Humanimal Painting

ARTIST MODEL - MARC & GILLIE

The artists are best known for their beloved hybrid characters – Rabbitwoman and Dogman – who tell the autobiographical tale of two opposites coming together to become best friends and soulmates. The Rabbit and the Dog, as unlikely animal-kingdom companions, represent diversity and acceptance through love.

The iconic style of Gillie and Marc’s Thick Texture Paintings provide the tangible dimensions of a sculpture with the convenient spatial simplicity of a painting. Multiple layers of impasto are applied to the canvas before the artists even begin to paint.

ACTIVITY initial collage design

You will be creating a collage that combines human and animal attributes as the source imagery for this painting. Think about your favourite animal and what it might look like if it had a human body!

You can do your original collage either with paper and glue or digitally if you are competent with editing programs.
For free and non-copyright images use unsplash to download or print from

I recommend that you work on a couple of collages at the same time using a variety of animal heads on human bodies [different poses] and also include some doing activities like in the artist models work [riding bikes, in cars, eating iceceam etc]

You also need to give them a place to be - this is to be an iconic or obvious Kiwi location such as the sky tower or Cathedral cove etc..

Once you have combined your pieces [use blue tack to start] Glue down each piece thoroughly.

the background could be the skytower!

*YOU ARE ONLY REQUIRED TO HAVE ONE HUMANIMAL IN YOUR WORK. YOU CAN CHOOSE TO DO 2 IF YOU WANT.

You can easily use your own photos for this collage task

maybe it's your body with your favourite animal head, in your favourite location eating your favourite icecream!

this could be an iconic NZ beach - change the bird to fantail or tui!

Maybe this is a Kapati icecream? or a hokey pokey!

ACTIVITY

creating your painting

Prepare your canvas/board with a layer of gesso and then use impasto gel [texture paste] to create a textured surface across the board [use a palette knife or scraper to spread it on] this will take a while to dry so you could do this BEFORE creating your collage.
Sketch up your main details from your collage [do not include a LOT of detail as it gets painted over!
Begin to add your hues using a wide brush and expressive application of paint. Focus on details in the eyes and highlights!
- Remember this is an expressive painting so a lot of brush application of impasto application, broken colour, scumbling and sgraffito for texture/patterns
- Dribbles, drips, and flicks are part of the artists process - so add these in after your colour blends are done.
Use black to add loose, expressive outlines and also use the black to dry brush and scumble in shadows as the artists do in their video.

Page updated

Report abuse