Month 5 — They Brought Their Food With Them (Migration)
This is not a drawing, nor is it a real installation; it is a mockup (I don’t have a 24 foot blank wall). Each creature is cut from a piece of black card stock, anywhere from 1 inch - 10 inches long, and then gummed to the wall. Click on the images above for the full composition.
Detail—entering the water
Detail—bear, possum, eagle and crow
Detail—needing a place to rest
Detail—life at sea gets boring
Detail—various ways to make the crossing
Detail—diving bird, snake and fish
Detail—no humans allowed in the crossing
Composition test
Some of the cut-outs
Composition in progress
Month 5 — They Brought Their Food With Them (Migration)
I learned two things while creating this piece:
1. My essential tremors still make my hands too shaky for me to draw well. But for some reason if given an X-acto blade I can rule the world. The craft of cutting paper is still within my reach.
2. I am still capable, in fact, of completing a piece involving illustration and design. I wasn’t sure I could do that. But it was literally painful: it caused headaches, epileptic auras, and crippling exhaustion. Imagine forcing yourself into a burning building to save a cat. Success! You come out to applause with a singed cat, a feeling of virtue, and the thought, “I’m not sure that was worth it”.
But I did fifinish it. Maybe I could do that again for a really, really important cat?