Elephants on Parade

'Nanook' by Martin Aveling

Martin Aveling has painted a life-size fibre glass baby elephant as part of the upcoming Elephant Parade in London. During this summer 2010 launching in May, 260 painted model elephants will be placed all over London – the largest public art exhibition ever staged.

Martin has named his elephant Nanook, which is derived from the Inuit word for polar bear, and managed to render an exquisite work of art with manifold conservation messages – no mean feat!

“The first major hurdle before any painting even began was getting the elephant into the house! He was too big for the front door, so had to come in round the back, which meant lifting him over the fence. Eco Man and Van

Nanook completed

were excellent though. Not only for their environmental credentials, but they were extremely careful and gentle with the elephant, especially when taking it away. I did get the sense they took a fair bit of pride in being attached to this project, and they were enjoying seeing all the different designs emerging. Very nice people too.

So now I had a full size fibreglass baby elephant sitting in my living room and the question was what do I paint? I wanted to do something with a conservation/environmental theme, given the focus of the charity behind the event – Elephant Family and the sponsor – Fauna & Flora International, and also playing to my strengths as a wildlife artist, it felt appropriate!

Nanook showing polar bear

I also wanted to try and use the shape of the elephant in a clever way and weave the design around that. So I looked at the two templates for the standing and sitting elephants, and it occurred to me that the triangular shape of the sitting elephant looked like an iceberg, and that’s where the concept of using the iconic image of a polar bear on the melting ice-cap was born.

So I started playing around with the 2D templates of the elephant from different angles, and seeing how I could shape a polar bear out of the elephant head itself, starting with the ears as limbs. Originally I had the polar bear slumped over the iceberg, asymmetrically to the forward facing elephant, but when it came to applying the paint to the actual 3D model, I soon realised the proportions weren’t right, and from the front it looked far too squashed. So I changed it around and made the two ears as both hind legs, and used the curved head as the bear’s back and rear. Proportionally it worked a lot better this way round, and so I continued along this path..

I worked on the elephant alongside other projects for about a month and a half, trying to dedicate as many daylight hours as possible to painting the elephant. I took longer than I thought in the end, mainly because I’m less used to paints as I tend to work almost exclusively in pastel. Also I usually work on a flat surface and not in 3D. So it wasn’t without its challenges, but I did really enjoy it, despite having to work on Christmas morning!”

So we will keep you posted on news as to where and when Nanook will be located later in the Spring, meanwhile check out Martin’s blog for updates.

Other posts about Martin on DOV Astonishing Wildlife Prints
From Africa to Herne Hill with pastel pencils