'Bad Badger and Friends'

Here are the images of the final painting showing my character Bad Badger.

Designs for my final painting

I have two other ideas for the final painting but I feel they aren't as strong as my first idea. I have added them anyway to show my other ideas for the project.

These ideas also have meaning behind them the first two images are about what's been happening in the news  and how badgers giving cattle TB. The last two images are about the past when grey squirrels where introduced to the UK devastating our red squirrels and nearly whipping them out of existence.

Designs for the final painting

For my final painting I wanted to create my character in a creative space like Baseman would have done. His paintings have meaning behind them so I wanted mine to have meaning to show that I have truly thought about how the artist works. I based one idea on my past year of university and my experiences of being independent. I've designed the idea in a way that isn't obvious to its meaning. Baseman's paintings aren't obvious so I decided to do the same. The design for this idea is shown below. 

I called the idea 'Bad Badger and Friends' 

I will try to give a rough explanation to the meaning behind the idea. Every Character in the design means something to me, I've represented myself as Bad Badger and the llama and squirrels represent friendships I'd made along the way. The llama is carrying me along helping me through some of the rough patches I'd come across the past year. The worm like creature represents everything that had gone wrong and its wrapping itself around the llamas neck to show that not everything was going as smoothly as I'd hoped. The trees show how I'd grown as a person and how my skills had improved yet the colours oozing out of the branches represent how I have doubted myself as an artist.

This is one of my favourite of the ideas and I already know I want to create this one as my final painting. I will post the other two designs anyway.

Acrylic Study

Now that I know what my character looks like I thought I should attempt to work in the medium Baseman uses for his paintings, acrylic! I noticed Baseman uses a coloured outline around his characters but he doesn't use black, lets say one of his characters is pink he would use a really dark red or dark pink to outline the character. Keeping this in mind I created my acrylic study of Bad Badger in an interesting pose. 

I really like how this turned out all I need to do now is plan how I want to create my final A4 painting of Bad Badger. 

The creation of Bad Badger

So I decided to create my character by gathering images of animals and recreating them in the style of Baseman I remembered to include the oval eyes that he uses on all of his characters and I remembered to use unnatural colours for the fur. By studying images of Baseman's work and different images of animals I made five possible characters. I had to decided out of a pig, bear, llama, squirrel or badger.

 I used a public vote to decide which one had the most potential and the badger won. However it wasn't until later on in the day I noticed that badgers where in the news, they where being shot because they where giving cattle TB. After that I was convinced the badger was the way to go. Baseman used the past to influence his pieces so I'm going to use the news to help me develop my badger. 
Because of badgers reputation in the news I started to develop the badger to look a little more devious and cunning. I decided to name him the only thing I thought would work, 'Bad Badger'. 

Working like Baseman

After studying more of Baseman's paintings I can see that in his work many of the creatures/characters he uses represents creatures that are well known by the average person. For example he uses animals and mythological creatures but makes them his own by using the pop art style and of course his own way of painting. I have noticed that he hardly ever paints animals in there natural colours so when I come to do my character I will remember to turn the colours away from the natural. 

E.g.

Gary Baseman

Baseman is a contemporary artist and a man of many talents. A few of his creative fields include illustration, fine art, toy design and animation. 

Baseman's style is a form of modern pop art called pop surrealism. He is heavily influenced by pre and post war, cross-cultural mythology literary and psychological archetypes. His work reveals a mixture of different meanings but most of all he revels our inner basic instincts. 

One of my favourite pieces by Baseman is the painting shown below.

(Gary Baseman, The Explosion of Dream Reality, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 4 x 3 ft.)

He is best known for his playful, devious and cleverly named creatures which he uses again and again through out his work.

e.g.

(Gary Baseman, For the Love of Toby (2005), acrylic on wood panel, 24 x 18 in.)

(Gary Baseman, The Door Is Always Open, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18 in.)

I believe that if I develop a character influenced by Baseman it will really help me improve my skills as an illustrator.

Working from my images

After studying my photos of the owl I did some sketches and remembering how Rayner works I created my design for my character using watercolour (the same medium Rayner uses). I decided to name him Kevin after the owl I based him on. Overall I rather like how they came out, I believe you can see that  its influenced by Rayner.

Deciding which owl to use for my character

After painting all of the owls I decided that the great grey owl had to be my character. He was so full of charm and so odd looking he was perfect for the illustration. I went back to the owl sanctuary to get more pictures of him before going on to plan how he'd look in the style of Catherine Rayner.
Here are some of the images I took of the owl, his name is Kevin.

Close ups

Finished Owl Paintings