During my painting vacation there was time for workshops, but also time to work as we wished to do. After I had used a picture of a skull last year to create a mixed media work, our teacher Ad van Aart brought some real animal skulls and bones with him this year for inspiration.
Drawing a skull from life is a bit different than using a picture, but I thought it clarifying . With a real skull in front of me, I can change my viewpoint to understand its structure which of course is not possible when using a picture.
The skull that inspired me is an animal skull found in Iceland and it belonged to a goat or sheep (that was not clear any more). I made a drawing using my watercolour pencils on a large sheet of paper and after this was finished I added trees with charcoal. I decided to draw a burned forest, that seems to be the current state of a lot of forest areas.
These last weeks (months) there have been many forest areas on fire, mostly in the Southern parts of Europe, but also in North America and there is a huge fire going on in Siberia. These fires are alarming. I am not directly endangered by the fires or the smoke but the impact on the world climate is huge as we need the forests to cool down the climate and slow down or even stop global warming, so I do feel uneasy about what's happening.
Now the mixed media work is finished, it seems to have become not only a drawing of a skull and a burned forest area.
Something mythical has added itself to the atmosphere while I was working.
These surprises are always welcome.
The information about the materials I have used, the size and availability of this mixed media drawing can all be found in my Tumblr blog.
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