Endangered Species In New England

Atlantic Puffin, Ceremic, 6.75'' by 7.5''

Project goals:

• To use art in raising awareness of Endangered Species in New England;

• To learn about artists who work with animals as their subjects, (specifically, Ami Vitale, Tim Christensen, Joel Sartore, Anne London, and Oaxacan Alebrijes from Mexico).

• To become acquainted with basic ceramic vocabulary;

• To learn about and find inspiration in the highly patterned art (Alebrijes) from Oaxaca, Mexico;

• 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 cultures studied:

Ami Vitale, Tim Christensen, Joel Sartore, Anne London, and Oaxacan Alebrijes from Mexico.

Question responses:

1. I am helping to answer the essential question of this unit by using my art to communicate my thoughts. To do this, I used five wildlife systems to show how the Atlantic puffin survives and thrives in the wild. The first system I used was ocean waves. I chose waves because the puffin goes into the ocean every day to catch fish and survive. The second system I chose was rocky cliffs at the bottom of the painting, this symbolizes the habitat of the puffin who live on rocky islands on the coast of Maine and nova scotia. The third system was a small fish at the bottom of the painting which symbolizes the food that the puffin eats and shows that that is how the puffing survives. The fourth system is sunlight, I chose to display sunlight through beams in the sky. My fifth system is oxygen, without oxygen all the puffins would instantly die, which is very important to them. My most influential system in showing the overhunting problem of puffins is the rocky cliffs because that is where the puffins are getting caught, trapped, and killed which is leading to the endangerment of the species.

2. The color scheme I chose to do for my piece is cool colors, the specific colors I chose to incorporate are a variety of tints and gradients of the colors blue, green, and violet. These colors all fit into the cool color scheme because I did not show any red, orange, or yellow gradients that overpowered the cool colors in my piece. I do like how the colors look because I feel it fits with the natural habitat of the puffin but without being too accurate. If I were to do this project again I would try to find a way to get more of a turquoise color that I wasn’t able to find in this piece.

3. I chose to do the New England puffin for my endangered species project because In third grade we did a similar project about endangered species in Maine and I wasn’t able to choose the puffin because someone else in the class had chosen it, so this time I chose it. I think it is important to learn about the Atlantic puffin because they are going endangered not because of climate change, but because of overhunting, which is something that people can act on quickly and instantly, unlike climate change. The most important thing you can do to keep the puffin alive and healthy is to advocate for the protection of the species, I believe most of the hunting does not take place in Maine but it does in other places around the western coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and you should do your best to protect this special species.

planning above