Today I was in what I'm told is The Biggest IKEA in the Land, where I came across an inexpensive lamp that looked like the perfect canvas for an elephant of some sort.
I don't normally shop at IKEA—I get confused too easily and end up lost and annoyed in bathroom accessories when I want office storage—but I was at a nearby mall anyway, so I went in and found this. The price was right at five dollars; although the price of the bulb at nine dollars was not. Luckily, similar bulbs are two for a dollar at the dollar store.
The name of this little number in IKEA-speak is "Låter", in case you want one of your own. What that name means, I have no idea. Google Translate says it means "lets". Gibberish in either language, if you ask me.
It comes, like most things IKEA, flat-packed and squished.
When opened up and smoothed out as much as possible, it looks like this. Good thing elephants are wrinkly.
I thought something realistic might be interesting—albeit not in realistic colours—so I decided to draw from a photograph. This is the photograph I chose.
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| African bush elephant. Source: http://true-wildlife.blogspot.ca/2010/12/african-bush-elephant.html |
I thought briefly about painting multiple elephants all around the lamp, then decided I'd rather not. One elephant was enough for today, although I thought I could probably continue the greenery all the way around.
Given that this is wrinkled, I settled on thinned acrylic paint as the least likely to flake off. I also wanted it thin so that some of the light would shine through.
When I saw this lit up in the store, it occurred to me that it would have been really cool to be able to paint something on both sides, so that it I got two different images, depending on whether it was lit or unlit. You can see what I mean in a previous post on hold-to-light images. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to take this apart without having to spend a lot of time reglueing it. Another time, perhaps.
I began by making a faint pencil sketch.
Next, I underpainted the elephant in various shades of purple.
I thought it might have more life if I used a bunch of other colours, so I added some blue, green, red, orange and yellow.
To finish it off, I added some outlines in a dark purple and painted the tusks white.
IKEA has a lot of paper-shaded lamps that would lend themselves readily to decoration like this. And most are reasonably priced. Despite the fact that I'm not fond of the IKEA shopping experience, it's a great place for stuff like this.
This lamp turned out a lot better than I expected, and only took me a couple of hours from start to finish. It looks much prettier in real life than in these photographs and, for five dollars, I like it enough that I'll probably end up going back to buy a couple more of these babies.
Elephant Lore of the Day
In March of this year, Australian tourists Kate and Marcus Westberg watched in amusement as a herd of elephant dithered about crossing the Chobe River from Botswana into Namibia. | ||||
| Herd of elephants preparing to cross the Chobe River to Namibia. Photo: Kate Westberg/BPNS Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/elephants- crossing-deep-river-photo-1790934 |
The elephants stood together on the banks of the river, venturing into the water twice before turning back. Finally, just before dark, the herd made a final attempt.
Quickly finding themselves submerged, the adult elephants formed a protective circle around the calves, and all stuck their trunks out of the water like snorkels. Happily, all of the elephants—including the babies—reached the other side safely.
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| Herd of elephants snorkeling their way across the Chobe River. Photo: Kate Westberg/BPNS Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/elephants- crossing- deep-river-photo-1790934 |
To Support Elephant Welfare
Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)
David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation
Big Life Foundation
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