Commenticius

Whilst ‘commenticius’ sounds like an over the top title for such a small sculpture, it’s Latin for “invented, devised, fabricated, imaginary”. This links with my intention for the artwork.

The piece was for a school project. We basically got to do anything, so I decided to explore the idea behind mythological creatures. I noticed how some of these creatures are simple combinations of regular animals (e.g. a unicorn = horse with a horn, harpy = bird with a woman’s face). I wanted to play around with this idea for myself, drawing inspiration from various wildlife around the world. My aim was to create a sculpture of an animal that looked familiar, but not exactly identifiable. Basically, I was creating my own mythological creature. Sort of.

I ended up with a simple design, using a generic bird head as the base, adding dear-like ears and thick horns. I finished the sculpture by covering it with oil.