The more Unicorns that I started to paint, the more I felt compelled to learn more about the creature and its history.
Somehow, over time, the Unicorn had morphed. In China, the Qilin or Kirin is the “Unicorn” of their mythology. The colors vary, and it even incorporates body parts from other creatures.
Over time, it became a white horse with a gold or silver horn. Current pop culture includes rainbow hair and a love of sweet treats.
After painting three and having a couple more pop up in my queue, I felt I needed to look deeper into the history of the Unicorn. I wanted to find a balance between historical references and nods to popular culture.
I started by stripping away layers to arrive at the core of what a Unicorn is…
A magical horse with a horn.
So, temper this with this historical descriptions, and a few sprinkles of modern details and the series “Not Another Unicorn…” was born.
Ok… I admit it. There’s another side to the story.
I was rather reluctant to embrace the Unicorn as something that has become such a deep part of my life.
Part of it is a bit of a double entendre. “Not Another Unicorn” as a phrase began because of my reluctance to accept that I was painting Unicorns. There’s any number of other three dimensional objects I was more interested in painting, but for reasons I don’t understand, they’ve kept coming to me.
So as a part of acceptance, I wanted a way to also inspire me to keep expanding into more unusual Unicorns. Not only did I want to personalize them for their caretakers, but for my own creations I wanted to challenge myself.
Over time, I built up a list of ideas for Unicorns inspired from research, and others have come from suggestions or other means.
I honestly didn’t think I’d be looking forward to the way I look forward to a new Unicorn project the way I do now.
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