EQUINE TIME

This past month I have been taking Saul Chernick's class, "Drawing from the Bestiary: Animal Anatomy of Real and Imagined Creatures" as a part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy. I've had a great time! Saul is an excellent instructor and gave great suggestions and feedback on my work. One of the brilliant projects we did was to make articulated skeletons of an animal of our choice. Since I've taught some comparative horse anatomy, I chose a horse. Making the puppet is a great way to introduce students to the workings of bones and joints. We made rigid "bone" shapes from bristol, creating joints with tiny fasteners to make a moveable animal. 

Although every joint is basically a hinge on the puppet, creating the animal-as-skeleton helps reinforce the rigidity of the skeletal system and the idea that even the most basic movement requires the coordination of multiple joints. 

Saul brought his camera to class and we all made simple stop action animation gif-things (yeah, I know) with the puppets. Admittedly I could use a tutorial from Muybridge, but my kicking horse will never tire!