Thursday, May 5, 2011

Semester One Project Progress

As you know I've become fascinated with 19th Century colonists. I've researched, read, painted, and researched some more on the topic. Mainly I've focused on New Zealand colonists during the Victorian Era but I didn't want to be the a-hole who has been in NZ for 10 minutes and thinks that she knows the entire history so I decided to make up my own fake colonist. Here is a very rough draft of the story that my paintings will revolve around:

My pretend great-uncle was a 19th Century colonist. Elijah Lucifer Lush was his name but he was always Uncle Eli in the great adventures I was told as a child.

In the spring of 1840, Uncle Eli and his young pregnant bride traveled from the green meadows of his homeland to settle the rocky shores of an untamed wilderness filled with savages and undiscovered beasts.

He was a business man by trade and went on to become one of the wealthiest and most well respected men of his time, most notably in the fields of discovery and science exploration.

Uncle Eli was known for his trophies of exotic animal specimens, indigenous textiles, and depictions of native peoples which he sent for exhibition in museums around the globe.

In a nutshell I will depict through a series of paintings one of his "trophy walls" filled with madeup mounted animal heads, medals of honor, portraits, etc. I have about 4 weeks to complete this project so I've gotta work my tail off. I want to have a shit ton of individual paintings and will display them as a group for the critique. Here is what I've been working on...

Above is my first madeup critter. It's a sheep/dog/pig/deer hybrid. I haven't figured out his bio but he is ferocious. And tiny...this is a life-size rendering. The next four paintings are medals I created. Haven't made up what they are for yet. They all need work.


This is the critter I worked on today. It's a lot larger than the others and it was super fantastic to work on a larger scale. I've mainly been working on small experimental paintings. This dude is a bear/boar/bull kinda creature. It is in it's early stages so it could change a great deal. Again, I haven't figured out how he rolls but I'll tell you one thing...looks are deceiving cuz he is a very gentle creature.

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