Day 218 ~ Do something with measurements.

I found the pictures for my flip book (Day 217) in Ernest Thompson Seton's book, Art Anatomy of Animals, first published in 1896. He had taken them from the famous Muybridge photographs of a horse in motion. Also in that book are charts of precise measurements of animals, including the horse.

For this piece I started with one of my brightly painted watercolor papers, cut it into 1" squares and reassembled it, quilt-like, onto a 5"X7" piece of mat board. Using translucent paper, I copied the charts and diagrams of 'The Size and Proportions of the Horse', found in Seton's book, and embellished them with some ink work. I layered the copies over the watercolor and attached them by drilling holes through the surface, including the foam core background, and sewing on beads, knotting the ends of the thread together on the back. I used archival adhesive on the other details ~ the bundle of horse hair from a violin bow, smaller pieces of the bright watercolor, a tiny print of an ink and watercolor painting I did, and you might recognize the drawing of the running horse on the bottom from the flip book.