Wildlife Art In Grunge

Lynx Hunting Hare - the grain pattern of this worn wood reminded me of northern conifer forest in winter where a hungry lynx might hunt for hares

These artworks all started life as macro photographs of urban decay. Weathered urban surfaces can produce some wonderful patterns and, although they can have beautiful colouring, for these images I simplified them down to two-tone patterns.

Weathering is a natural process and so these patterns and textures from weathered surfaces are a great basis for natural subjects like wildlife. Once the backgrounds are prepared and the colours chosen using Photoshop it's just a case of looking at them until the possibility of a natural scene shows itself. Then I make the animal silhouette(s) in Illustrator and finally try to place the animal(s) into the image in a realistic way, again in Photoshop. This part is much easier in these simplified two-tone pictures than with the original full colour photographs.

Generally, I like to keep the added animals fairly small so that the grunge pattern has space to breath and display itself as a wider landscape setting. This is about wildlife in its place not just wildlife. The irony is that here their place has come from urban grunge.

Moose Abstract Land - a more watery texture with a hint of northern forest from paint flaking off an old wall seemed like a good place for a placid moose to hang out

Wild Horse - a grainy texture with a sense of some movement as an abstract scene for a horse to run through

Fox and Rabbit - this cluttered landscape came from a heavily weathered wall where two animals could easily bump into each other

Gecko Lizard - in this case the texture of an old wall remains as a wall for a camouflaged gecko to cling to

Horse and Cougar - this rough texture of an old wall with some drippy paint has the feel of a dry, sandy landscape which reminded of the scene of a Western, hence the choice of these two animals

Ibex World - scratched and flaky paintwork as a dramatic scene for a majestic ibex ram to stand on a rocky outcrop

Lynx from the Shadows - the more subtle textures of a different wall as a quieter scene for the stealth of a lynx

Otter Coast - the texture on an old plank of wood felt like the wash of waves up a beach so I added an otter