Museum animals

As usual my blog has not been updated in months. After going to amazing galleries in places such as Italy and Spain and even seeing the work of fellow students, I am generally a bit hesitate to put what I've been doing online. I am nowhere near to where I would like to be at, but I've been thinking the past few weeks that a baby has to learn to roll over before it can crawl and generally crawl before it can walk, and then the running comes. I think I am still in the rolling over or crawl stage! :)

I have been at Edinburgh College of Art for a few weeks now and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Our first project was on the theme of a collection (menagerie) and so we started our research at the newly opened animal section of the National Museum of Scotland. I think that the new section is very good; however, I think the idea that we stuff animals and then put them behind glass cages is a little strange. Do we feel safer viewing them when they are dead so they can't hurt us? Or is it just easier for children to view and learn about wild animals that way because otherwise they would have to travel to another country? Anyway, what struck me was the jumble of animals they had grouped together. For example a cat facing me with a rabbit in its mouth, but directly behind the cat the backside of a rhinoceros. Or an otter hanging on the wall facing a proud eagle. Perhaps not entirely deep or creative, but this idea of the jumble and the strangeness was what I based my paintings on. In truth, I haven't done many paintings, although I want to do many more. I chose to do the paintings for my first project in acrylic paint. I was interested in the idea of distorting the animals in order to give strangeness to them, but this didn't work for me, particularly in the case of the deer. Anyway, I will share the good with the bad as it is still my journey (cliché I know). I can only learn from my mistakes and also my successes! :)


Drawing of the Quagga and friends



Piece No. 1

Piece No. 2