Today was an amazing day!  Firstly, even though we celebrated my daughters birthday last weekend today was my daughters actual 4th birthday and I was unable to share it with her. I sent her a little birthday video via the iphone that morning before leaving the hotel room.  Afterwards I met with the group who would be departing for the aircraft carrier that morning.  We headed to the North Island Naval Air Station and received an orientation in what we could expect for the day.  We flew out on a C-2 Greyhound and experienced an arresting wire landing on the carrier.  It was a bit scary anticipating that experience.  Like most roller coaster rides, the anticipation is more nerve-wracking than the actual event.  The best part, though, of landing on the carrier was the actual opening of the hatch to reveal the flight deck.  It was like looking through a surreal window onto an alien landscape, the flight deck with its slowly bobbing horizon line and helmeted flight crew peering curiously back at you. Then, actually stepping out on the flight deck, you quickly feel the uneasy tilting of the entire structure.  It was all completely awesome.

The carrier we landed on was the USS Carl Vinson.  After entering the hull, the sound girl and I got our gear together and proceeded to cover the tour.  Some of the most exciting stuff happened right away when we got to see an F-18 Hornet catapult off and then do a flyby.  We were truly treated like distinguished visitors and were given amazing access to the inner workings of the carrier.  I got to see some seriously awe-inducing spectacles.  I also got lots of exercise.  I must have gone up and down over 50-60 stories of extremely steep stairs over the course of the day, all the while carrying a 50 pound camera.  My arms and back were really feeling the effects.  I joked that the Navy’s mascot should be a set of stairs.

At the end of the night we were escorted down to the fantail of the ship where you could stand at the edge of a railing and watch the wake of the aircraft carrier disappear into the moonlight.  After all the exercise I got that day it was an extremely serene feeling to stand there.

It was on the way to the fantail that I saw the image that I decided was going to be my drawing for the night.  The image above is a view from inside the hangar bay.  The hangar bay is a very large space within the hull of the ship that normally stores the jets after they’ve landed.  They get brought down on an elevator and then parked.  Except this evening the hanger bay was completely empty.  Scheduled to port the next morning in the San Diego bay, they had sent all of the planes off in preparation for landing.  As you walk through the hangar bay you can see to the sides these giant pill-shaped windows to the outside world.  The cool blue moonlight shimmering on the ocean outside was surprisingly beautiful against the yellow sodium lights of the interior of the ship.   It made me stop a little to soak it in.  I snapped a picture of it and rendered this picture while laying in my bunk before falling asleep.

Medium: Graphite and Charcoal

Time: 1 hour

Reference: Photo