World Oceans Day

A round trip to Day Jones' locker

The contraption depicted in this drawing is one of the first manned submersibles, the “Bathysphere”, invented by William Beebe and deployed between 1930 and 1934. This spherical submersible, allowed Beebe and his partner Otis Barton to dive to depths hitherto unknown to men, and observe mesopelagic and deep-sea creatures in their natural habitat for the first time. Even though technology has greatly improved since this first tentative invention, with state-of-the-art submersibles and remote-controlled underwater video systems now being used to explore the depths of the oceans and the seabed, the deep sea remains largely unexplored and is still more mysterious and less known than the surface of the moon. Shining a light into the depths of the ocean presents an ongoing challenge in the efforts to protect and conserve the life of all creatures of this earth, especially those that we have not met yet.

You can see more of Jessica Jeggers' work at https://www.jessieggers.com/

Abyssal jellyfish

The abyssal jellyfish digitally painted by the artist is inspired by deep-sea pictures taken by photographer and biologist Alexander Semenov in the White Sea. The interesting creature looks like a hot air balloon, filled with a flower and lovecrafting guts. The bioluminescence and transparency increase its charm, therefore the choice of the digital medium that allowed for a greater control of the opacity and the light that could help convey the effect of surprise and revelation of this beautiful creature in the dark.

Sea angel

The Clione limacina, or sea angel, is an incredible pteropod mollusc which lives in the water column. It has also been spotted off the Russian Coast. These sea angels, specifically common cliones, are a kind of sea slug. Some of the species of sea angels feed on small swimming sea snails – or Limacina - sometimes ambushing their prey, sometimes lying in wait of them. The picture shows the transformation of a sea angel in the process of eating a limacine.

Waves

“I am capturing the movement of the jellyfish. I love how the jellyfish moves gracefully. I tried to capture the glow of the jellyfish by the use of colours, especially yellow. Its movements are also shown using wavy lines.”