Manticore

The manticore (Early Middle Persian Merthykhuwar) modern persian (“Mardykhor”) is a Persian legendary creature similar to the Egyptian sphinx. It has the head of a human, body of a lion and a tail of venomous spines similar to porcupine quills, while other depictions have it with the tail of a scorpion. There are some accounts that the spines can be shot like arrows, thus making the manticore a lethal predator. It eats its victims whole, using its triple rows of teeth, and leaves no bones behind.

Although I really enjoy this research on mythical creatures, I don’t feel a personal connection with the subject matter. However I am really enjoying layered illustration and would like to stick with this medium, just with a different subject matter maybe.

A lot of my work up until now has explored mental health as it is a subject close to me, and I feel like I’d like to return to this with this new medium.

Kelpie

Kelpie, or water kelpie, is the Scots name given to a shape-shifting water spirit inhabiting the lochs and pools of Scotland. It has usually been described as appearing as a horse, but is able to adopt human form. Some accounts state that the kelpie retains its hooves when appearing as a human, leading to its association with the Christian idea of Satan as alluded to by Robert Burns in his 1786 poem “Address to the Devil“.

Through my mythical creature research, I found the Kelpie to be very interesting.

I have depicted this creature, again, through layered illustration. I am beginning to really enjoy this medium and am excited to explore it more.

Designing my own creature

Rose quartz dragon

On the subject of mythical creatures I decided to make a sculpture of one of the most well known creatures. I used oven bake clay. The first one I made sadly burnt in the oven (R.I.P), but the second dragon turned out good.

Mythical creatures

Centaur  – Half-men, half-horse creatures that ran wild and unruly.

Dragon – Giant, flying, fire-breathing lizards who often guard treasure.

Griffin  – A creature with the body of a lion, the tail of a snake, and the head and wings of an eagle.

Manticore  – A mythical beast with a lion’s body and a human’s head.

Unicorn  – A magical horse with a single horn on its forehead.

Werewolf  – Human by day, wolf by night.

Mermaids  – Sea creatures with the head and torso of a woman and the tail of a fish.

Mythical illustration

I enjoyed making my first illustration of the ship, however I wasn’t too invested in the subject matter. So for my second one I decided to look into mythical creatures as this has always been of interest to me.Although I feel this piece is less successful, I deeply enjoyed the research behind it and learning about different myths and legends so I think I’ll explore this a bit further.

My first layered illustration

To create this I drew the 2d picture of the ship and sky with pen and ink. I then printed out several copies, and cut out different sections to create the layers. The height comes from sticky pads.

I think this is a successful piece.

Adam Ohlers

This is an artist I found on instagram who started my shadow box journey. I love the illustration style and of course the different layers. I find them enchanting and captivating- like a little world of his own. I wanted to harness that. Although my world was to be darker.