In Inuit and Alaskan folklore, the Urayuli, or "Hairy Men", are transformed children who got lost in the woods at night. They are described as having long arms and large glowing eyes. The idea of this piece was that it would be printed and folded into a tiny concertina, between 5 and 9cm tall, to show the stages of a lost child becoming a Urayuli.
1st frame: A child in a hide coat.
2nd: The coat puffs out to become fur, the child is slightly taller.
3rd: Taller again and antlers starting to appear. Their arms are now dragging along the ground.
4th: Growth spurt! The face is now obscured by fur.
5th: Fully transformed.
6th: The child finds others.
I wanted this piece to be inspired by the style of Inuit art, which uses mostly stark black and white. However, I had the image in my head of a style more suited to children's books. Whether this combination works or not, I'm not sure, but I definitely like the outcome.
I was originally going to do a series of lino cuts for this piece, but after printing a few test-cuts I felt they weren't good enough to justify using them for a final piece. Instead I have used a digital style with no shading and simple shapes. Only the texture I have overlaid offers range in tones. In my test lino cuts, I created a texture very similar to the one in the fur on this digital piece. I think it works better digitally.
I may come back to this and make a more lino-cut-ish, Inuit-ish version, but for now I am happy with how this came out.
Update: Which colour scheme looks best? Darkened this one, and upped the contrast, and fiddled a bit, trying to get a more "Inuit-y" colour scheme.
Fiddled with layers and thresholds for more of a black and white look, with a hint of colour and tone still in there so no everything is lost. Better than the one above.
