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| Picasso's Camel |
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| My version |
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| a sampling of the preliminary sketches |
I didn't even know Picasso had a camel actually, but I saw it on a tea set at a friend's house and thought it was a great design idea for a repeatable image. I figured if it is on a tea set it probably is not copy righted, but still I would rather come up with my own stuff rather than just repeat someone else's image. One of the main things I didn't like about Picasso's version was that it has two humps and the camels here in Bahrain have only one. I wasn't particularly fond of the head either as it looks more like a llama to me. The other thing is that the camels hold their heads even with or lower than their hump most of the time in my observance. The camels feet are like big cleft thick pancakes that spread out all the way around the leg as they step. Their bellies protrude and their hips are really small through the flank area.
So I set about making my own version. I drew and redrew and redrew some more. I bet I have drawn this out over a hundred times and it is still not perfect! It is amazing how the tiniest variation makes such a difference when you are dealing with such a simple design. When I drew the camel too close to reality (much more spread out from head to tail) then the design wasn't as interesting. I had to compromise back and forth trying to perfect the image so that it was both recognizable as a camel around here and a pleasing design element. I wonder how many times Picasso drew his out. Probably only once... I guess that's what makes him Picasso! LOL!
