Endangered Species Relief Tile

Orca Whale

Ceramic, 7.75in by 6.25in

Project Goals:

• To become familiar with using endangered species as an art subject

• To learn about a working Maine ceramic artist, Tim Christensen, as well as the highly patterned art (alebrijes) from Oaxaca, Mexico

• To become acquainted with basic ceramic vocabulary

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

Artist Studied: Artist and Art Culture Studied: Tim Christensen and Oaxacan alebrijes from Mexico

Reflection: I hope they see the range of things that are causing the orcas to be endangered. I hope they especially pay attention to the contaminants and the fishing gear because that can be easier to remove from the ocean than lack of food.

My color scheme was analogous blue through green. I chose these colors because the orca lives in the ocean and those colors are very cool like the ocean. I would spend more time painting and making it more organized and clean. I chose the orca whale, more specifically I paid attention to the Southern Resident Orca whale. It is endangered because of the loss of food (squid, salmon), fishing gear in the water, and contaminants in the water. My five systems are the ocean, fishing net, squid, salmon, and contaminants. The state it is found in is Alaska down to Canada/British Columbia and Washington.

I chose this piece because I like the color scheme that the artist used on it. The bright orange and blue go very well together in this piece. I had previous found this picture in a homework assignment we had. I think this connects to my piece because it seems the artist also used a little analogous with the purple and blue. I used analogous on my piece with green and blue. I learned from this piece how to get colors to work together and mix right. I also got some inspiration in patterns from this piece.