“Folking Canadian - The White Horse Plain”
Canadian tall-tales, campfire stories, and regional folklore’s romanticized reverence for the spirt of the nation, contrasted by society’s modern definition of it. Exploring the foreboding parallels between the stories told and the lessons never learned.
For my OCADU Illustration thesis, I am looking at traditional Canadian folk tales that emphasize the great wilderness and juxtaposing them to the perceived lack of respect for the environment in our modern era.
This piece is based on how the The White Horse Plains in Manitoba got their name. A Cree Indian story about two Native newly weds crossing the plains on grey and white horses. The couple got lost in poor weather and ended up succumbing to the elements. The tribe was able to retrieve the grey horse and the man’s body, but was never able to catch up the white one despite regularly seeing it around their settlement. Always just on the horizon, but would run away whenever a party would venture out to retrieve it. The region just west of Winnipeg has since been called the White Horse Plane, where some say the horse is still regularly seen.
I choose this story to start because I felt it was a fitting summery of how people can see, or think they see the image of what the nation use to be – some hoping for it to return. Romanticizing the unbridled landscape of yesterday, sometimes within reach but always unobtainable.
Original sketch and revised linear. I illustrated a setting sun on a valley, with the ghostly figure of a white horse just on the horizon.
Early stages of the digital file. Adjusting composition and colour exploration.
Progress and details shots while screen printing.
Final. 15x20
