Today I want to share with you something fun and special, since my last post where I made a llama I wanted to explore more in that anthropomorphic concept in surrealism.
I was practicing some cool concepts, like drawing some animals and then I explored some of them from my country, Bolivia. In fact there are some animals that are barely known and are really beautiful but sadly some of them are on the brink of extinction.
So I wanted to make some surrealist art with a bolivian twist in honir of those species , I choose two animals that I really like, a borochi (chrysocyon brachyurus) a.k.a. maned wolf and an andean condor (vultur gryphus).
They both look really cool, so I wanted to make them having fun relaxing in a bar drinking, in Bolivia there is a famous alcoholic beverage called "chicha" that's made of corn and people when they are at parties play a typical game called "CACHO" using a leather cup and five dices.
That was the concept of this surreal artwork, and I'm gonna explain the meaning in the last part of the post but first let's begin with the sketch!
Process
I dont know why but I find that drawing on the computer it's easier, I dont know why, I guess it's because I'm more focused and not that distracted with other apps, so like the previous artwork of the llama, I started with the PAINT software, making a sketch with the pencil, of this beautiful south american large canine that in Bolivia we call BOROCHI, in english it's called "Maned wolf" here is the wiki if you want to know more about this amazing animal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maned_wolf
I used this photograph as reference:
And I also saw a few videos of this animal that I found and they move really cool, like a fox almost but this aninal is much bigger with 150 cm. , it's hard to find videos of this animal because he moves at night.
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=393073305786905&set=a.103167718110800
I like how the neck is large and flexible, so I try to capture that on the drawing with that photo as reference.
Then I made a andean condor, for that purpose I used as a reference a photo from National Geographic, here is the link:
https://www.nationalgeographic.es/animales/condor-andino
The opposite of the dog that has a large neck this animal has the shortest neck ever.
When I put them some cloths I was shocked because they really kinda look like they have a personality.
It's weird and I dont know how to explain it but they look like bolivian people for some strange reason.
I draw the jar of Chicha in the table that is typically made of glass, inspired by this reference:
...and the Cacho dice game is also present in the table with a "dormida", a dormida is when the five dices thrown end up on the table with the same number on the top, if you get this you immediately win the game.
For the colors I used a palette of actual bolivian bars like this one:
https://www.pub.eldiario.net/noticias/2014/2014_03/nt140312/nacional.php?n=40&-federacion-de-vendedores-de-chicha-convoco-a-ampliado
Like my previous llama drawing there comes a point where you can't improve the drawing in Paint software, so I changed to Sketchbook app, I used the marker to make the lines adding more details and over all, the quality was so much better because of the size of the canvas.
The marker made it look more like a comic book, that I really like for this project so I kept this aesthetic. And it gives me inspiration for future projects, who knows maybe I could make a story line with this types of characters. Because I feel like this style has a ton of potential for telling stories, just because it gives so much personality to these characters.
Once that was made I little by little I put some more colors and more details.
I noticed that the condor looked like he was wearing a hoodie, so for the maned wolf I decided to use the same vibe and I put cloths of the same color as his actual wolf fur, a jacket in this case and he is holding a "tutuma" that people use to drink the "chicha" traditionally.
I also noticed that making perspective in these types of artwork is really difficult but with patience and logic you can figure it out eventually, after some attempts.
The color of the wall was very interesting, since I wanted a color that made contrast but I realized that it was a better option to just taking a reference of a real place, so I used an true "chicheria" from a youtube video of the museum of the chicha in the "Punata" village that I didn't even know it existed but here is the link:
Final
For edition I used the Sophia effect on Pixlr app, because it gives the edges a dark tone and it make it look like photograph, and that's exactly what I wanted, just a memory of two friends having fun.
Meaning
When I make surrealist drawings I don't really like to be prepared any plan when I start I usually just try different things and see what works and what not.
It's just after it's done that I see that the beauty of surrealism is that you don't have to be prepared because the project it self will guide you, that's really the point of all of this.
Mainly I wanted to portray a typical bolivian party, like the memories of the times when I was younger and used to go to these places.
And inspired by the llama drawing from my past post I wanted to make antropomorphic characters.
I looked some of them and I used this maned wolf that is an animals from the east of my country where it's basically the rain forrest, where we have a hot temperature all year long and the andean condor that is typical from the mountains of the west of the country where it's really cold.
To be honest my country Bolivia right now is divided, the society is having a big crisis in many ways and sometimes it feels like everyone is against each other, and we can see a lot of tension between people from the east and the west specially. That makes me so sad because it creates even more tension between bolivian people.
Mainly this is happening because of politics.
I live in the middle, the valley where it's not hot and it isn't cold neither , so I wanted to represent that too with the chicha, a traditional drink from this part of the country.
I only wish my country Bolivia would be like this drawing, the east having fun with the west, in the valley, so we can fix our country together.
That's my hope anywways.
I had a lot of fun making this project since the start, I hope you enjoyed it too.
Until next time with more art!
