An Elephant a Day 2.0: elegram project

Monday, 15 June 2015

Elephant No. 135: Guest Artist Lori Seguin

I love that Lori—who, to my knowledge, has never drawn or painted an elephant in her life—decided to produce this quick sketch for the #Elegram Project. I honestly don't know why she hesitated, because she's clearly a natural.

I met Lori through her equally talented actress sister, Jennifer, and was able to attend one of her first shows in Montreal. I bought a couple of paintings at the show, in addition to one I'd bought earlier. Not sure which of the ones I own is my favourite, and I'm kind of partial to a few of her newer works as well.

The Cowboy, the Princess and the Horse (2013)
Lori Seguin
Acrylic on canvas
16 x 20" (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Source: Loriville

Lori often starts with a photograph that piques her interest, then adapts it in her own unique way, adding pattern, colour, overlays, and even text. One of the works I own has feathers embedded in the paint; in another, the subject's hair stands on end, rising up and over the top of the frame.

Got My Hair Did (2010)
Lori Seguin
Acrylic on canvas, resin frame, dye, latex gloves
7 x 9 inches (17.8 x 22.9 cm)
Private Collection
Source: Loriville

Spinarette (2013)
Lori Seguin
Acrylic on canvas
11 x 14 inches (28 x 35.5 cm)
Source: Loriville

Lori tells me she's been making art all her life, and I can attest to the fact that Lori pours her heart and soul into every work she produces. Friends, family, animals and pop culture all come into play—play being the operative word.

Fish-Eyed Hipster (2014)
Lori Seguin
Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 18 inches (50.8 x 45.7 cm)
Private Collection
Source: Loriville

Currently based in Montreal, Lori is completely self-taught and produces illustrations and cards in addition to paintings. And when she's not making art, she's probably drumming up a storm.

Cardy (2015)
Lori Seguin
Acrylic on canvas
12 x 12 inches (30.5 x 30.5 cm)
Private Collection

I'm still touched and amazed that Lori produced an elephant. I know she's resisted in the past, but she has a very big heart, and clearly the #Elegram Project is irresistible. To see more of Lori's work, visit her at Loriville.

Elephant Lore of the Day

While looking for news from the world of elephants and conservation today, I stumbled across a fundraiser called the Elephant Charge.

In October of each year, teams of cars and motorbikes take on a challenging course through the Zambian bush. Each team pledges a minimum of k4000 ($550 to $700 U.S.), which goes into a fund that is distributed to 12 causes all over Zambia, including elephant welfare.

A vehicle navigating the Elephant Charge course in Zambia.
Source: www.elephantcharge.org

Teams are given ten checkpoints, and must find their own way between them by travelling through valleys, up cliffs and over ridges. The winning team is the one that passes all ten checkpoints in the shortest distance possible. Those who've entered the Elephant Charge say it's a gruelling test of a team's driving, navigation and endurance skills. I've driven the crazy ten-minute Land Rover course before, but I'm guessing this is just a teeny bit more challenging.

The 2014 Elephant Charge raised more than K400,000 (approximately $55,000 to $70,000 U.S.) for wildlife preservation. To read more about this year's Elephant Charge, please click here.

Young African elephants.
Source: Solbitstravels

To Support Elephant Welfare

World Wildlife Fund

World Society for the Protection of Animals
The Nature Conservancy

Performing Animal Welfare Society

Zoocheck

Bring the Elephant Home

African Wildlife Foundation

Elephants Without Borders

Save the Elephants

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust

Elephant Nature Park (Thailand)

Wildlife Trust of India

Boon Lott's Elephant Sanctuary (Thailand)
Wildlife SOS (India)
The Elephant Sanctuary (Tennessee)

David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation

Big Life Foundation
The Asian Elephant Foundation

Wednesday, 10 June 2015

Elephant No. 130: Quick Sketch for the #Elegram Project

For today's elephant, I did a quick sketch with coloured pencils. Although I didn't have a lot of time today, I wanted to produce something in support of The Nature Conservancy's #Elegram Project, which aims at collecting 20,000 elephant images by the end of August 2015.

Why 20,000? Because that's the estimated number of baby elephants born each year—elephants that deserve our protection. Once The Nature Conservancy reaches its target of 20,000 #elegrams, it will receive a whopping $150,000 from private donors to help with elephant conservation and anti-poaching initiatives in Africa. With elephants being killed at an estimated 100 per day in Africa, there is no time to lose.

You can also take part in this great initiative. you don't need to be an artist, and you don't need to produce a polished creation. All of the elephants I created for the original Elephant a Day blog, as well the ones I created for this newer blog, have already been uploaded. Some of them are truly hideous, and others are ridiculous, but they all count. Yours counts too, so don't be shy.

To read more on the campaign, please click here. And, if you're a resident of the United States, your #elegram also gives you a chance to win a great prize pack. For sweepstakes rules, please click here.

Here's how you can help:

Make an elephant in any medium. Squish together something from clay or plasticene. Draw or paint with anything from magic markers to lipstick. Make a piece of jewellery, fibre art, a stuffed toy, a wire sculpture, soap, an apple pie. Anything goes, as long as it's an elephant. (And don't worry: you retain copyright to any elephant you create.)
Take a digital photograph of your creation, scan it, or save your digital art.
Go to the Nature Conservancy #elegram webpage and click on "Upload Your Elegram" at the bottom of the page.
Upload your image, fill in a few bits of text, hit "Submit", and you're done.

Making an elephant—or two, or three, or twenty—may not seem like much, but there is strength in numbers. Every #elegram posted brings The Nature Conservancy in Africa closer to its goal, and closer to the resources it needs to keep the world's largest land animal from extinction in the wild. For status updates, you can follow the #Elegram Project on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr.

Thank you. Africa's elephants thank you, too.

Elephant Lore of the Day

Today's elephant lore is adapted from the original Elephant a Day blog.

In 1999, Iain Douglas-Hamilton and his team from Save the Elephants tagged 14 African elephants with GPS collars, and monitored their movements over a period of several months. The resulting data revealed an fascinating phenomenon: elephants sometimes plan their migrations with almost military precision.

Some of the most interesting data came from a small herd in Laikipia in northern Kenya. The three members of this herd—a male and two females—remained in one place during the day, grazing happily. At nightfall, however, they often sprinted as far as 20 kilometres (12.5 miles) under cover of darkness.

At first, researchers were mystified. Elephants will normally move just a short distance away once they've exhausted a grazing area. These elephants were making mad late-night dashes. Although elephants often range across vast distances, it is highly unusual for them to run so far and so fast at night.

Then the team realized that the places in which the elephants stayed during the day were usually national parks or game preserves, where anti-poaching patrols are frequent. The places they crossed in a hurry were places where heavy poaching had occurred.

It is still unknown how elephants can tell the difference. There are no fences or demarcations to indicate areas in which poaching is prohibited, and encounters between a specific herd and poachers are not frequent enough to allow the elephants to develop an accurate map of where danger lies.

It is believed that elephants are likely combining their own experiences with the experiences of others. This knowledge is then communicated using a large repertoire of vocalizations, often over vast distances. Researchers are still astonished, however, at how precisely elephants stay within safe zones, suggesting that their conversations and spatial knowledge are far more sophisticated than anyone realized.