Introduction
This Unit consists on making something that will promote awareness, creates changes, asks questions and/or records the past or present, or predicts the future. I have had a really long research on the internet and came across a campaign that really caught my eye. It is called' March for Elephants' I really like this because the art work is done really and it's super creative by using the different hands to make an outline of an elephant to create awareness.
Kathryn Bigelow
Kathryn Bigelow is a film director who directed ' Last Day.' This is a short 3 minute film that highlights the danger of extinction faced by African elephants from the illegal ivory trade. Bigelow has released the film and launched a website to raise awareness for the cause to protect endangered elephants.
Kathryn Bigelow said“To make a feature film about such a topic would likely take years during which more elephants would die, so instead I approached a team of fellow filmmakers and we made Last Days as an animated piece, which we thought would give it a broader audience (besides, the internet is filled with graphic images of slaughtered elephants and yet the killing continues.) There are real things we can all do to stop wild elephants from disappearing from our world while cutting off funding for some of the world’s most notorious terrorist networks.”
I really like this idea of hers as it create an awareness for the elephants. My idea so far is to create 3 pieces of artwork to promote awareness that Elephant will be extinct soon if people keep killing them. My inspiration are from the video ' Last Day' and the picture ' March for Elephants.' I am aware that there are may animals that are endangered but I want to focus on Elephants. They may not be as endangered as many other animals but I feel that people around the world should be aware that elephants will soon be gone soon if people don't stop killing them for their ivory tusks.
Setting impacts of the Campaign' March for Elephants'
This was a awareness campaign that was created to promote awareness for the elephants.This artwork is not 'displaced' as we are seeing this as how the artist is expecting us to see it. From my interpretation what I think the artist expects us too see is that fact that the elephants will be extinct soon if people don't stop killing them for their tusks, once they are gone they will never be able to come back.
This is also seen through media making it less popular I feel. Not many people will see this if is not printed out. Even though people nowadays spend a lot of time on social media they will probably not likely to come across this campaign. The reason I like this is because I fins it very different to other campaigns and I feel that it really meaningful and eye-catching.
I am interested in it because of how it's very different. Generally I would see campaign for military and many other things but not so much for animals. So seeing this campaign just really caught my eye. I think that the main focus of the picture has to be the hands outline of the elephant rather than the writing on the right side of it.
What I want to create is quite different to the campaign but the similarities are the fact that I want to raise an awareness for elephants. I want to create 3 art pieces. Each picture will represent Before, During and After. Before picture will portray the life of the elephants before humans taking their ivory. During will represent people taking the elephants tusks and the separation of the elephants. The After image will focus on the extinction of the elephants due to humans killing them for their ivory.
Process
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Starting from the testing things out. I decided to test out on small paper and paint elephant skin on it.
The skin of the elephant can be different tone of grey; from dark to light grey. The texture is often very wrinkly in appearance.So what I have tried to do was paint elephant skin.
To achieve the texture of the skin I used modeling paste (white) and an ordinary black colour with a deep yellow.
The mixture of the the paint consists of a lot of white modeling paste with a little drop of black. Then it is mixed and sometimes I would add a little bit of yellow in it to make the colour seem more realistic.
Then I would grab a piece of paper and spread the modelling paste onto it. Let it dry for a few minutes, then paint the black on top. This was my first attempt. I then got a sharp stick and started to copy the elephant skin texture onto my paper. The first attempt did not go as well as it did not look like the texture.
But I decided to let the paint dry for the next lesson.
The paint had dried by the time and I decided to paint and do the marks onto the paper again. It came out better as the texture looked more realistic.
1st Art Piece - Past
In this first piece would want to show the elephants life before the humans coming in to take their ivory tusks. What my picture idea is to make a drawing and then paint the elephants being in the wild. Being in the wild is going to represent their home and happiness.
This is my inspiration of creating my picture. I want to make two elephants, one in an older age than the other; possibly mother and child. Then have both of walking towards the front and the background will be all grassy with clear blue skies.
2nd Art Piece- Present
In this piece I will show what is happening to the elephants currently. This piece is inspired Kathryn Bigelow. In her video and website she mentions that there are elephants killed/murdered every 15 minutes as well as the fact that over 30,000 elephants are killed by poaching every year. This has inspired me to create and image that shows the separation of the elephants.
The image in the middle is what I am aiming to create. The image will show two elephants holding onto each other as the other one is being pulled away.This will then hopefully shows the sadness that humans caused by taking the elephant away from their family.
The background idea is to make one side green and blue and the other black. I have decided to create a transition of colour to make it more meaningful.
Step 1: Set up
For this I started with a plain paper. Measure it to fit the frame. Then got a template of elephants online. What I want to achieve is a picture of 2 elephants walking away to the sunset to represent their nature before humans invading them.
Process
Steps
The goal is to create an image that is black and white of two elephants
This was a very challenging piece. I had to get templates off and paint on top of it. The skin and texture of the elephant was one difficulty I faced while trying to make this piece.
