Part 2 Project 5 Exercise 4 Using Source Material



West African rainbow lizard.
Photographed by Craig Johnston. 2014

As we are daily greeted by the bobbing heads of twitchy lizards, I decided to select a photograph of a western African rainbow lizard my husband took while last year. These lizards are exquisite during mating season as they put on their starkly colorful courting jackets.

I decided to use watercolor crayons, construction paper crayons, and oil pastels on a thick grade blue/grey paper stock. As I worked, this exercise seemed to develop a life of its own. I started out intending that this piece fulfill the requirements for Exercise 3, however, I became so absorbed in the incredible detail of the scales, patterns, and textures on the rainbow lizard that I felt it did not fit the requirements of Exercise 3. I then decided that I would modify it to suite the criteria of Exercise 4 by throwing some source material images into the background of the rainbow lizard. This proved to be quite a challenge.

I read and reread the brief for Exercise 4 a number of times. I must admit that it was very difficult to imagine how to proceed, as the wording of the exercise is very vague. I looked at several of my fellow students’ works for this exercise, and did not feel that they had fully come to understand what the brief intended. This left me feeling a bit directionless. I spent a long time searching for any images related to lizards that I could incorporate in the background. I discovered that cats, elephants, cows, horses, and dogs are fairly well analyzed and drawn as anatomical studies – but not the lowly lizard. I suppose not many veterinarians take the time to perform surgery on a lizard. Most of the drawings were extremely simplistic and schematized. One drawing I found on a blog site for Scientific American, though highly schematized, did help me to be more analytical of the bone structure of the feet and jaw structure. (Scientific American, n.d.) Another labelled diagram of the Skeletal System was found on an individual’s blog site. (Anon., 2015)

These drawings reminded me of the day my son, who was only about six at the time, was bitten under the chin by a large, elderly iguana. Its teeth were razor sharp and would not release their grip on his tender skin, whilst the gnarled fingers clawed at his face. My husband had to pry them open with brute force, ending up with his own set of lacerations, which required him to need a tetanus vaccination.

I eventually found a photograph of a skeleton of a lizard from a very interesting angle, one which I thought worked quite well with the rainbow lizard I had drawn. (Flickr, 2013) I have not displayed this image as it falls under the all rights reserved copyright. I decided that for my drawing I would flip the image so that the head pointed towards the right and throw it behind my rainbow lizard. I used the color of the paper as one of the midrange tones for this skeletal study. I had to interpret the skeleton, as my photograph was small.


Preliminary stage of drawing

Once the skeleton was in place, I had to decide how to treat the left-hand side panel. In the original photograph, this was an out of focus area. I decided to draw a palm reed into this area. This seemed to work well. Then came the difficult task of trying to figure out the rest of the background! After working with artworks where the background is already figured out before starting the artwork, I realized that by working in reverse, the project takes on a life of its own; but it is also is a bit like grabbing a lizard by its tail.

Succulent leaves.
Photographed by Craig Johnston. 2013.

For this task, I used a photograph of what I had already drawn and then in Photoshop placed a cutout of my subject onto various photographs in the background to choose a suitable background. I eventually settled on the succulent leaves as they had almost a skeletal look to them, reminiscent of the foreground. Their spines created a visual link to the foreground. I decided to place sand in the foreground between the rainbow lizard’s feet. 



Succulent and sand background added to final drawing

The sand between the lizard’s feet was rather course and did not hold the picture together enough. So I experimented and tried painting over it with my tea, which had grown cold. The effect was exactly what I had intended! 

Conceptualization of final artwork
using Photoshop blur tool on foliage.

On completing the drawing, my husband and I felt that the background was too detailed and stark for the foreground. It tends to detract from the detail of the rainbow lizard and the skeleton. I photographed the drawing and then using Photoshop to see what it would look like if the background was blurred somewhat to soften its lines. I think that this will work. It will be a case of getting up the nerve to tackle my drawing once again – running the risk of ruining literally two days worth of work. I will have to see if I get the courage to do so!



Works Cited

Anon., 2015. teopostcarli51's soup. [Online]
Available at: http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/554images/Sinornithosaurus_skull.gif
[Accessed 27 October 2015].

Anon., n.d. Anatomy of Animals. [Online]
Available at: http://universe-review.ca/I10-82-lizard.jpg
[Accessed 28 October 2015].

cgchannel.com, 2010. New Training DVD - Introduction to Animal Anatomy. [Online]
Available at: http://www.cgchannel.com/2010/05/new-training-dvd-introduction-to-animal-anatomy/
[Accessed 28 October 2015].

Flickr, 2013. Frilled Lizard Skeleton. [Online]
Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/biologis/6655423483/
[Accessed 28 October 2015].

Naish, D., 2010. Tetrapod Zoology. [Online]
Available at: http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/wp-content/blogs.dir/471/files/2012/05/i-4a798e3958072590cd20db021dbf2bfc-T-Ford-Zilla-hands-feet-Nov-2010.jpg
[Accessed 27 October 2015].

Scientific American, n.d. [Online]
Available at: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2012/07/Huehuecuetzpalli-ReptileEvolution.com-David-Peters-July-2012-tiny.jpg
[Accessed 28 October 2015].

WikiArt, n.d. Anatomical studies of the shoulder. [Online]
Available at: http://uploads4.wikiart.org/images/leonardo-da-vinci/anatomical-studies-of-the-shoulder.jpg
[Accessed 27 October 2015].