Royal River Watershed Species Tile

Project Goals:

• To use art in raising awareness of the flora & fauna located in the Royal River watershed 

• To learn about artists who work with animals as their subjects, (additionally,  working Maine ceramic artist, Tim Christensen; 

• To become acquainted with basic ceramic vocabulary;

• To form and paint a low relief ceramic tile that contains both imagery of a species of your choice and an indication of the systems around it which promote that species’ survival.

Artists and Art Culture Studied: 

Ami Vitale, Tim Christensen, Joel Sartore, Anne London, Louie Psihoyos, Travis Threlkel, and Oaxacan alebrijes from Mexico

Reflection:

I choose the Barred Owl as my species. I choose the barred owl because I have always been interested in owls. They are also special to me because I grew up hearing them around my house when I lived in the woods. I think it’s important and cool to know that barred owls don’t really have any animal predators. The only predator that they have is the horned owl. The most important thing we can do to protect owls is not litter on the side of roads. The viewer would know where the owl lived and what it looked like. They would also know what the animal ate. I think if I knew it was going to get dug up, I would add what its dangers are. Such as cars and the horned owl. The most intriguing part of the project for me was the painting. I loved the painting part because I felt like through the painting you could portray what the art work meant. The painting is also when you can have fun and try new things. The color scheme I used is oranges and blues. Orange and blue are complementary colors, so they look really nice together. I like these two colors because they are fun and bright, but also they have so many shades and tints. It was fun to hear how a professional artist works because it's similar and so different from a high school class. I don’t think he had that much impacted on my work. Partly because we work differently, but also because we didn’t spend that much time talking to each other.