The Rat

For this unit I chose to research the rat, an animal I have always been fond of and believe to be widely misunderstood. I informed myself on both the positive and negative attributes of the animal; the part they played in the spread of the Black Death, symbolism and representations in popular culture, the pet or 'fancy rat' and the creature as vermin. As part of the project, I created a cute rat from knitted carrier bags and discarded materials to address the comparison between 'pest' and 'pet'.

Below are a selection of sketchbook pages, my wire sculpture and knitted rat:

Green Sea Turtles

For my Research Methodology unit I decided to look at Turtles, specifically the Green Sea Turtle. One thing I was particularly interested in was how they navigate themselves around the Earth using an "internal compass". This led on to me studying geomagnetic fields and reading physics books, which no art student should ever have to do! Leading on from this I added my own personal interest of graphic novels and made a short story relating to pollution, with the turtles taking their revenge on the human race for destroying their habitat. I then took a different audience approach and made a suitable version for young children, ultimately ending up with a colouring book that could be reproduced by WWF.

Below are sample images of what I was working on throughout the project.

Lino cut prepped for printing

Lino Print

Polluted Turtle idea

Page from the short Graphic Novel story

Example pages from the Colouring Book

Asian Short Clawed Otter

The animal I selected to study was the Otter as I believe them to be one of the happiest and most playful creatures in the animal kingdom, and I thought that a happy animal would make for a happy project. Once I started studying them I found that they are more complex creatures than I first thought.

The Asian Short Clawed Otter happens to be one of the few animals that are monogamous, meaning that they mate for life, they are also extremely intelligent, being one of the limited amount of animals that can create and use tools. I chose to try and illustrate these facts along with their playfulness, as there were to many facts to focus on I found it hard only choosing one.

The Indian Elephant

Elephants have always been my favourite animal, so I was sure about using them in this project. Through further research into Elephants I chose to look at the Indian Elephant, where I found about their incredible intelligence and their use in symbolism (both religiously and aesthetically). Elephants are strong and big but also playful. They are also symbols of wisdom and stability; something that I wanted to try and convey in my work as well as the fact that they are easily recognisable creatures.

Whales

I'd chosen to look at whales for my project as I am in awe of them, their majestic, gentle, giant lives in the huge ocean. Their struggles are largely human related with little or no motive, from over hunting in the 20th century to illegal hunting and selling of whale meat in some countries today.

Scorpions

Exomorph

Promarker on wallpaper

They say that scorpions are just a combination of spiders, lobsters, wasps and nightmares. I was drawn to the scorpion because I sympathised with it a little; it is always seen as a creature to be disgusted and afraid of but actually it is just trying to defend itself. It is also hard to discern what a scorpion is doing when you see one as it is either lying in wait for unsuspecting insects or hiding from predators.

 I also felt that I could represent the scorpion with a little more colour and style than some of the images already out there as my drawings often feature bright pigments and bold outlines. Scorpions were particularly challenging to draw at first, given their many leg parts and strange angles, and actually I enjoyed drawing them by the end of the project. 

But I still find scorpions really creepy.

Hidden scorp

 Fineliner on trace, promarker

Origami Scorpions

Asian Forest Scorpion sketch

Promarker

The Butterfly

I decided to look into the Butterfly. I feel I was attracted to this animal because of its beauty and meanings to different cultures. The Butterfly is a symbol of many things including; change and transformation, Freedom and Soul, many believe that they are a symbol of immortality and represents departed ones. These were all aspects I found interesting.

For my work I looked at many examples of Butterflies, I found the medium of paper an interesting way to represent the Butterfly. The Butterfly is a very delicate and fragile creature, and therefore I used the paper to represent this.