Armenian Avatar

In my previous posting, I mentioned that I was planning to paint on three hare hides when they were ready. I had shown the second one on my easel waiting to tell a story. Here is the before and after:

The shape of this tabula rasa hide seemed to be most conducive to a portrait. The non-symmetrical shape of this natural canvas made me think of a portrait “with an angle”.

After a few minutes of thinking I decided to paint my first humanoid à la Avatar…

Here is the first pass. The eyes are human, the rest is fiction. At this stage the face is too round with no shades and expressive muscle tone.

To enhance that character, I experimented with placing three hare tails around his head.

I did not like that.

Instead, I reshaped the naso-frontal plane. Now it is less human and increasingly Avatar. Next, I arced its forehead with  few turquoise and other stones, and a peacock feather atop.  And to increase the depth of field, I painted the surroundings of its face.

Now, I have my first Avatar. The tilt in its imaginary neck gives it a mischievous character. That will make it stay apart from my other paintings.

March 31, 2019

© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2019