This is my first time participating in Illustration Friday. The pelican symbolizes sacrifical love (especially that of a parent for its offspring). Pelicans have pouches from which they feed their young, and it was misunderstood as them pecking open their own chests to feed their baby birds with their own blood.
The mythos that evolved from this was abundant. In some cases, the baby bird had already died and the parent pelican was reviving it with its heart-blood to bring the little one back to life. This has a very "Christian over-tone" and was adopted by many Medieval Christians. One of the saints, I think Saint Gertrude, had a vision of Christ as a pelican performing this same task.
The collage was done fairly quickly and is a little rough, but I've got projects up to my ears that I have to finish!
9 comments:
This is similar to my firt idea. It´s nice to see your interpretation.
Interesting work.
I really like your style and interpretation of the theme! Welcome aboard!!!
lovely piece of work
Love your expression of this theme! Great color composition and great style!
Complimenti
Welcome to IF - this is really a great piece. A very unusual take on the theme; I hadn't heard of the myth before.
P.S. your book of lost love looks amazing!
Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I haven't done straight-up "illustration" in a while and sometimes get a block when I think of it as "illustration" and not "fine art." Silly. I know.
I was a little hesitant to post this piece, because I usually prefer things to be a lot sharper or a lot more resolved. Seeing it up though, I can see clearly and equally the problem spots and the goodie spots.
I think my biggest mistake, is that I cropped the image. What's missing isn't a whole lot, but I think it played a drastic part in bringing it all together. Now the entire right side of the composition is just dead.
This was definitely a good exercise and I can't wait to do more!
P.S. Thanks gabrielle! The book was a lot of fun to make. I love trading and sharing my work.
andrew
welcome to IF! great piece!!! thanks for all your helpful comments on my blog.
xxxox
Welcome to IF and nice job! Thanks for your kind words on my blog. :-)
This is very passionate and raw feeling. I like the energy it has, and I like your style. You have a strong combination of hard and fluid shapes that creates harmony on the one hand and tension on the other...perfect for the idea of sacrifice. I don't think any sacrifice comes without some kind of inner conflict...
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