Another set of five wildlife artworks that I created from macro photographs of the same old metal gate. That makes it 15 images from one gate with another five still to come.
When I take the close-up photographs I am just looking for good compositions of interesting weathered textures and colours. The ideas for adding the wildlife come later when I take some time to look at the pictures on my computer. Sometimes it clearly feels like a woodland or coastline or other habitat so deciding what animal(s) to add is a quick choice. But sometimes, however long I look at it, all I have is a vague feeling of some corner of the natural world without anything specific. In this case it's just about how a composition might work. With so much choice of subjects in our wonderful world this always takes longer for me to come up something that works.
Hyenas Alert
There is menace in the stare of predators, such as these hyenas, and I pity whoever is being staring at by this group. I just hope this pack don't notice me. The blood red colour in the background certainly helps this feeling.
Ibex Climbing
There is a bright clarity in the colours of this picture that immediately made me think of mountain air with the blue/white patch producing an obvious skyline for an animal. The ibex was created for this particular world and having its strength and durability climbing the slope somehow takes me out of its realm. It could have been a person admiring the view from that skyline but that would have tamed this land too much. I love being in mountains but unlike this ibex I do not belong there.
Lost Penguins
There is some irony here in the idea of weathering producing the pattern used to illustrate penguins lost in a fragmenting environment in our globally warming world.
Moose World
A good example of how this style of artwork relies on animals with a distinctive shape. There is no mistaking these antlers that are clearly a moose even though most of the animal is hidden. Before using this moose I tried a few other animals including predatory cats but they all became too "lost" in the background and I realised it needed something with more obvious and recognisable detail that stood out in silhouette.
Paintflake Crow
And this is an example of an original photograph that I liked but did not particularly remind of any specific wild place. Once I had decided on a flying bird the problem was getting its edge to match that of the background. Putting a hint of white edge plus the under-shadow took me longer than I expected it would but I am happy with the result.
And here are the original photographs before I added the wildlife.
Finally, a reminder that these artworks all come from the same old ugly metal gate whose attraction lies purely in its beautiful weathered details. I have been back a few times to try to take a better photograph of the gate and its surroundings but every time there has been a car parked right in front of it so this video still is all I have.
