Endangered Animal Tile

The Whooping Crane Tile - Ceramic - 8x8 inches

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.

The artists and Inspirations studies - Tim Christensen and Oaxacan alebrijes from Mexico

Relfections

I hope that people look at my bowl and think that we can make a better world for the animals that we have endangered in the first place, we can hope that the change will be soon. that pattern that I hope most strongly gets across is the buildings because is it the only pattern that doesn't fit the color scheme and standouts to show the change in life the crane will make. The response I am making in the tile is the life of the Crane and to show that by building more and cutting trees we will eventually ruin the crane's home

The color that I choose is red and green because they are complimentary colors. I am very happy with the way that colors give a sort of forest feeling, which is very fitting because the bird mostly lives and northern pine and mud forests. If I were to change anything I would change the bird in the tile because it feels very lifeless to me apart from the wings which I spent a large deal of time on, and when I go back I would try to create a more bird -like face.

The animal I chose is the Whooping Crane I have a personal connection to it because my brother and my dad went to Colorado College which is the state it is endangered in. It is endangered because of overhunting and the greatest threat is the forest clearing for new housing. The systems of the tile are the foods it eats, the nests it makes, the trees it lives in, and the bird's footprints, I made these patterns to show the natural life of the animal. On the other hand, I made a white and black pattern for the pattern of the city, I made this black because it is not natural.