Elephant No. 75: Oil Pastels

There are less than ten days until Christmas and things are starting to get hectic, so today I decided to do something that I thought would be simple: oil pastels.

Oil pastels were invented in Japan in the early twentieth century. Dissatisfied with the Japanese education system, which he felt concentrated too much on learning by rote, Kanae Yamamoto proposed a new learning concept that allowed for greater self-expression. In a book called The Theory of Self-Expression, Yamamoto described the Jiyu-ga method, or "learning without a teacher".

Taken with Yamamoto's ideas, teacher Rinzo Satake and his brother in law Shuku Sasaki decided to do something about the many hours Japanese children spent learning to draw Japanese characters with black ink. Instead, they implemented "free drawing" periods, using lots of colour. Feeling that the wax crayons available at the time weren't quite right for this process, the two men produced their own crayons in 1921, founding the Sakura Cray-Pas Company—named for the Japanese word for colour (sakura), and abbreviated forms of "crayon" and "pastel".

Their first efforts weren't entirely successful, as the crayons didn't have enough pigment and didn't allow for artistic effects such as blending and impasto. By 1924, they had developed a better crayon, using coconut oil, paraffin and stearic acid as a binder for the pigment. Thus was born the oil pastel. Until stabilizers were added in 1927, oil pastels came in two varieties: winter pastels with additional oil to keep them from hardening in cold temperatures; and summer pastels, which came with less oil to keep them from melting in warmer weather. Interestingly, Japan's state schools, leery of the concept of "self-expression"—and unable to afford oil pastels anyway—preferred coloured pencils, a less-expensive German invention that was mysteriously marketed in Europe as a means of instilling work discipline in young children.

Elsewhere, however, oil pastels were immediately successful. Manufacturers around the world began producing their own versions of the new medium. The quality of these early pastels was nothing like the oil pastels we have today, as they were intended simply as a teaching medium, and not for fine art. Despite this, some artists adopted oil pastels, including Pablo Picasso, who eventually convinced French manufacturer Henri Sennelier to bring out a high-quality oil pastel for artists.

Sennelier's version debuted in 1949. Intended specifically for professional artists, Sennelier's product was superior in every way to run-of-the-mill oil pastels. Other companies soon followed suit, and by the mid-1980s, the Japanese "Holbein" brand—named for a German artist—had appeared, with a range of 225 colours of professional-grade oil pastels.

Oil pastels vary highly in quality. The most inexpensive oil pastels are the kind we all used in public school, and are generally the hardest and least vibrant. The highest level is aimed at professional artists and can be quite expensive at five dollars or more per oil pastel, depending on pigment quality and colour.

For today's elephant, I decided to use whatever I had on hand. I hadn't looked at my oil pastels in years, but I suspected that they might be the most basic grade, as it's not a medium I ever loved all that much.

Yep, the most basic grade. I also discovered today that time hasn't softened my attitude towards oil pastels.

I made a perhaps misguided decision early on to use a small canvas board for this. I thought the texture of the board might make this a bit more interesting, but it didn't. Canvas wasn't the best way to go unless I was going to lay in quite a lot of colour, and today I wasn't really in the mood for lots of colour.

I also decided to use blending stumps and tourtillons—I know there's a difference between the two, but I'm not sure what it is. The main thing for me is that I can use them instead of my fingers to blend stuff.

I started with a very tentative line for the top of the elephant's head, then blended it.

I added a few more lines, blended those, then a few more. So far, I wasn't much in love with this process—nor today's drawing skills, for that matter.

After adding some more colours, I started to like it a little better.

After I'd finished all the colour work I was going to do, I added a bit of black to make the elephant pop a bit more, and to differentiate it from the background I had foolishly added.

I really didn't like it when I was finished, but it's starting to grow on me—a little. I think I would have had to spend a lot more time on it, putting in lots of colour and blending the heck out of it to make it something I'd be happy with. Maybe I'll try it again when I have more time to play with the technique.

 Elephant Lore of the Day
A few weeks ago, Ian reminded me of a stunning show that toured Europe and South America from 2005 to 2007: The Sultan's Elephant. Created by the Royal de Luxe theatre company of Nantes, France, the show involved a huge mechanical elephant and a giant girl marionette.

The show was commissioned by the cities of Nantes and Amiens to commemorate the centenary of the death of author Jules Verne, and was originally called La visite du sultan des Indes sur son éléphant à voyager dans le temps ("A Visit from the Sultan of the Indies on His Time-Travelling Elephant").

Designed by François Delarozière, artistic director of the French company La Machine, the elephant was made primarily of wood, and weighed 50 tonnes—or the weight of seven African elephants. It required twenty-two people to manipulate it, and had hundreds of moving parts and scores of pistons, including twenty-two for the trunk alone. The elephant's skeleton featured steel ribs, and more than 56 square metres (602 square feet) of reclaimed poplar. The flapping ears were made of leather.

The show was first performed in Nantes in May 2005, followed by a performance in Amiens the following month. For its London appearance in May 2006, the show was renamed The Sultan's Elephant. The show began on a Thursday, with a rocket "crashing" into Waterloo Place. The elephant and sultan arrived the following day, and an oversized girl marionette emerged from the rocket capsule. The elephant and girl met up and, on Friday evening, the elephant wandered around St. James's Park, while the girl went on a tour of London atop an open double-decker bus.

On Saturday, the elephant walked to Trafalgar Square. The girl was lifted onto the elephant's trunk by crane, and was carried back to Horseguards Parade. The show finished on Sunday when the girl climbed back into the rocket and "took off". Although the rocket didn't actually go anywhere, when the top was removed from the rocket by crane, the girl had disappeared, ostensibly travelling in time.

In London, the elephant and girl were stored at the disused Battersea Power Station, and were taken under police escort to various city locations in the wee hours of the morning. Lamposts and traffic lights had to be removed to allow the elephant through.

Following its London appearance, the show appeared in Antwerp, Belgium; Calais and Le Havre in France; Santiago, Chile; and Reykjavík, Iceland.

Sadly, the elephant no longer exists. According to the London producers of the show, the company got so fed up with being invited all over the world to perform The Sultan's Elephant, that they destroyed it. A 20-foot replica was, however, built in Nantes in 2007 as part of the Machines of the Isle of Nantes exhibition.

The Sultan's elephant walking across a bridge in Nantes.
Photo: Prochasson
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Royal-de-luxe-
%C3%89lephant-mai-2005-1.jpg

To Support Elephant Welfare 

World Wildlife Fund

World Society for the Protection of Animals

Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information on a number of sanctuaries around the world)
Performing Animal Welfare Society
Zoocheck
Bring the Elephant Home
African Wildlife Foundation

Elephant No. 10: Mapping

The earliest known map is the sixth-century B.C. Babylonian World Map, incised in stone. Other early maps include the sixth-century B.C. Anaximander Map, which locates the Aegean Sea at the centre of the world's three continents (Europe, Asia and Libya); and the surprisingly accurate Ptolemy Map of A.D. 150.

By medieval times, there were world maps, regional maps, maps of trade routes, and even pilgrimage maps showing the faithful every shrine and church along the way. In addition to land maps, there were also maps of the heavens, and sea charts indicating the location of known dangers—including the odd sea monster.

The first reasonably accurate maps were not drawn until the Renaissance, when greater exploration by both land and sea gave people a better idea of how the world actually looked. From then on, maps improved with every advance in navigational equipment, and every newly established trade route or settlement.

Today's maps are created using computers, satellites and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). They can map everything from rainfall to the location of small populations of endangered animals. They can also be redrawn quickly when changes occur—as in the aftermath of a tsunami, hurricane or earthquake.

When I originally thought of doing something related to maps, my first idea was to draw a mythical country in the shape of an elephant. I figured I could make it look like a medieval chart, with things like "Here be dragons" on the edge of the known world, and little sea monsters poking their heads out of the oceans. Then I decided that it might be more interesting and challenging to find an elephant shape within an existing map.

The rules I set myself were these: I could only cut along lines that already existed on an actual map, such as rivers, political boundaries, roads, mountain ranges, oceans and lakes. I toyed with buying a map of either India or Africa, given that those are the traditional homes of elephants. I figured, however, that it might be too easy to cheat by cutting along whatever tiny little geographical feature suited me best. So I decided on a map of London, England instead.

The reason I chose London—apart from it being my favourite city—is that it's a city with a long history. This would give me lots of curving lines to play with, which I wouldn't have in a city that's built on a grid. London also has a place called Elephant and Castle, which I decided to use as the elephant's eye.

Cutting an elephant out of a map was actually harder than I expected. Although I could see an elephant shape almost immediately, once I was contending with actual roads, it was difficult to find the lines I needed. It didn't help that I'd limited my options by determining the eye ahead of time.

I started by cutting along the trunk, which was the most obvious line to me. Then I could see an ear to the right, flying in the wind, so I cut that. Then I thought I saw another raised ear, so I cut that, too. Unfortunately, then it started looking like Dumbo from the Walt Disney film, or maybe a vampire bat. So I cut off the second ear, then the first.

I had no idea how to contend with the body, since it would have trailed off the bottom of the map. To make matters worse, the toplines were really weird. I thought I might deal with the problem by cutting along the grid lines, making it sort of abstract. But that looked stupid, because the squares on this particular map were so big. So I cut off the squares as well, ultimately leaving just the head.

The elephant originally had a higher forehead, but I didn't like that, either, so I shaved bits of it away. I would have liked a much thinner trunk as well, but there weren't enough streets in that part of the map. If I'd started whittling away at the trunk along the available lines, it would have looked like it had been nibbled by meerkats or bandicoots.

I also had to contend with some very strange street configurations in the ear area, making the ear tip interestingly raggedy.

When I was done, I darkened the eye so that it was a little more obvious, but decided not to darken any of the other lines. It's a little less abstract in real life, when you can look at it up close. I think that, if I were to try this again, I wouldn't limit myself to a specific starting point.

One of my favourite writers on London is Iain Sinclair. In his book London Orbital, he details a journey along London's ring road, the M25, in a highly personal but compelling account. It makes me think that, the next time I go to London, I should consider taking this map with me to try and walk its circumference. Good thing I didn't cut any of the lines in the middle of the Thames.

Elephant Lore of the Day
In today's London, Elephant and Castle is a major road intersection, occupying the former site of an eighteenth-century coaching inn by the same name. Before the inn was built, the site was occupied by a blacksmith and cutler (a maker of knives and weapons with a cutting edge). This is probably where the name originally came from, as the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Cutlers features an elephant with a castle on its back. The Worshipful Company chose the elephant for their coat of arms because of the once-extensive use of elephant ivory in knife handles.

Elephant and Castle was badly bombed in the Blitz in 1941, but was extensively redeveloped in the 1960s. It now includes an office tower called Hannibal House—named for the Carthaginian general who crossed the Alps with elephants in 218 B.C.


To Support Elephant Welfare
World Wildlife Fund
World Society for the Protection of Animals
Elephant sanctuaries (this Wikipedia list allows you to click through to information on a number of sanctuaries around the world)
Performing Animal Welfare Society