So, I have been posting progression pictures of the Elephant that is currently on my table to Facebook and Instagram over the past month and each day I work on it my vision of its finished composition comes clearer to me.
When I started this project, I had a considerably basic concept of what I wanted the final product to be, and my plans stayed pretty fluid until this point.
I am deeply concerned by the plummeting numbers of some of Earth’s most majestic creatures. Elephants and their plight are particularly close to my heart. Their numbers are being brought down at alarming rates due to poaching for ivory and human population in natural Elephant habitats resulting in human versus elephant conflicts. Recently, more than 350 elephants have mysteriously died in Botswana, an area known for their elephant population’s incredible comeback.
Elephant herds are normally females and calves, the matriarch taking lead and very protective of the others in the herd, while bull elephants often roam alone. Elephants have the longest pregnancy period of all mammals, carrying her calf for 22 months before delivery, and although an elephant can give birth up to 12 times in her life, it is exceedingly rare.
As I work on this piece, I am learning more about using color, which is a new challenge as I am most comfortable working in regular graphite. She is on 19”x24” vellum Bristol paper in Derwent Graphitint and Drawing Pencils. I am building up my layers and gaining definition while still trying to decide for sure what I would like to put at the bottom, so I am taking my time and researching tips and tricks and strategies, watching videos and studying works from some of the amazing artists I have been finding and following on social media while working on sketchbook studies daily.