Royal River Watershed Species Tile

I chose the Short-Tailed Weasel because it looks like a carefree, cheery, happy animal. After doing more research, I found out they do a lot for the food chain. They don't do anything super important, but without them, the ecosystem they live in would get out of wack. Short-tailed weasels and other predators alike eat small abundant prey and move on to another sort of small prey if they are beginning to become scarce. Without them, the environment would be infested with rodents, including your home. One important thing we could do to support short-tailed weasels is to stop cutting down trees and stop or even reverse global warming. Without trees, weasels only have one source of habitat, which isn't naturally occurring, the streets and roads that we live on.  All animals are affected by global warming, but especially when you are living in the cold, in trees, and it leads to less food. Global warming interferes way too much with animals’ environment and leads them far worse. 

I think that many people would not be able to guess my animal from the ceramic because of how unknown the animal is (and how many relatives there are), and the colors may throw people off. If I had wanted to go for someone to be able to notice it, I would have used its normal colors, and the normal colors of the habitat, and set it up to look like it is in its habitat. 

Although I think forming the clay is fun, I think painting the systems and patterns was more fun. In my opinion, the paint brought it together, as it looked lifeless and like a lump of clay before. Without the paint, you would only get a certain idea of what the artist truly wanted to express, and dozens of those small ideas, but with the paint, it encloses you with a barrage of characteristics of the certain animal that was made. 

My color scheme was Cool Colors. I used shades and tints of colors like purple, blue, and green. I used colors like sage greens, dark purples, dark greens, Dark Blues, Light Blues, Black, White, Cyan, and Turquoise.

I think that Tim helped me a lot, and I am sure he helped a lot of others too. I think having input from an actual artist gave me a better perspective and understanding of what to do, I remember when he gave me a small critique, not completely sure what, but after I applied it, it made it look nicer. Furthermore, I will remember his kindness and his way of critiquing our work, while he was critiquing, he was asking questions about what each aspect was which made him understand us and our art more.

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