Mobile with Magical Paint

A generous patron has nudged me into some fun creative directions by sending me magical paints. These "potions" from Stuart Semple are metallic pigment emulsions that change color depending on the light and the angle you see them. He is an interesting, eccentric, enthusiastic, British alchemist of pigment. Check out this three minute video to see what I mean. He is the fellow who was outraged when Anish Kapoor bought exclusive rights to the world's blackest black, so he created a blacker black and granted use rights to everyone but Anish Kapoor.  

So this generous patron sent me a set of "potions" and I started thinking about what to do with them. I'm something of a project hoarder. I painted a dozen canvases with white acrylic and spiderwebs and the canvases sat in a closet for more than a decade. When I discovered neopixel LEDs and Arduino microcontrollers, I knew what to do with the spiderweb paintings. When I started thinking about the potions, a project I started several years ago came to mind. I had cut out a piece of walnut, drilled holes in it, bought fishing tackle swivels and fishing line, and painted a few small pieces of wood with metallic paint. The intention was to turn it into a mobile. So I found the project box and added a few new pieces of wood, painted with Semple's potion colors.