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msklystron — qallupilluit
Published: 2008-10-24 00:21:11 +0000 UTC; Views: 8969; Favourites: 108; Downloads: 3
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Description
The qallupilluit are among the mythical characters inuit parents tell their children about. The qallupilluit take children, who are foolish enough to play near the cracks in the ice, deep down into the arctic ocean.Canadian children's author, Robert Munsch, has written a wonderful tale about the qallupilluit, which is called, 'A Promise is a Promise.
This picture, in blues and greens, is for *b1gfan and his children.
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Comments: 102
I remember that book from when I was very very little.
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oh wow this is beautifull. i really love how everything flows together. i love the heads to you have awesome proportion!
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Thank you so much for the lovely comments. This started as a free-flowing sort of doodle.
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oh really cool. i love how doodles can turn into a master peice
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hehehe dont mention it buddy ^^
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s-so amazing!! @0@ keep up the AMAZING art works deary!!
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I will try my best.
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I love the colours you used.
and I love that book~~
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Thank you so much. The colours were selected specifically for a dA who is colour blind and can only see blues and greens.
My kids and I love the book too. Now that they're all old enough to read to themselves, I'll have to read it on the sly...
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that's actually really interesting... that sort of colour spectrum is a neat idea~ <3
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When I started working with these colours I realized how beautiful and different his world must be. He would definitely eat green eggs and ham.
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I love Iniut tales. I haven't heard of this one though.I mostly know about Sedna.And a few others involving Raven.
This is very lovely.The colours are so fitting and the creatures themselves are very haunting.
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I hadn't heard of Qallupilluit until I read the Munsch version of the tale to my kids. It's one of many cautionary tales, much like European fables, that parents tell kids to keep them out of trouble. Sedna and beings like her are part of the larger creation mythologies. I love these stories too. Thank goodness for CBC radio for bringing Inuit and First Nations tales to the whole country.
Thank you so much for the lovely comments.
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Not a problem. You're very welcome.
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What a lovely thing to say! Thank you!
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I'm seem to recall the mythos. Didn't they also have a connection with the spirit of the lost?
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Wow, thanks for taking the time to ask.
The short answer is, an Inuit person would know better than I would.
So, it seems to me that the Qallupilluit have more in common with Western bogeymen (who come after children who refuse to eat their dinner or go to bed on time) than mythological spirts, including Inuit mythological spirits. For instance, the sea goddess in many Inuit cultures is Sedna. In most stories, she was a maid who claimed no man was good enough to marry (in some tales she married a dog out of spite) and her father or her husband threw her overboard. Sedna's fingers were cut off when she tried to climb back into the boat. Her fingers became the seals and related sea mammals and she became their mistress under the sea. Cautionary tales are mainly designed to scare and protect, while spirit beliefs/myths set out to explain nature, the soul or creation. I suppose Qallupilluit may offer an explanation for Inuit children who go inexplicably missing, but there are also the invisible creatures who capture children, who wander alone on the tundra.
We don't know the backstory of the Qallupilluit as we do with Sedna. As far as I know, they aren't connected to Sedna's stories. They are just there, like bogeymen. All children are told is that Qallupilluit take those who venture near the ice into their amauti (a baby-carrying pouch built into inuit clothing). Until recently, Inuit stories were oral (or depicted in art), rather than written down, so there are many variations. In some versions Qallupilluit turned captured children into mermaids or killed them. Sometimes the sound of ice cracking underwater is said to be the Qallupilluit knocking -- in other words, a warning that it's a risky time to venture onto the ice. All versions appear to be designed to protect through fear.
Essay over.
My picture certainly might give the feeling of a spirit of lost souls. The creature seems to be offering shelter to the girls depicted. To me, folk tales can be jumping-off points for new stories or art (traditionalists would strongly disagree with me). Qallupilluit are usually described as foul-smelling and ugly, but to me, the scariest things can be very beautiful or alluring (like the Sirens in Homer's Illiad). I felt that these creatures might steal children of both sexes, perhaps making the boys into a soup, and/or using their bones to build undersea castles, and keeping the girls as mermaid servants or future Qallupilluit sisters. This is why only girls are pictured with the Qallupilluit in my painting.
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That story used to make me scared for the girl a promise is a promise as a kid. and now that creature still scares me a bit.
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Ha thank you for your comment.
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I read this story to my kids, who are now 20, 18, 12 and 9. It was so clever and the illustrations were so beautiful that it became a real favourite in spite of the fear factor. If you got to Robert Munsch's website, you'll see that the writing process involved several rewrites to get it just right.
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Ohh, I loved this story when I was little! Lovely picture.
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My kids loved it! When my oldest daughters were small, we were lucky enough to attend a reading by Robert Munsch. Because of this I know the tune to Love You Forever, which is among my top 5 kids stories.
A Promise is a Promise is a scary story, but I loved the way the parents outsmarted the Qallupilluit. The illustrations were lovely too.
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very pretty and i love that it's based on a legend.
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Thank you! The Inuit are brilliant at storytelling. I'm really into folk tales and creation tales.
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Gawrsh! How nice of you to say so.
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Thank you! The colours were a real challenge. I chose them to be see-able by someone with colour blindness.
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hmm that's kinda interesting, cause we just went through a lesson yesterday in my photography class about how colour tones change in black and white, and how we can manipulate how photos look in B/W by changing the tones in B/W. I don't know if that made any sense, it's late.. lol
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It makes a lot of sense. Movie directors before colour film was invented were experts at dealing with the problem of translating colour to B&W. Sometimes I take a photo or start and piece of art and think it would look good in B&W and it doesn't. Browns seem to be tricky...
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hmm well that's very interesting! yeah I'm sure browns turn into medium tone grays when converted to b/w
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Well, I was thinking back to my childhood, about a puppet character in a classic Canadian children's show called 'The Friendly Giant. The show was shot in black and white and I was surprised to learn much later in life that one of the puppets, 'Jerome the Giraffe', was orange with purple spots, instead of tan with brown spots, because the former colour combination offered better contrast.
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well that makes sense for sure
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Thank you very much! I wanted to capture the muted blues and greens and lighting of the northern seas.
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Well you did it really well
you're welcome
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This is so awesome, reminds me of..like..wind!
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