Holiday scene

I drew this while I assisted my seven-year-old with a home schooling session.

I found that a sudden shock of cold air immediately deepened the color. The image is of a decorated Christmas tree partially obscured by an arched doorway, and beyond the subject, there is the bright aperture of a window dimming the glow from a fireplace. A family portrait is to the left. It is hard to tell that there is a baseboard, and a shadow beneath the tree. I painted the wall by using a paper clip like a paint roller. I lay the paper clip sideways along the banana and, – pressing down slightly with constant but light force – I crushed just the outermost layer of the peel. I call this a Fruitint banana, the portmanteau of fruit + tint provide a nice description, as most fruits themselves are brightly colored, and therefore reliable subjects for graphic artists.

It is also possible that the gust of winter air brought in a draught of oxygen. We live in SW Pennsylvania, where fracking pads roam and the coal play. At times, 10,000x the legal limit of measurable methane gas has drifted from nearby westward processing facilities. In the past, burning the excess gas off efficiently was common. I remember seeing giant jets of flame 2010-2012 shooting skyward from pipes set high atop someplace far out of town, like geysers of fire. It would be awesome to turn methane into fuel instead of wasting it. Also, if oil and gas are becoming scarce in a scabrous industry pushing into gems and such, could not the catalogue and testing of “unusual deposits” be exploited for research into, say, industrial lubricants. I have no idea how much an admixture of methane into typical rural air changes the rate of oxidation upon the surface of a week old unsanitized banana. No wonder I have insomnia.