unfortunately, the capacity of this specimen for such adaptations proved to be comparatively small.

 Plate 7 — Views of specimen no. 4: a, after six days on pattern shown; b, after three days on pattern shown (compare minutely with last); c, after nine days on the dark sand; d, after three days on the pattern shown; e, after three days on the pattern shown.

Plate 8 — Views of specimen no. 4: f, after seven days on present background condition of rest); g, same, when preparing to swim; h, after one day on present background; i, after three days on a background of gray, of a shade approximately matching that produced on a color-wheel by the use of two parts of black and one of white. (The harmony between the fish and the bottom was really much greater than would seem to be the case from this photograph, which has made the fish seem darker). Specimen no. 5: view inserted to show a particularly striking gravel pattern (taken after eight days). (There are in reality a few particles of gravel on the back of the fish).

what an amazing series of adaptations, some of them almost look like the Razzle Dazzle effect that was used a few years later on ships in WW1, and we still seem to be learning from nature!

If You Like Fantastical Oil Paintings,

like the ones below,

you might like to visit the web site of Jon Ching, who is a talented artist par excellence, he is a self-trained artist originally from Kaneohe, Hawaii and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, above “Sheila Ann”

“Razzle Dazzle”

“Aquaria”

“Homestead”, “My more surreal creatures, where the line between flora and fauna are blurred, is in part my attempt at depicting some of this unseen magic,” he writes. “By placing them in a realistic setting among species we’re familiar with, I’m envisioning them into the real world. Maybe if we look close enough or long enough, we’ll catch a glimpse of them and my work won’t seem surreal anymore.” You can see Ching’s paintings at Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles starting August 14 and find prints, stickers, and postcards in his shop. Check out his Instagram for glimpses into his process and the real-life animals and plants that shape his works, what a talent he truly has.

Day 1 Part 1 Of Our Trip To Portsmouth And The Isle Of Wight,

what a glorious day,

to start our holiday to Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight,

we took the tram to East Croydon station,

then the train,

to Portsmouth harbour,

and off we go!

coffee and cakes, 'Cheers!',

Diana all set for the trip,

the journey takes a couple of hours,

as soon as you get off of the train there is history, H.M.S. Warrior,

time for a pose,

the ship is a 40-gun steam-powered armoured frigate, built for the Royal Navy in 1859–1861, She was the name ship of the Warrior-class ironclads, Warrior and her sister ship HMS Black Prince were the first armour-plated, iron-hulled warships, we will not be visiting her on this trip, but we will be back!

we started our walk to the hotel,

passing a number of harbour side restaurants,

and pubs,

we were travelling light, we just had the Billingham,

as it was a tad early to check in,

we decided on a late breakfast/early lunch,

spicy chicken for Diana,

with a J2 orange,

scampi and chips for myself, 'Cheers!',

meal finished and we were on our way,

past the entrance to the dockyard,

and this high rise,

to our hotel,

the Royal Marine Club,

we were soon booked in and out again, passing this public house I saw something that brought back childhood memories,

a display of hot water bottles, back in the day there as no such thing as central heating, so these pottery bottles would be filled with hot water to keep you warm in bed at night, 

Diana mentioned that she would like a chain for Christmas, and here it is!

in the distance the Spinnaker,

we were greeted by Henry VIII as we walked into the dockyard,

today we were buying tickets for the Mary Rose, 

we made our way past the Warrior,

and some of the workshops,

this one interested me,

outside a clinker built boat, 

it looked so nice,

boat building at its finest,

copper riveted throughout,

a quick pose,

or two,

as we made our way past the gift shop,

and Citron snack van,

H.M.S. Victory I have to say we when visited her a couple of years ago, we were both disappointed to see that she had been demasted and painted a not very nice shade of yellow/pink, to go with the black, below is how we imagined her,

to us she looked so much better in yellow and with her masts,

a quick pose,

we passed H.M.S. M.33, in dry dock, in her razzle-dazzle colours,

she was built in 1915 on the orders of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. She was a floating gun platform designed to bombard coastal positions from the sea,

 Her first active operation was the support of the British landings at Suvla during the Battle of Gallipoli in August 1915,

the colour of Victory a bit difficult to describe,

but we still think the old colour scheme looked a lot nicer,

in the distance one of the UKs aircraft carriers, H.M.S. Prince of Wales,

this was as close as we could get to her, like her sister ship she has two ops towers, 

this is where we are headed, the Mary Rose exhibition,

looking back at the Victory,

we had already bought tickets,

so in we went,

past the ships bell,

buried like the rest of the wreck for so many years,

a quick pose,

before the introduction by Henry VIII himself,

in the first hall there is a animation of what you as a gunner would have seen,

as the fleets sailed,

one of the ships cannons,

the exhibition is laid out deck by deck,

with lots of explanations of what went where,

and of course lots of artifacts, 

a time line of how the vessel came to be partially saved,

the upper deck,

and here she is, I remember all of those years ago, watching as she was lifted from the Solent, along with 60 million other viewers worldwide as the operation was shown live,

the gun deck, is a mirror image of what is opposite,

although difficult to see in the photograph, a projector beams moving images onto the wreck to show how people would have gone about their daily lives on board,

Diana found all of this a lot more interesting than I thought she would,

the decks can easily be seen,

when the ship went down, there was a huge loss of life, of the nearly 500 men on board, no more than 35 survived, some of their remains were found, 

and thanks to conservation efforts much can be learned from their time alive,

we looked at more of the mirror image,

and artifacts that were found,

gruel of the day,

was made in this cauldron,

all 350 liters of it,

this is one of the reconstructions from skeletal remans, researchers hope to identify what proportion of the crew might have been archers, however there is one skeleton, already identified as an archer, analysis of his skeleton suggests that he stood 6′ tall, well above average for the period, though a strong build would have been essential in order to use the powerful 16th-century longbow, which had draw weights of up to 90kgf while high-status artefacts found on his person, including an ivory wrist guard, a pewter plate and a silver ring, could hint that he held a high rank in the company,

looking back at the wreck there was another projection of life aboard ship,

we are now going down to the lower decks,

where some of the stores are located,

and you could feel hard tack biscuits, that were a staple for the crew,

this as an interactive display, you had to choose what you and the crew would eat,

Diana's choice,

next into the lift,

that had a view of the wreck,

and a model of how the ship would have looked,

there were a considerable number of archers onboard,

and for a bit of fun you can draw a longbow, which is a lot harder than it looks,

I managed to fully draw the bow twice righthanded, 

and twice left handed, I could not fully draw the bow for a third time with either hand, back in the day the archers must have been so strong, I read that an archer could loose 6 arrows in the time it took to load a flintlock musket, crickey I could not pull the bow to its full extent more than twice!

then it was Diana's turn,

she used a slightly different technique to myself,

but got about halfway in the end,

we then went into a section where there were airlocks,

so you could see the wreck without looking through glass, the air I guess is dried to keep the hull for further decay,

a quick pose,

back to the hull,

we were both amazed,

at all of the restoration work that went into both raising and preserving the hull,

Diana made a short video,

we then entered a part of the display,

that talked about the people and what we knew of them at the time,

here you could touch a piece of the Mary Rose that has been treated like the rest of the hull, and smell the tar from a piece of hemp rope,

and listen to music that would have been played at the time,

there was also a selection of artifacts, 

on display, I stopping this post now as it is large, for the rest of our visit please look for Day 1 Part 2 by clicking the Older Posts button bottom right.