Les Lupins (The Wolves) is my second shadow box project, and is based on an illustration by Maurice Sand, who was a French, 19th century writer and illustrator.
The artwork is part of a series used to illustrate the stories in the book "Légendes Rustiques" (Country Legends) by his mother, George Sand. It depicts a group of 'wolf spirits' leaning against the wall of a cemetery, howling at the moon, and has always fascinated me.
When I conceived the idea of turning this image into a three dimensional project I felt so excited that it was as if Mr. Sand himself had whispered it into my ear!
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| Illustration by Maurice Sand for the story "Lupins et Lubins", 1858. |
The Shadow box
Emboldened by the success of my first shadow box, I took up the challenge and started working on the new project. It seemed pretty straightforward to me, but soon found out the difficulties of turning a two-dimensional image into a three-dimensional one, thereby staying as true as possible to the original.
The limited dimensions of the box (18x13x6 cm) did not help either! How was I going to squeeze a long, cemetery wall into such a tiny space, considering that the same needed to fade away into the distance! Much like a certain US president, I soon discovered that talking about building a wall is a lot easier than actually building one!
After much trial and error I concluded that the only way of doing this, and still have the wolf figures shown is a workable scale, was to use my artistic license and depict only a part of the original illustration, more specifically the three wolves closest to the viewer. So the scene in the shadow box became more of a 'snapshot' of the original.
One more thing: I used my artistic license again and added an element which, for obvious reasons, is not part of the original illustration, namely the cemetery behind the wall! I knew it was never to be seen once the wall was placed in front of it, but for some reason I still wanted it to be there, instead of an empty space. Below you can see the image hidden behind the wall, something that with time has become a recurring feature or 'trademark' of mine, like the poster inside the cardboard tube in the Miroslav Pecho project. As I painted the cemetery, I knew Mr. Sand would be watching over my shoulder and nodding in approval, with a smile on his face!
After much trial and error I concluded that the only way of doing this, and still have the wolf figures shown is a workable scale, was to use my artistic license and depict only a part of the original illustration, more specifically the three wolves closest to the viewer. So the scene in the shadow box became more of a 'snapshot' of the original.
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| The shadow box with in front of it an original, 19th century publication, and a modern copy |
"The
Lupines" (Original title: “Les Lupins”, 2017, shadow box, 7x5x2,5 inch).
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