I’m no illustrator but I do enjoying pressing colored pens to paper, and the weather this weekend provided a good excuse. You see, after a heavy rainfall late Friday, the sun came back out. There was that magical moment of rose red clouds appearing. I stood at one window watching the clouds form, but then by chance, I glanced over my shoulder through another window. A double rainbow graced the sky. Later I tried to explain to that science guy of mine the beauty that I’d seen of rose clouds in front of me and being surprised by the rainbows behind me. His response? “Of course. Your shadow points toward the rainbow.” Hunh?!
I grilled him all weekend and finally he was able to break it down to me in a way that I understood though it helped me to draw it out, too.
“If you’re looking at rosy colored clouds, you’re probably looking toward the sun with the sun lighting the clouds from below. The sun’s white light — and remember that white light is really all the colors combined — is being filtered through the earth’s atmosphere. Blue light is scattered leaving behind the reds.”
“If you’re looking at the rainbow, the sun must be behind you. Why? Because the rainbow is formed by white light hitting water droplets in the air. Again, white light is refracted. Different colors are scattered. The angle at which the light strikes the water droplets produces the spectrum of colors you see.”
He had more to say about angles but by then I just wanted to play with the markers.
This morning he shared the following “timely comic: with me. Enjoy: Frazz Comic Strip, July 28, 2013
Words + Images 