This needle felt owl, has been one of my favourite pieces to of made. There is just something so fun and exciting about making an animal with front facing eyes. I find it somewhat easier to add extra expression and emotion, in turn, making them easier to read and understand.
The whole tableaux needs to have an element of intrigue and wonder, whilst highlighting its intended composition. However this does not mean it has to be read like a book and you are always free to look wherever you wish and would encourage you to do so as there will be many curios hidden though out, sometimes n plain sight and some being much more subtle.
The owl Plays the roll of the judge in my telling of this tale and has been an imperative character to add to the tableaux. He will be giving a much needed direction and orchestration to the observer. I will, as I have said many times before, be making my creatures and animals animatronic in the coming years/months, but for now, his presence here is key and where he will be situated too will aid in the direction.
The use of colour does help to aid in this, whilst traditionally, he would have been wearing full red robes/silks, I didn’t like this as an option, purely for the fact, he would of had a festive almost ‘Santa Claus’ like feel and being as I have completed him at the end December, I felt this was far too festive and was not focusing on darker look of the overall piece, so I chose to dress him in black robes instead, whilst wearing a nice red undercoat to make him really pop. The scene will be quite dark, so this will help him to stand out..but just enough without over shadowing the smaller characters. He has to have a presence, but not be the only one you see.
He is of course displaying the black cloth on top of his wig, which was traditionally placed there, when passing the death penalty..now this may seem slightly harsh, but this is supposed to of taken place in a very different period, one, where even as a child, you could be in prisoned on a boat and sent off to Australia for simply stealing a loaf of bread when trying to simply survive, never to be heard from again. I don’t believe our justice system works particularly very well even now, but without a shadow of a doubt, we have become far too soft and disproprtionatly left leaning.
I know the story I am writing, both inside and out, so will always have my own vision, but I want others to take from this what they will and create their own vision too, which I believe is incredibly important when loosing yourself into fantasy art.
When researching into the construction of this piece, I found I have learned so much I never even gave a thought about, from the use of colours in the robes, their significance to the times of year and of course the different periods too. This also meant I had to rework the wig too, as it just didn’t have that heavy drop at the front, that is so iconic of a hight court judge and looked much more like a hat bas you can see in this video .https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy-4-KHIvma/
I will be adding the last final and very important pieces to the tableaux in this coming year and hopefully, but also sadly, be drawing this story to end. I say sadly, but only as I am still having so much fun with and will really miss story boarding this tale.
I have many new ideas for the future though and will be left very happy in the knowledge this will still be left standing in my eventual absence, introducing new eyes and ears to the story I have written, whilst fundamentally keeping the original story very much alive and how the ‘The death and burial of poor cock robin‘ had first inspired me.
