The three lands, Maps and Networks

February 06, 2021

The three lands, Maps and Networks

Next for my project research I had to look into what kind of animals live in each of the places I chose. I chose three lands that were on google engine, so they are a little random, but they were my favourites from there. 1. Nuflo de Chavez, Bolivia 2. Toliara, Madagascar 3. The Aral Sea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan

NUFLO DE CHAVEZ, BOLIVIA

I liked this one as it showed a dramatic change caused by agriculture. The rich forests become fields.

I looked at loads of different websites to get an idea of the life that lives in Bolivia. One was The Diverse Wildlife in Bolivia - Bolivia Hop from which I took a couple for my final. This was the initial list of animals I could do: tropical birds, jaguar, monkeys, spectacled bear, snakes, chinchilla, sloths, capybara, tapir lizards and butterflies

Reference photos I ended up using:

The spectacled bear

I feel like I won´t have enough time to add all the animals and details I wanted. I´ve started with the Aral sea one I only used simple shapes. For speed that is much better, I will never finish if I add a load of details to every animal. I hope that they will still be recognisable though.

It was actually quite hard to find photos of animals from above. A lot of the time I had to improvise and imagine it. Thats also why I ended up using reference photos of other bears for the spectacled one and other owls for the madagascan one.

TOLIARA, MADAGASCAR

I chose this one as it is also very dramatic and this time it shows pure deforestation, what I wanted to show to begin with.

I watched a documentary and looked online at what sort of species live in the west side of Madagascar. I made a list of animals I could draw:

several species of lemurs, snakes, spiders, iguanas, lizards, fosa, birds, chameleons, butterflies

The reference photos I ended up using:

Madagascan red owl

Lemurs:

Sacred Ibis:

ARAL SEA, KAZAKHSTAN AND UZBEKISTAN

I liked this one as I thought it was really dramatic. We see the Aral Sea almost completely drying up, leaving behind a salted desert. I also liked the idea of drawing fish, otherwise I think I wouldve gotten very bored drawing similar animals for all of them. I also just like the blue colour it gives.

Very interesting reads:

https://matadornetwork.com/read/aral-sea-ecological-disaster/

The North Aral Sea Teems With Fish Thanks to Restoration Projects (nationalgeographic.com)

Notes from the National geographic article:

Turns out the of the Aral sea condition has finally taken a better turn and some fresh water fish have returned:

"while the sea will never return to its former size, the 18 percent increase in mass of the North Aral Sea is a testament to how political will and scientific research can benefit the environment."

The reason for its demise was soviet agricultural policy. It was very interesting to read how this ended up to it completely drying up.

"At its peak in 1957, the Aral Sea produced more than 48,000 tons of fish, representing roughly 13 percent of the Soviet Union’s fish stocks. By the 1980s, due to the rising salinity of the sea, the 20 native species of fish were decimated; commercial harvests plummeted to zero by 1987. The water from the sea receded, and today, the shore is about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Aralsk."

I also found this very interesting:

During those decades, flounder was the only fish that could survive the high-salinity North Aral Sea. But after the Kokaral Dam was finished, the average salinity dropped from 30 grams to 8 grams per liter, prompting the return of almost two dozen freshwater species through the Syr Darya river.

I think I´m going to draw flounder. They are very creepy looking already, so them as a ghost would be perfect.

The national geographic article also talks about the huge human impact it had. Basically everyone living around the sea lost their jobs and moved out. "When he was a young boy, there were 90 houses in Tastubek. “By the mid-90s, there were only nine houses left,” he said. This year, he counted 34, an increase from last year’s 29. " This made me think that I could maybe even draw people. I could have a couple or at least one of them to walk away and disappear. The only thing is I´m not sure how easy it would be to draw a person, walking, form above.

Here are the names of the freshwater fish that disappeared (but that have now started to come back):

zander, asp, bream, roach, pike pearch

These are the fish I want to draw along with the flounder.

Other things I looked at:

https://whitehorsepress.blog/2018/08/17/ii-the-flounder-and-the-danes-rebuilding-a-fishery-on-the-

north-aral-sea/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea#Formation

Delta Blues (in a land of cotton) on Vimeo

The list of things I want to draw:

lots and lots of fish, muskrats, people, few birds maybe

The flounder (my only reference photo I used):