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Description
This is my entry to a local art exhibition themed around the northern environment. It took me a long time to come up with an idea for my entry, but I decided I’d put a fantasy twist on photo-realistic nature paintings. I guess you can even say it’s a parody. It’s not that I don’t like that genre of work, many of the paintings or drawings I’ve seen are absolutely beautiful. But I find that that kind of work rarely makes an impression on me because many of the subjects are overdone. For example, in my town it seems that the only paintings I see on display for sale are of ducks and dogs or animals on a winter trail. There are more than just ducks and dogs and winter trails in northern Ontario! So that’s why I decided to not only go with something unusual, but something that could never actually be seen in real life and make it in that naturalistic style.

So the subjects are a northern gryphon (part snowy owl and part Canadian lynx), a red fox and a winter jackalope (part winter hare and part caribou, also known as a harabou). The Gryphon just has his lunch stolen by a measly fox! Poor fella. I used photo references from google to draw these guys as accurately and believably as I could.

Done with acrylic paint and coloured pencils on illustration board. (the board was courtesy of my school. It was really nice of the art teacher to let me use some for a non-school project!)

Description
This is my entry to a local art exhibition themed around the northern environment. It took me a long time to come up with an idea for my entry, but I decided I’d put a fantasy twist on photo-realistic nature paintings. I guess you can even say it’s a parody. It’s not that I don’t like that genre of work, many of the paintings or drawings I’ve seen are absolutely beautiful. But I find that that kind of work rarely makes an impression on me because many of the subjects are overdone. For example, in my town it seems that the only paintings I see on display for sale are of ducks and dogs or animals on a winter trail. There are more than just ducks and dogs and winter trails in northern Ontario! So that’s why I decided to not only go with something unusual, but something that could never actually be seen in real life and make it in that naturalistic style.

So the subjects are a northern gryphon (part snowy owl and part Canadian lynx), a red fox and a winter jackalope (part winter hare and part caribou, also known as a harabou). The Gryphon just has his lunch stolen by a measly fox! Poor fella. I used photo references from google to draw these guys as accurately and believably as I could.

Done with acrylic paint and coloured pencils on illustration board. (the board was courtesy of my school. It was really nice of the art teacher to let me use some for a non-school project!)