An Elephant a Day 2.0

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

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

Wednesday, 9 October 2013

Elephant No. 37: Mechanical Paper Card

This was inspired by an elephant card I came across yesterday while looking for trading card designs. My first thought when I saw it on eBay was, "I want that!" Then, "I'll make that!"

The original is quite nice, and I may still buy it before the time is up, but if you're interested, you can find it here.

Novelty card produced for the Harlfinger
Baking Company, Albany, N.Y.
Source: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Elephant-
paper-doll-trade-card-Albany-NY-bread-
/231004556575

As far as I can tell from this smallish image, the main elephant has a curved slit for the ear, a curved slit under the trunk, and a curved slit in the leg for the tab you use to activate the card. Once I had this much figured out, my next thought was, "Lord help me," because I really suck at paper mechanics.

With visions of misaligned and ill-fitting tabs and slits dancing in my head, I sketched out an elephant on artist-quality bristol board. I sketched the whole elephant to start with, thinking that might help.

Before committing anything to ink, I figured out where the curved slits needed to be, and sketched them in. Next, I taped the original elephant sketch to a window, taped another piece of bristol board over top, and traced over the elephant again, again marking the slits. I figured this might help me when I went to make the mechanical part.

Given my lack of paper engineering skills, I decided I ought to test this design to see if it worked. I traced both parts onto scrap bond paper. Testing was a very good idea, because I discovered that the original design is unworkable. For the mechanics to function, the slits all have to curve in the same general direction. As you can see in the closeup of the ear, I had to cut, tape and recut several times before I got it to work at all.

Once I had everything figured out, I went back to my bristol board version and outlined everything with a permanent pigment liner. To make sure it wouldn't run when I painted it, I heat-set it with a hairdryer. I gave the mechanical part two eyes, figuring that this area would slide enough that I'd need two eyes to avoid having a periodically blind elephant.

To give it the look of an early-twentieth-century piece, I decided to paint it with gouache.

After the paint dried, I went back over some of the lines to give it the graphic look of the card that inspired me.

I cut the mechanical part out, and sliced the curved slits with a sharp craft knife. The original also has a cutout for the eye. Once everything was cut, I slid the moving portion through the little slits. The ear was a bit of a challenge because I had made the ear a bit too wide for the slit, but I managed to squeeze it through with some almost-gentle persuasion.

I was very happy with the way it looked, but it didn't really do much. For it to astonish and amaze, it probably would need much longer slits, and they would all have to be curved exactly the same. Things kept sticking around the tusk, for example. However, I know next to nothing about paper mechanics, so don't take my word for it.

For better or worse, here it is in action. I also discovered that, if I tugged on the tab instead of sliding it back and forth, I could make the ears flap and the trunk lift. I also discovered that the ear-flapping effect worked much better with my paper version than the one made of bristol board.

In the end, I liked the way it looked, but wasn't overly impressed with its mechanics. The mechanics also took me a stupidly long time to figure out and fiddle with, which tends to make me a little cranky. That said, it's pretty enough that I'll keep it, but not fun enough that I'll rush to make another one.

Elephant Lore of the Day

In the video I made a few days ago, there was a pair of photos relating to one of the most unusual and touching stories I've ever read about elephants. These were the photos:

Lawrence Anthony with former rogue elephant, Nana.
Source: http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2012/03/rescued-wild-
elephant-herds-inexplicably-gather-to-mourn-lawrence-anthony-
south-africas-elephant-whisperer.php

Thula Thula's elephants begin arriving to pay their respects.
Source: http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2012/03/rescued-
wild-elephant-herds-inexplicably-gather-to-mourn-lawrence-anthony-
south-africas-elephant-whisperer.php

The man in the first photograph is Lawrence Anthony. A longtime champion of wildlife, Anthony was also known as the "Elephant Whisperer" for his ability to rehabilitate elephants with severe behavioural problems—elephants who would otherwise be put to death. With him is Nana, a former rogue elephant who became matriarch of the herd at Thula Thula Private Game Reserve in South Africa.

The second photograph shows one of the Thula Thula herds, unexpectedly arriving at Anthony's house following his death in March 2012. In what appeared to be a tribute to Anthony, both of Thula Thula's elephant herds began arriving en masse within two days of his death.

As I wrote in my original Elephant a Day blog, the herds were at least 12 hours away when he died. According to Anthony's son Dylan, the elephants hadn't been to the house in 18 months, making their trek even more unusual.

Arriving within a day of one another, the herds remained quietly around the house for two days, then headed back into the bush.

It is not known why the elephants made the trek. Perhaps they missed seeing Anthony out in the bush, and came looking for him—although this was something they'd never done before. Or perhaps Anthony's family and friends were right in thinking that somehow the elephants knew he was gone, and came to pay their last respects, as they often do with their own kind.

To read more about Lawrence Anthony and the elephants of Thula Thula, click here.

The elephants of Thula Thula, arriving to pay their respects.
Source: http://blog.beliefnet.com/news/2012/03/rescued-
wild-elephant-herds-inexplicably-gather-to-mourn-lawrence-anthony-
south-africas-elephant-whisperer.php

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

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

Tuesday, 8 October 2013

Elephant No. 36: Trading Card

Today I thought I'd try making an elephant trading card, similar to the baseball and hockey cards my brothers and I collected as kids. I may try an artist trading card in the future, but for today I wanted to make a sports-style card.

I thought it would be interesting to use an actual elephant as the star of my trading card, so I chose Thiruvambadi. Thiruvambadi Sivasundar—to give him his full name—is a famous festival elephant in southern India. He is considered one of the handsomest of elephants, and even has his own fan club and music video. To read more, and see his video, you can check out the elephant lore in this previous blog post.

I found this photograph of Thiruvambadi to use for my card.

Thiruvambadi Sivasundar.
Source: http://www.hindu.com/2011/05/10/
stories/2011051060800300.htm

For the size of my card, I decided to go with the standard trading card size of 2.5 x 3.5 inches (6.3 x 8.9 cm). I cut out a couple of blanks from artist-quality bristol board. I only intended to make one card, but if I goofed it up, I'd have a spare.

I began by sketching the general layout of the card, using a couple of sports cards as my guide. They usually have some kind of border, a name in bold lettering, and maybe a year or some other kind of extra information.

I filled in the area allotted to the star's image with a stylized representation of Thiruvambadi, based on the photograph I'd chosen. In the end, I guess I was going for something that was a cross between a sports card and a superhero card. I also gave him the number "1", since this is my first-ever trading card.

When I was happy with the general look of everything, I went over the outlines with a permanent pigment liner, then heat-set it with a hair dryer. I always have trouble with lettering. I have nice handwriting, but my lettering always looks terrible. Oh well, this was another chance to practice.

I filled in everything with watercolour pencils. I used plain watercolour pencils rather than my favourite Inktense pencils, because this was a relatively small surface and I needed to be more precise than I can usually manage with the fatter Inktense pencils. The colour saturation isn't as good with regular watercolour pencils, and the coverage isn't as smooth, but I figured I could add more colour later, if need be.

I painted over everything with a moderately wet paintbrush. To give it a more graphic effect, I went over some of the lines with the pigment liner after it dried, and added some extra lines and shading.

I also filled in the back of the card with some general information about Thiruvambadi, and framed the information with some purple lines. Oddly enough, it was quite hard to find Thiruvambadi's vital statistics. I found his height, but not his weight, nor his age, nor anything else of interest. I did find things in a language that might be Malayalam, but it's not a language I know.

It's not perfect, but I quite like the final effect. The lettering displeases me, but the process was fun enough that I might just make more of these at some point.

Elephant Lore of the Day

Elephants are skilled at making their own tools to groom and scratch themselves, but there's clearly nothing like a readymade broom.

At the Forth Worth Zoo in Texas, keepers were giving one of their female Asian elephants her daily brushdown when she decided she could do a better job herself. Accepting the large push broom from her keeper, she happily brushed her forehead from top to bottom.

Asian elephant scrubs her head with a push broom, Fort Worth Zoo, Texas, 2013.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435431/Fort-Worth-Zoo-
Elephant-takes-brush-keeper-enjoy-good-scratch-head.html

Apparently deciding that this was a very nice tool to own, she refused to give it up, taking it back to her enclosure.

Mine! The elephant carts off its prize.
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2435431/Fort-Worth-Zoo-
Elephant-takes-brush-keeper-enjoy-good-scratch-head.html

The video below shows the elephant calmly grooming herself with the broom.

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)

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

Monday, 7 October 2013

Elephant No. 35: Charcoal Drawing

In the little music video/slide show thing I did yesterday, there was a photo of a little elephant that my husband Terrence really liked every time it flashed across the screen. (I made him watch the video multiple times, poor fellow.) So today, as a reward for his patience, I thought I'd draw the elephant in charcoal for him.

This is the little elephant he liked.

Young African elephants.
From The Secret Life of Elephants (BBC/2009)
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1117964/From-
tusk-till-dawn-The-stunning-round-clock-footage-elephant-familys-fortunes.html

I decided to use my new Derwent XL Charcoal blocks, which I bought a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't yet used.

I started by doing an outline with the ochre block. I sooo wanted to use a pencil first, but decided to be brave. Despite the size of the blocks, I opted to work on a relatively small sheet of watercolour paper, measuring 9 x 12 inches (22.8 x 30.5 cm).

Once I was happy with the outline, I began adding different colours of charcoal, smudging them in with my fingers. I hate the feel of charcoal on my fingers, but I didn't want the effect you get with a tortillon or blending stump, so fingers it was.

I had originally intended to do the entire drawing with the fat charcoal blocks, but I decided that I liked them better as a sort of colour underlay. To get the fine lines of wrinkles and sharper outlines, I used Derwent pastel pencils, which are also fairly smudgeable. I used the following pastel pencil colours: Ivory Black (67B), Chinese White (72B) and Umber (79B).

As a last touch in each of the elephants, I added a tiny dot of white to the eyes to give them a bit of extra life and sparkle.

The background looked a bit blank when I was done, so I pulled out one of the Derwent XL Graphite Blocks I'd used in an earlier blog post, and swirled in a bit of greenery.

I don't think I'm terribly skilled with charcoal, and I truly dislike having it all over my hands and my clothes, but I like the way this turned out. Hopefully Terrence will like it, too.

Elephant Lore of the Day

While female African elephants usually live in large, tightly knit herds, female Asian elephants were long thought to be antisocial. Asian elephants tend to live in small groups of friends, with few outsiders; however, it was recently discovered that they're actually social butterflies. Not only do they make friends across different groups, but they're also able to maintain strong friendships with elephants they haven't seen in months.

According to Sri Lankan behavioural ecologist Shermin de Silva, previous studies involved only captive elephants. Asian elephants are difficult to study in the wild, primarily because they live in dense forests. This meant that researchers could only observe them by clambering up trees and spying on them at water holes.

Recently, however, a population of Sri Lanka's elephants has become more readily observable. Beginning about 30 years ago, their forest was converted to teak plantations, and the region's main river was dammed. As a result, between 800 and 1,200 forest elephants now live on land resembling an East African savannah.

Tracking the relationships of 51 elephants in this group, researchers discovered that Asian elephants don't stick with a single social set. Originally thought to have a maximum of three friends, Asian elephants are now known to have anywhere from 10 to 50 close friends.

The study demonstrates that Asian elephants live in a highly fluid society, leaving and rejoining groups at will. This puts them in the same category as chimpanzees and bottlenose dolphins, and suggests a far greater degree of cognition than previously supposed.

Makes you wonder how many friends they'd rack up on Facebook.

To read the full article, click here.

Group of Asian elephants.
Source: http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/elephant-
learns-speak-korean.html

To Support Elephant Welfare

International Elephant Foundation Elephant's World (Thailand)