Plankton Powered Planet- blue and green Fabric byray_troll

In 2021 I spent about 4 months drawing nothing but plankton. It was something I’d wanted to do for a long time. I reached out to Gary Freitag and Barbara Morgan, a couple of local marine biologists, to find out more about these fascinating, tiny organisms that are at the base of the ocean’s food web. I borrowed a big stack of books and did a crash course on learning all about the zooplankton (the animals) and phytoplankton (the plants) that dwell in the ocean. I also wanted to represent as many local Alaskan plankton species as I could. By spending so much time drawing a subject like this I learn a lot as I go. It’s my belief that the very act of drawing is a powerful learning tool. One has to focus one’s attention on minute details and the subject at hand. As I drew, I tumbled deeper into the topic, following my curiosity and learning how fundamentally important this miniature ecosystem is. I realized that we live on a plankton powered planet.The fossil fuels we use to drive our automobiles are ancient plankton. Oil and natural gas are made from prehistoric plankton. Every other breath we take comes from the oxygen that phytoplankton produces in the ocean. The largest migration on planet Earth takes place every single day, when zooplankton rises from the deep at night to feed on phytoplankton. As the day dawns that migration is reversed when the creatures descend into the dark safety of the deep. Scientists refer to this phenomena as the vertical diel migration. I like to think of it as the heartbeat of our planet.