Spaceships, dinosaurs and aurora borealis

Spaceships, Dinosaurs, and Aurora Borealis.  16"x24" ish.  Acrylic on canvas.  2005

The story behind this piece is as follows:
A coworker of mine (we were caterers) claimed that the three primary colors were not red, blue, and yellow, but were in fact magenta, cyan, and yellow.  I called b.s. (being an art major and all, I should know, right?).  According to his theory, the color known as "red" could be mixed with two other colors--this was contradictory to everything I had been taught in art classes.  I told him the only way I would be convinced would be to try it out for myself.  The agreement was that I would make him a painting using acrylic paints using only the colors magenta, cyan, and yellow (and white since white can't be mixed with primary colors of paint; interestingly, primary light colors will make white light).  I asked for a painting topic; he said, "I dunno.  Spaceships, dinosaurs, and the northern lights".

It was fun coming up with images that mixed two drastically different time periods: prehistoric and present.  I was particularly pleased with pangea at night as it would look with present day lights.

Of course, in the end I proved myself wrong concerning the primary colors.  I am now convinced that the true primary colors are not red, blue, and yellow, but are in fact cyan, magenta and yellow.
Mixing red and mixing blue was certainly strange at first... But I feel I became a better artist after this painting experience. 

Part of me wishes I still had this painting.  It's one that I feel very proud of.  I think I'll always wonder where it ended up...

triceratops detail

t-rex detail

right side detail