Animal Art
Tue Jan 11, 2011 3:37:39 am

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For my very first blog, I wanted to comment on something strangely close to me. I love collecting and studying art, specifically anything with animals. When I was much younger I enjoyed drawing horses and cartoon animals. Now that I'm older and have a few grey hairs, I spend most of my time looking at art on the internet. I do searches for animals. I like subjects that give us a closer look into their world.

Their world is not just warm blankets and nice cans of Alpo. Sometimes they suffer by our hand or the hand of big business. No, I'm not a vegatarian, so I guess I'm part of the problem. I do wonder sometimes if animals have souls. I'm not particularly religious, but I do have my ideas of divinity. I just can't imagine a world where animals aren't given the right to express, and to live, and be as much of creation as us.

Maybe I've gone off the deep end of this blog, so let me bring it back to maybe a less controversial level. Let me talk a little about the art I enjoy. If you ever get the chance, you need to really look at Arthur Rackhan's illustrated Aesop Fables. Here are some images. http://www.nocloo.com/gallery2/v/arthur-rackham-aesop-fables/ Rackhan really captures the personalities of his creatures. I think this is important to make the reader care about the idea behind the illustrations.

I also ran across some unusual images on redbubble, by an artist named Ralph Slatton. Slatton has a very dark side to his illustrations, maybe because of the materials he works. I like Slatton's prints, but prefer the kind of images like those done by Rackhan. Both are well done. Here are some of Slatton's images: http://www.redbubble.com/people/ralphslatton

My latest project is reading George Orwell's, "Animal Farm." I haven't completed it yet, but it's idea sounds very symbolic. Maybe that will be my next blog post.