Urban Animals - Art Gallery of Alberta

Interpretive Guide & Hands-on Activities 

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts 

Travelling Exhibition Program 2013-2015 

Urban Animals 

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The Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program 

The Interpretive Guide 

The Art Gallery of Alberta is pleased to present your community with a selection from its 

Travelling Exhibition Program. This is one of several exhibitions distributed by The Art Gallery 

of Alberta as part of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program. This 

Interpretive Guide has been specifically designed to complement the exhibition you are now 

hosting. The suggested topics for discussion and accompanying activities can act as a guide to 

increase your viewers’ enjoyment and to assist you in developing programs to complement the 

exhibition. Questions and activities have been included at both elementary and advanced levels 

for younger and older visitors. 

At the Elementary School Level the Alberta Art Curriculum includes four components to provide 

students with a variety of experiences. These are: 

Reflection: Responses to visual forms in nature, designed objects and artworks 

Depiction: Development of imagery based on notions of realism 

Composition: Organization of images and their qualities in the creation of visual art 

Expression: Use of art materials as a vehicle for expressing statements 

The Secondary Level focuses on three major components of visual learning. These are: 

Drawings: Examining the ways we record visual information and discoveries 

Encounters: Meeting and responding to visual imagery 

Composition: Analyzing the ways images are put together to create meaning 

The activities in the Interpretive Guide address one or more of the above components and are 

generally suited for adaptation to a range of grade levels. As well, this guide contains coloured 

images of the artworks in the exhibition which can be used for review and discussion at any time. 

Please be aware that copyright restrictions apply to unauthorized use or reproduction of artists’ 

images. 

The Travelling Exhibition Program, funded by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, is designed to 

bring you closer to Alberta’s artists and collections. We welcome your comments and 

suggestions and invite you to contact: 

Shane Golby, Manager/Curator 

Travelling Exhibition Program 

Ph: 780.428.3830; Fax: 780.421.0479 

Email: shane.golby@youraga.ca 

AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479 youraga.ca


Table of Contents 

This package contains: 

Curatorial Statement 

Visual Inventory - list of works 

Visual Inventory - images 

Artist and Curator Biographies/Statements 

A Brief Interview with Jason Carter 

Talking Art 

Curriculum Connections/Art Across the Curriculum 

Animals in Mythology and Symbolism 

Animals: First Nations Beliefs and Stories 

Animals: Scientific Studies 

Animals in Art/Art Movements 

Animals in Alberta Art 

An Urban Animal Story - news report 

Visual Learning and Hands-on Projects 

What is Visual Learning? 

Elements and Principles of Design Tour 

Reading Pictures Tour 

Perusing Paintings: An Art-full Scavenger Hunt 

Exhibition Related Art Projects 

Glossary 

Credits 

Syncrude Canada Ltd., the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Art Gallery of Alberta 

AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479 youraga.ca


Curatorial Statement 

Urban Animals 

into the minds of these rural animals now 

living in an urban world. 

Jason Carter’s fascination with urbanization 

started at a young age. Prairie dogs, moose, 

brown and/or black bear (amongst others) were 

not uncommon to come face to face with across 

the prairies of Alberta as towns and cities 

expanded. This development encroached upon 

land that had already been occupied not so 

much by man, but by animals. These animals 

would roam freely and, more importantly, safely 

through a land that provided them with food, 

shelter, and very often a sense of family and 

belonging. We as humans understand what it 

is like to have a home, a neighborhood, a roof 

over our head…but imagine if all that changed 

and you came home one day to find that your 

home had been moved, compromised or worse, 

eradicated? 

Jason’s latest series of 18 paintings intends to 

illustrate just that. He uses a modified 

triptych (three paintings) for each animal to tell 

the story. He uses the term ‘modified’ because 

normally a triptych consists of three paintings 

forming one image; here, there are three 

paintings forming one story. The first painting in 

the triptych is dedicated to the animal with 

nothing to distract from it except the colour 

and colour only enhances the animal. Jason 

often treats the colour in his paintings as the 

second subject, often equally as important as 

the main subject. Colour can be emotional or 

inspirational and has a subtext of it’s own. The 

colour established in the first painting is carried 

through to the second painting, where these 

animals are shown in their natural habitat: the 

prairies, the mountains, the river valley and so 

on. It is Jason’s intention to evoke a sense of 

the beauty and expansiveness of each of these 

animal’s natural habitats. Finally, the last 

painting in the triptych suggests what the 

‘natural habitat’ may look like now. It is not 

meant to shame or discourage expansion or 

industrialization: rather it is a fun exploration 

We can learn a lot from these animals about 

adaptation and resilience as we move 

forward in this ever-evolving world. It is 

Jason’s hope that this latest series will create 

a new consciousness and continue the 

dialogue regarding the land we live on and 

who or what we share it with! 

Bridget Ryan 

Jason Carter 

The City Moose, 2012 

Acrylic on canvas 

Collection of the artist 

The exhibition Urban Animals was curated by 

Bridget Ryan and Jaret Sinclair-Gibson and 

organized by the Art Gallery of Alberta for the 

Alberta Foundation for the Arts Travelling 

Exhibition Program. The AFA Travelling Exhibition 

program is supported by the Alberta Foundation 

for the Arts. 

The exhibition Urban Animals was made 

possible through generous sponsorship from 

Syncrude Canada Ltd. 

AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB. Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479 

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Visual Inventory - List of Works 

Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her Cub, 2012 


20 inches X 30 inches 


Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her cub in the backcountry of 

Alberta, 2012 




Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her cub in the back alleys of 





Jason Carter 

The Beaver, 2012 




Jason Carter 

Habitat for a Beaver, 2012 




Jason Carter 

Habitat for Humanity, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Moose, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Country Moose, 2012 




Jason Carter 





Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dogs, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dogs on the Open Prairie, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dogs on the Open Road, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Rabbit, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Rabbit Hole, 2012 





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Visual Inventory - List of Works 

Jason Carter 

The Man Hole, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Wolf, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Wolf and the Moon, 2012 




Jason Carter 

The Wolf and Oil, 2012 




Total Images: 18 2D works 


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Visual Inventory - Images 

Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her Cub, 2012 



Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her cub in the 

backcountry of Alberta, 2012 



Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her cub in the back 

alleys of Alberta, 2012 



Jason Carter 





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Jason Carter 




Jason Carter 




Jason Carter 




Jason Carter 

The Country Moose, 2012 




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Jason Carter 




Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dogs, 2012 



Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dogs on the open prairie, 

2012 



Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dogs on the open road, 

2012 




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Jason Carter 




Jason Carter 

The Rabbit Hole, 2012 



Jason Carter 




Jason Carter 





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Jason Carter 

The Wolf and Moon, 2012 



Jason Carter 

The Wolf and Oil, 2012 




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Jason Carter 

Jason Carter is one of Canada’s most exciting and accomplished visual artists. At the age of 31 

he was the only artist in Alberta to have had a feature showing at Alberta House on Alberta Day 

at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, and as such, was publicly acknowledged by the 

Honorable Lindsay Blackett at an International Press Conference kicking off the event. Jason 

has had three solo shows in the past two years and has been commissioned by the Winter Light 

Festival two years in a row to design a billboard for their promotional campaign. His work can 

be found in dozens of private collections (Mayor Stephen Mandel, Edmonton; the Alberta 

Foundation for the Arts collection; Alice Major; and Rogers Media to name a few) as well as 

several exciting public collections, including the Edmonton International Airport where he 

created a mural which resides above the International Departures Gate. On April 16, 2011, 

Jason launched his first children’s book, ‘Who Is Boo: The Curious Tales of One Trickster Rabbit’ 

(based on the character inspiraton of Nanabozho) at the Royal Alberta Museum. Recent 

exhibitions included Jasper: The Canvas and Stone Series in Jasper, Alberta (2011), as well as 

A Year of the Rabbit (2011) in Edmonton. His work is currently represented by The Bearclaw 

Gallery, Edmonton; Nativeart Gallery, Oakville, Ontario; and The Carter-Ryan Gallery, 

Canmore, Alberta. Jason Carter lives and works in Edmonton and is a member of the Little 

Red River Cree Nation. 

Jason Carter: Artist’s Statement 

Being an artist who divides their time equally between painting and carving, I have been gifted 

with the opportunity to express myself through two mediums, stone and canvas, and both I 

approach with humor and optimism. In the world we live in, there is much to be cynical about, 

but I have found an outlet that I, myself, gather much joy and light, and am so fortunae to be 

able to pass that joy on. As an Aboriginal man from the Little Red River Cree Nation, I gather 

much inspiration from the stories passed on by elders within my community, stories that have 

evolved and changed, some documented, some not, but the essence of these characters are 

passed on through the years. As an artist, I am inspired by the essence of some of these 

characters and then, in keeping with the tradition of my indigenous roots, create new stories 

filled with wonder and morals, and bring them to life through my chosen medium, canvas and 

stone with written word. 

As a contemporary Aboriginal artist in pursuit of becoming my true authentic self (in this ever 

evolving culture), I am aware that much of my craft comes from an innate ability that I have been 

born with, and believe this to be a blessing and a responsibility, both of which I take very 

seriously. I am continuously using my gift to create new stories inspired from traditional 

characters with my stone and canvas. I seek inspiration from the past as I create a bold and 

colourful future. 

I have fearlessly painted animals big and small. I am drawn to paint with colours that many 

would not. I believe in the empty space on canvas. I believe that colour can give us something 

image can not. Conversely, I enjoy breaking down the most complex animals to the very 

essence of their being. I have, to a certain degree, defined my paintings through these terms. 

Until now I have always wanted to paint a mountain. The inspiration I have found in the Rocky 


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Mountains as of late, the feeling of largeness and smallness at the same time, and always 

peaceful, has led me to a new place in my work. It was time to take the leap; combine essence 

with certainty, blends with bold and move forward. People have commented that they find a 

certain ‘happiness’ with my work. I truly hope you can feel the joy in it as well. 


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Bridget Ryan 

Bridget Ryan is an actor, singer, playwright, director and television host in Edmonton, Alberta, 

Canada. She graduated from MacEwan University as well as from the University of Cincinnati’s 

College Conservatory of Music with a BFA in Musical Theatre. She has performed in several 

national tours before getting off the stage to work alongside producers Richard Frankel, Marc 

Routh, Darryl Roth and Scott Rudin. 

Bridget has performed at theatres all over Canada and written four full length musicals including 

The Winters Tale Project and Wedlocked: The Musical (both with Chris Wynters) and plays 

Myles, The HypoAllergenic Superhero and His Superhero Friends, Counting Americans (with 

Dave Horak) and has been published by the Playwrights Guild of Canada. She returned to 

Edmonton in 2002, where she became, and currently is, Co-Host of CityTV’s Breakfast 

Television. 

Bridget’s artistic relationship with Jason Carter began in 2008 when she curated his first solo 

art show Nanabozho: The Trickster Rabbit. She has since curated three more of his shows and 

then in 2001 Bridget and Jason wrote their first children’s book WHO IS BOO: THE CURIOUS 

TALES OF ONE TRICKSTER RABBIT. This book was launched at the Royal Alberta Museum 

in Edmonton, Alberta, where thousands of children took in the show over it’s 3 month run. The 

book is currently being developed into a Children’s Television series as well as, working with a 

writing team from NYC, being developed into full scale musical premiering Fall 2014. In the 

winter of 2012 Bridget and Jason opened up The Carter-Ryan Gallery and Live Art Venue in 

Canmore Alberta on Main Street, a place where art and live performance exist happily under 

the same roof. Jason Carter and Bridget Ryan continue a prolific and exciting partnership with 

Rabbit In The Yard Productions, a multi-media production company that produces short films, 

promotional videos as well as music videos. In 2010 Bridget was named Woman of the Year by 

the Consumer Choice Awards in Edmonton. 

ABOUT BOO 

Who Is Boo: The Terrific Tales of One Trickster Rabbit is a 66-page illustrated children’s book 

written by Bridget Ryan and illustrated by Jason Carter that chronicles a perpetually curious 

rabbit who is in a continual race around the world with his brother, because ‘frankly, they forgot 

where they put the finish line’! Along the way Boo meets many animals. This fleet-footed rabbit, 

‘Boo’, inspired by Nanabozho, a trickster figure in Ojibwe mythology, is about curiosity that leads 

to wonderment that leads to helpfulness! In a world that runs the risk of become more 

disconnected (even though there is an abundance of social networking), it’s about stopping, 

connecting, and helping those we meet on our way. Watch out for the The Book of Boo: The 

Continued Tales of That Trickster Rabbit. 


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Cover and book pages from Who is Boo? The Terrific Tales of One Trickster Rabbit, written 

by Bridget Ryan and iIllustrated by Jason Carter. Published in 2011, this first book by Ryan and 

Carter tells the story of one hilarious rabbit named Boo. In a constant race around the world with 

his Brother, Boo meets some curious characters and helps them solve a multitude of issues. As 

described by the artists, ‘Boo’s race around the world has no end, only adventures!’ The story 

and illustrations were inspired by Nanabozho and Trickster characters everywhere. 


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Jaret Sinclair-Gibson 

Jaret Sinclair-Gibson is a Métis artist from Slave Lake, Alberta who now makes Edmonton his 

home. In 1999, he opened Sun & Moon Visionaries Aboriginal Artisan Gallery & Studio with the 

assistance of nine other Aboriginal artists. As a founding member of this Aboriginal-owned and 

operated business, Jaret has worked hard to build a staff base of 10 art administrators, artist 

instructors, and Elders, offering art and traditional cultural programming to Edmonton’s 

Aboriginal youth, families, schools and community agencies, as well as hosting numerous art 

receptions, shows and exhibits in support of Alberta’s Aboriginal artists and artisans. 

Jaret has served two terms as the Youth Representative on the Board of the Canadian Native 

Friendship Centre, three years on the Alberta Friendship Centre Association Youth Council and 

one year as the National Association of Friendship Centre - Alberta Representative. Jaret’s 

service to his community has earned him many accolades including the Aboriginal Role Models 

of Alberta Art Award in 2008. 

Sun & Moon Visionaries Aboriginal Artisans Society 

Sun & Moon Visionaries is a not-for-profit organization that has been delivering successful 

community-based arts and culture programming to urban Aboriginal youth and artisans since 

1999. It is a sacred space in which to receive traditional ancestral teachings and to create 

opportunities for the intergenerational sharing of knowledge, wisdom and culture, as well as a 

place for self expression and participation in cultural ceremonies. 

Sun & Moon Visionaries is commitment to supporting the growth and development of 

Aboriginal art and artists in Alberta, with specific emphasis on providing Aboriginal youth, artists 

and artisans with opportunities to develop as professional artists, recognized for their cultural 

knowledge, artistic skills and performance abilities. 

We believe in the importance of culturally relevant and appropriate barrier-free programming that 

addresses issues of peer mentoring, role modelling, traditional leadership training, and one-onone 

support. Our programs include the Aboriginal Cultural Art Development Program for 

Emerging Artists, the Sacred Self Master Artists Mentoring Program, the Sacred Self Visual Art 

Training Series, Music Recording and Mentorship. 

The intent of all Sun & Moon Visionaries programming is to improve the economic, social and 

personal prospects of urban Aboriginal youth and artisans, to provide accessible, communitybased, 

culturally relevant support to our urban Aboriginal community, as well as to honour the 

voices of our Elders, youth and artisan community. 



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An interview with Jason Carter 

According to Jason Carter, art ‘chose’ him. While he took art in high school, it wasn’t until 

many years after graduation that he became really aware of his artistic gifts. One year he was 

given a piece of soapsone for Christmas and one night, years later, he picked it up and carved a 

raven...and he has never stopped working since. 

Carter focused on carving for three to four years when, in preparation for an exhibition of his 

carvings at Sun and Moon Visionaries: Aboriginal Artists Society in Edmonton, he decided to do 

some paintings based on his sculptural work as he felt he needed something on the wall. His 

painting career has evolved from this first step and has also led to literary works, such as the 

children’s book Who is Boo? The Terrific Tales of one Trickster Rabbit, created in collaboration 

with Bridget Ryan. 

While raised in urban environments, Carter has always been drawn to the subject of rabbits and 

to nature. For the artist, art is a way to learn about what he doesn’t know - such as the natural 

world - and a means to teach himself the ‘process of doing’. 

Carter explains that his art style fits into the mold of aboriginal art and the Euro-American art 

styles of abstraction and Pop Art. He has always been drawn to blocks of colour, even as an 

art student in school, and this concern is readily apparent in his work. In his colour choices he 

swings between personal taste and symbolic uses. In the paintings concerning rabbits in the 

exhibition Urban Animals, for example, Carter uses orange because it is his favorite colour 

and rabbits his favourite animal. For the prairie dog works, on the other hand, the yellow is 

symbolic of wheat fields where prairie dogs can be found. 

Jason Carter 




In describing his Pop Art and Modernist sensibilities and his artistic intent in the series of works 

created for the exhibition Urban Animals Carter states 

I paint because I love colour, simply love it. The feeling, the emotion that one can get just from 

standing next to a large canvas that is painted in a rather brilliant colour, like an orange or a 


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An interview with Jason Carter 

red, is unparalleled in my opinion. We underestimate the power of colour. As a result, I try and 

minimize anything that might get in the way of colour, like an image; an image of an animal for 

example. Some people refer to it as the use of ‘negative space’- I find that term to be rather 

ironic, considering I feel such positivity coming from the colour. When I create a piece, I am 

aware that the image in the painting and the colour share the canvas. I hope people take in the 

colour of the piece as much as they take in the image on the colour, because in my opinion, they 

are one in the same. The Rabbit on Orange. The Beaver on Green. The Moose on Grey. The 

colour in each one of these paintings plays just as much of a part as the ‘character’ in the 

painting when experiencing the piece. The designs in the paintings are actually inspired by my 

carvings. I try and use the least amount of lines to convey and conjure the image, trying to find 

‘the essence’ of the animal. 

I love this series (‘Urban Animals) for the simple fact that it takes the ‘audience’ on a very clear 

journey as to what once ‘was’ to what it now ‘is’. You see a beaver on green. All you are aware 

of is the Beaver. You can consider the beaver: take in the beaver tail, it’s teeth and see the 

beaver, by it’s home, near the river. Finally though, the third painting in each series gives you a 

different perspective - the beaver is still there, but just by a much different ‘home’ and certainly 

not one belonging to the beaver. My hope is that it creates an awareness in the ‘audience’ that 

we are truly on a shared land and to value it as such. It’s not so much the evolution of the 

animal in this series of triptics, but rather the evolution of man on the animals’ land. It is my hope 

that we can begin that discussion. How common it is for highways and roads to have animals 

beside it - we point from our cars and yell ‘get outta the way!!!” But if a prairie dog could speak, 

the dialogue it might have with speeding vehicles through the prairies. Consider what a mother 

bear with her cub might say to all the developers encroaching upon their forests and mountains. 

Development is inevitable, but awareness is key in creating consideration and a certain 

‘mindfullness’ when sharing this land. I truly hope this series gives pause to celebrate the ‘paws’ 

that went before us! 


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Talking Art 

Jason Carter 

The Wolf and Moon, 2012 



CONTENTS: 

- Curriculum Connections 

- Animals in Mythology and Symbolism: A Survey 

- Animals/Birds: First Nations Beliefs and Stories 

Scientific Studies: 

Bear 

Beaver 

Moose 

Prairie Dog 

Rabbit 

Wolf 

- Animals in Art/Art Styles - Abstraction/The History of Abstraction 

- Modernism 

- Post-painterly Abstraction 

- Colour Field Painting 

- Pop Art 

- Postmodernism in Art 

- The Woodland Style 

- Animals in Alberta Art: A Survey 


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Art Curriculum Connections 

The following curricular connections taken from the Alberta Learning Program of Studies 

provide a brief overview of the key topics that can be addressed through viewing and 

discussing the exhibition Urban Animals. Through the art projects included in this 

exhibition guide students will be provided the opportunity for a variety of learning 

experiences. 

Art Connections K-6 

REFLECTION 

Students will notice commonalities within classes of natural objects or forms. 

i. Natural forms have common physical attributes according to the class in which they belong. 

ii. Natural forms are related to the environment from which they originate. 

iii. Natural forms have different surface qualities in colour, texture and tone. 

iv. Natural forms display patterns and make patterns. 

DEPICTION 

Students will perfect forms and develop more realistic treatments. 

i. Images can be portrayed in varying degrees of realism. 

Students will learn the shapes of things as well as develop decorative styles. 

i. Animals and plants can be represented in terms of their proportions. 

Students will increase the range of actions and viewpoints depicted. 

Students will represent and refine surface qualities of objects or forms. 

i. Texture is a surface quality that can be captured by rubbings or markings. 

ii. Colour can be lightened to make tints or darkened to make shades. 

iii. Gradations of tone are useful to show depth or the effect of light on objects. 

iv. By increasing details in the foreground the illusion of depth and reality can be enhanced. 

COMPOSITION 

Students will create unity through density and rhythm. 

i. Families of shapes, and shapes inside or beside shapes, create harmony. 

ii. Overlapping forms help to unify a composition. 

iii. Repetition of qualities such as colour, texture and tone produce rhythm and balance. 

EXPRESSION 

Students will use media and techniques, with an emphasis on exploration and direct methods in 

drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, fabric arts, photography and technographic arts. 

i. Use a variety of drawing media in an exploratory way to see how each one has its own 

characteristics. Use frottage (texture rubbings). 

Students will decorate items personally created. 

i. Details, patterns or textures can be added to two-dimensional works. 


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Art Curriculum Connections continued 

Art Connections 7-9 

DRAWING 

Students will examine and simplify basic shapes and spaces. 

i. Shapes may be organic or geometric. 

ii. Geometric and organic shapes can be used to create positive and negative spaces. 

Students will employ space, proportion and relationships for image making. 

i. The size of depicted figures or objects locates those objects in relationship to the ground or 

picture plane. 

ii. Overlapping figures or objects create an illusion of space in two-dimensional works. 

iii. The amount of detail depicted creates spatial depth in two-dimensional works. 

iv. Proportion can be analyzed by using a basic unit of a subject as a measuring tool. 

COMPOSITION 

Students will experiment with value, light, atmosphere and colour selection to reflect mood in 

composition. 

i. Mood in composition can be affected by proximity or similarity of selected figures or units. 

ii. Mood in composition can be enhanced by the intensity of the light source and the value of the 

rendered shading. 

ENCOUNTERS 

Students will consider the natural environment as a source of imagery through time and across 

cultures. 

i. Images of nature change through time and across cultures. 

Students will identify similarities and differences in expressions of selected cultural groups. 

i. Symbolic meanings are expressed in different ways by different cultural groups. 

ART CONNECTIONS 10-20-30 

DRAWINGS 

Students will develop and refine drawing skills and styles. 

i. Control of proportion and perspective enhances the realism of subject matter in drawing. 

COMPOSITIONS 

Students will use the vocabulary and techniques of art criticism to analyze and evaluate their 

own works in relation to the works of professional artists. 

i. Criteria such as originality, organization, technique, function and clarity of meaning may be 

applied in evaluating works of art. 

ii. Artworks may be analyzed for personal, social, historic or artistic significance. 


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Curriculum Connections continued 

ENCOUNTERS 

Students will investigate the process of abstracting from a source in order to create objects and 

images. 

i. Artists simplify, exaggerate and rearrange parts of objects in their depictions of images. 

Students will recognize that while the sources of images are universal, the formation of an 

image is influenced by the artist’s choice of medium, the time and the culture. 

i. Different periods of history yield different interpretations of the same subject or theme. 

ii. Artists and craftspeople use the possibilities and limitations of different materials to develop 

imagery. 

iii. Different cultures exhibit different preferences for forms, colours and materials in their 

artifacts. 

This exhibition is an excellent source for using art as a means of investigating topics 

addressed in other subject areas. The theme of the exhibition, and the works within it, 

are especially relevant as a spring-board for addressing aspects of the Science and 

Language Arts program of studies. The following is an overview of cross-curricular 

connections which may be addressed through viewing and discussing the exhibition. 

ELEMENTARY SCIENCE 

1–5 Students will identify and evaluate methods for creating colour and for applying colours to 

different materials. 

i. Identify colours in a variety of natural and manufactured objects. 

ii. Compare and contrast colours, using terms such as lighter than, darker than, more blue, 

brighter than. 

iii. Order a group of coloured objects, based on a given colour criterion. 

iv. Predict and describe changes in colour that result from the mixing of primary colours and 

from mixing a primary colour with white or with black. 

v. Create a colour that matches a given sample, by mixing the appropriate amounts of two 

primary colours. 

vi. Distinguish colours that are transparent from those that are not. Students should recognize 

that some coloured liquids and gels can be seen through and are thus transparent and that 

other colours are opaque. 

vii. Compare the effect of different thicknesses of paint. Students should recognize that a very 

thin layer of paint, or a paint that has been watered down, may be partly transparent. 

viii. Compare the adherence of a paint to different surfaces; e.g., different forms of papers, 

fabrics and plastics. 

1–11 Describe some common living things, and identify needs of those living things. 

3–10 Describe the appearances and life cycles of some common animals, and identify their 

adaptations to different environments. 

6.10 Describe kinds of plants and animals found living on, under and among trees; and identify 

how trees affect and are affected by those living things as part of a forest ecosystem. 


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JUNI0R HIGH SCIENCE 

SCIENCE 7 Unit A: Interactions and Ecosystems 

Students will: 

1. Investigate and describe relationships between humans and their environments 

- describe examples of interaction and interdependency within an ecosystem 

- identify example of human impacts on ecosystems, and investigate and analyze the link 

between these impacts and the human wants and needs that give rise to them 

- analyze personal and public decisions that involve consideration of environmental impacts, 

and identfy needs for scientific knowledge that can inform those decisions 

2. Trace and interpret the flow of energy and materials within an ecosystem 

- analyze ecosystems to identify producers, consumers, and decomposers; and describe how 

energy is supplied to and flows through a food web 

3. Monitor a local environment and assess the impacts of environmental factors on the growth, 

health and reproduction of organisms in that environment 

- investigate a variety of habitats, and describe and interpret distribution patterns of living things 

found in those habitats 

- investigate and intepret evidence of interaction and change 

4. Describe the relationship among knowledge, decisions and actions in maintaining 

life-supporting environments 

- identify intended and unintended consequences of human activities within local and global 

environments 

SCIENCE 9 

Biological Diversity: Students will: 

–Investigate and interpret diversity among species and within species, and describe how 

diversity contributes to species survival. 

–Identify impacts of human action on species survival and variation within species, and analyze 

related issues for personal and public decision making. 

–Describe ongoing changes in biological diversity through extinction and extirpation of native 

species, and investigate the role of environmental factors in causing these changes. (e.g., 

investigate the effect of changing land use on the survival of wolf or grizzly bear populations). 

BIOLOGY 20 

Students will explain the mechanisms involved in the change of populations over time. 

LANGUAGE ARTS 

K.4.3 Students will use drawings to illustrate ideas and information and talk about them. 

5.2.2 Experience oral, print and other media texts from a variety of cultural traditions and 

genres, such as historical fiction, myths, biographies, and poetry. 


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6.4.3 Demonstrate attentive listening and viewing. Students will identify the tone, mood and 

emotion conveyed in oral and visual presentations. 

9.2.2 Discuss how techniques, such as irony, symbolism, perspective and proportion, 

communicate meaning and enhance effect in oral, print and other media texts. 


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The bond between humans and animals is as old as 

humankind itself. Until the development of agriculture 

around 10,000 years ago, animals were the primary 

source of both food and clothing for humans and 

maintained this standing for hunting and gathering 

societies around the world up until the nineteenth 

century. The economic importance of animals to humans 

was accompanied by the accordance of spiritual and 

ceremonial significance to many creatures and both 

the economic and sacred importance of animals were 

recorded visually very early in human history. 

George Weber 

Petroglyphs, Writing on Stone, Alberta, 

1963 

Silkscreen 

Collection of the Art Gallery of Alberta 

Horse Painting, 17,000 years B.P. 

Lascaux Cave, Lascaux, France 

Since the beginning of time humans have developed myths and 

legends about animals and these stories have been expressed 

in both visual and literal works. 

In many myths animals were manifestations of divine power and 

the gods could take on animal form. The ancient Egyptians, for 

example, portrayed their gods as animals or as humans with the 

heads of animals. The God Horus, ancient Egypt’s national patron 

and God of the sky, war, and god of protection, for example, is often 

portrayed with the body of a man and the head of a falcon. A second 

and very important god in the Egyptian pantheon which shared this 

duality is the God Anubis. Anubis was the jackal-headed God 

associated with mummification and the protection of the dead in their 

journey to the afterlife. 

Horus, Standing 

http://en.ciwkipedia.org/wiki/ 

Egyptian_gods 

Anubis attending the mummy 

of Sennendjem 

http://en.ciwkipedia.org/wiki/ 

Anubis 


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continued 

In Greek and Roman myths the Gods could transform into animals in order to interact 

with humans. This is seen, for example, in the myth of Leda and the swan. According to this 

myth Zeus, King of the Gods, transformed into a swan in order to seduce the mortal queen Leda. 

One of the children of their union was Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman on earth. All 

mythological tricksters - such as the Norse God Loki or the Native American Coyote - also 

possessed this shape-shifting ability. Animals also functioned as symbols of the dieties. Owls, 

for example, were traditionally associated with wisdom. In Greek myths Athena, the goddess of 

wisdom, is often portrayed with an owl. 

Leda and the Swan 

(Copy after Michelangelo) 

National Gallery, London 

image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ 

Leda_and_the_Swan 

Paul Cezanne 

Leda and the Swan, 1880-1882(?) 

Barnes Foundation Collection 

Merion, Pennsylvania 

Animals are ascribed a variety of roles in the 

world’s mythologies. Many explain the part 

that animals played in creating the world or in 

bringing fire, tools, or farming skills to humans. 

In Asian and many Native North American 

traditions, for example, the earth is situated on 

the back of an enormous turtle. Animals are 

also linked to the creation of human beings. In 

Haida mythology the Raven found and freed 

some creatures trapped in a clam shell and 

these scared and timid beings were the first 

men. Raven later found and freed some female 

beings trapped in a mollusc and then brought 

the two sexes together. 

Bill Reid 

Raven and the First Men, 

University of British Columbia 

Museum of Anthropology 

Vancouver, BC 

image credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_ 

Reid 


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continued 

Many Native American groups also believed that they were descended from a particular 

animal. This animal became the groups totem and a powerful symbol of its identity. Many also 

believe that each person has a magical or spiritual connection to a particular animal that can act 

as a guardian, a source of wisdom, or an inspiration. Animals also helped shape human 

existence by acting as messengers to the gods. 

During the Middle Ages animals were an essential aspect of almost every facet of life. 

They formed the back-bone of an agrarian economy, served as instantly recognized visual 

symbols, and were imagined to be the fantastic inhabitants of unknown realms. In Christian art 

animals always occupied a place of great importance and representations of real and imagined 

beasts were found in monumental sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries, and stained 

glass windows. With the beginning of the thirteenth century, Gothic art affords the greatest 

number and best representations of animal forms. During this period ‘bestiaries’, popular 

treatises on natural history, were fully illustrated in the sculptural work in the great cathedrals. 

Medieval Manuscript Page 

Medieval Tapestry examples (Lion and Unicorn) 

The Cloisters 

Metropolitan Museum of Art 

New York, New York 

Animals were either used as purely decorative elements in medieval artwork or served 

symbolic functions. Many Catholic saints, for example, are illustrated with animals that 

accompany them and represent certain of the saint’s qualities or aspects of the saint’s story. St. 

Hubert, for example, is often portrayed with a stag as, according to his story, it was an 

encounter with a stag with a crucifix between its antlers which led to his conversion to 

Christianity. St. Jerome, the great teacher of the early Church, is often portrayed with a lion, 

based on the story that he removed a thorn from its paw. The lion, in gratitude, remained 

Jerome’s faithful companion for the rest of its life. 


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continued 

In both Christian and Native North American sources, animals were ascribed a number of 

symbolic meanings. Among these are: 

Antelope - action 

Bear - strength, dreaming, introspection, power and protection, leadership 

Buffalo - prayer, abundance, survival needs, good fortune, healing 

Elephant - commitment, strength, astuteness 

Elk - stamina, pride, power, majesty, freedom 

Fox - cunning, intelligence, tricksters, shape-shifters 

Frog - symbolizes renewal, fertility and springtime; healing, health, honesty, purification. Also a 

guardian symbol: when strangers approached the croaking of the frog would serve as a warning. 

Giraffe - grounded vision 

Moose - self esteem and assertiveness 

Mountain Lion/Cougar - wisdom, leadership, swiftness 

Owl - deception, wisdom, clairvoyance, magic. Some Native American groups perceive the owl 

as a harbringer of death, while others see owls as guardians of both the home and the village. 

Rabbit - fear, fertility, magic, speed, swiftness, longevity 

Deer - graceful gentleness, sensitivity, compassion, kindness 

Wolf - teacher, A guide to the sacred 

Zebra - individuality 


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continued 

While animal iconography was extremely important in the early middle ages, by the 14th 

century the use of animals in art had become less frequent. In the fifteenth and sixteenth 

centuries animals were drawn more closely from life without any intention of symbolism and, by 

the Renaissance, they were nearly banished from visual representation except as an accessory 

to the human figure. 

Animal Images from the collection of the Art Gallery of Alberta 

Parr 

Untitled, 1962 

Wax Crayon on paper 


Pierre Dorian 

Galleria Corsini (Prometheus), 1995 

Oil on linen 


Paul Nash 

The Fish and Fowl (Genesis), 1924 

Wood engraving 



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Jason Carter 




Animals 

First Nations 

Beliefs and Stories 

and Scientific Studies 


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First Nations Beliefs 

As Aboriginal People we hold all life forms in great respect, understanding that each 

animal has a physical presence, a spiritual power and a life purpose. We believe that all 

life is interconnected and all beings are reliant on each other. 

First Nations Perspective of the Animals: 

Beaver: 

Moose: 

Bear: 

Prairie Dog: 

Respected as a hard worker, it was good to have a family of beavers near 

the community. Beavers kept the eco-system and wetlands healthy and 

vibrant, which in turn helped to provide a balanced landscape for an 

abundant harvest of medicines. 

Eaters of the willow, moose meat was rich with the bitter medicine. Like 

the buffalo, the moose provided the people with hide, meat, everything 

needed to live and survive, to this day. Buffalo was migratory, but the 

moose lived year round in bush country. The good waterways created by 

the beaver kept the moose nearby and thriving. 

Powerful with a real strong spirit, the Bear gave the people medicines. 

The bear had more natural power and knowledge. When you went to hunt 

the bear you would pray and give thanks for his sacrifice. The bear was a 

teacher of the medicines. The people would pray and ask the bear for help 

to find the bear root heart medicine and to show us where the berries were 

that were healthy to eat. 

When times were hard, the prairie dog kept the people fed. They were the 

root diggers, with their own medicines, teaching the people to live 

harmoniously together, such as they did within a communal society. 

All animals have lessons to teach us. Each animal has a life, has spirit, has a purpose, so when 

we had to kill one for food, we asked respectfully and with gratitude for their life. 

Mother Earth and all its beings are equal. The Human Race expects and deserves equal rights, 

so let us give the same respect to natures’ animals, and with understanding, harmoniously 

share our urban environment, seeing the nature amongst us as a gift that enriches and blesses 

all of us. 



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First Nations Beliefs continued 

Canada’s First Nations peoples value a history of oral tradition that accounts for each 

group’s origins, history, spirituality, lessons of morality and life skills. Stories bind a 

community with its past and future and oral traditions are passed from generation to 

generation. 

Native religions developed from anthropomorphism and animism philosophies. Animals, 

plants, trees, and inanimate objects are interpreted in human terms and their relation 

to the earth, sky and water. A cosmological order exists, within which humans live, that 

values balance and harmony with all of these forces. While the stories differ from tribe to 

tribe, all have stories concerning the origins of life on earth, the roles played by various 

life forms, and the relationships between humans, animals, and other life forms. 

Bear is a strong Native American symbol. Native American groups regarded the grizzly bear 

with awe and respect and the bear is a profound symbol of majesty, freedom and power. Some 

tribes, such as the Cree, adopted the bear as a symbol of successful hunting due to its girth and 

amazingly effective teeth and claws. Symbolic traits associated with the bear include: 

- protection 

- childbearing 

- motherhood 

- freedom 

- discernment 

- courage 

- power 

- unpredictability 

Rabbit is a symbol in many differenct cultures of the world. Native American groups 

regarded the rabbit as a trickster. Natives have a special character known as Nanabozho. This is 

the character of the Great Hare and is considered to be a very powerful mythological character 

with many legends associated with it. Some tribes looked upon Nanabozho as a hero and even 

consider the Great Hare to be the creator of the Earth. Nanabozho is also regarded as being 

a supporter of humans and helps them out in many ways such as bringing fire and light. Some 

groups also believed that the Great Hare taught sacred rituals to the holy men amongst the 

Natives. In some tribes, however, Nanabozho is depicted as a clown, a predator and even a 

thief. Symbolic traits associated with the rabbit include: 

- fear 

- overcoming limiting beliefs 

- fear caller - the rabbit calls upon himself the things he fears the most 


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First Nations Beliefs continued 

Wolf Wolves figure prominently in the mythology of nearly every Native American tribe. 

Many North American tribes considered wolves closely related to humans and the origin stories 

of some Northwest Coast tribes tell of their first ancestors being transformed from wolves into 

men. In some cultures, such as the Shoshone, Wolf plays the orle of the noble Creator god, 

while in Anishinabe mythology a wolf character is the brother and true best friend of the culture 

hero. Symbolic traits associated with the wolf include: 

- courage 

- strength 

- loyalty 

- success in hunting 

- teacher of new ideas and wisdom 

- teaches cooperation, protectiveness and the value of extended families 


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First Nations Stories 

A Story about the Bear - How Bear Lost His Tail 

Back in the old days, Bear had a tail which was his proudest possession. It was long and black 

and glossy and Bear used to wave it around just so that people would look at it. Fox saw this. 

Fox, as everyone knows, is a trickster and likes nothing better than fooling others. So it was that 

he decided to play a trick on Bear. 

It was the time of year when Hatho, the Spirit of Frost, had swept across the land, covering 

the lakes with ice and pounding on the trees with his big hammer. Fox made a hole in the ice, 

right near a place where Bear liked to walk. By the time Bear came by, all around Fox, in a big 

circle, were big trout and fat perch. Just as Bear was about to ask Fox what he was doing, Fox 

twitched his tail which he had sticking through that hole in the ice and pulled out a huge trout. 

‘Greetings, Brother,’ said Fox. ‘How are you this fine day?’ 

‘Greetings,’ answered Bear, looking at the big circle of fat fish. ‘I am well, Brother. But what are 

you doing?’ 

‘I am fishing,’ answered Fox. ‘Would you like to try?’ 

‘Oh, yes,’ said Bear, as he started to lumber over to Fox’s fishing hole. 

But Fox stopped him. ‘Wait, Brother,’ he said, ‘This place will not be good. As you can see, I 

have already caught all the fish. Let us make you a new fishing spot where you can catch many 

big trout.’ 

Bear agreed and so he followed Fox to the new place, a place where, as Fox knew very well, 

the lake was too shallow to catch the winter fish - which always stay in the deepest water when 

Hatho has covered their ponds. Bear watched as Fox made the hole in the ice, already 

tasting the fine fish he would soon catch. ‘Now,’ Fox said, ‘you must do just as I tell you. Clear 

your mind of all thoughts of fish. Do not even think of a song or the fish will hear you. Turn your 

back to the hole and place your tail inside it. Soon a fish will come and grab your tail and you 

can pull him out.’ 

‘But how will I know if a fish has grabbed my tail if my back is turned?’ asked Bear. 

‘I will hide over here where the fish cannot see me,’ said Fox. ‘ When a fish grabs your tail, I will 

shout. Then you must pull as hard as you can to catch your fish. But you must be very patient. 

Do not move at all until I tell you.’ 

Bear nodded, ‘I willl do exactly as you say.’ He sat down next to the hole, placed his long 

beautiful black tail in the icy water and turned his back. 

Fox watched for a time to make sure that Bear was doing as he was told and then, very quietly, 


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First Nations Stories continued 

sneaked back to his own house and went to bed. The next morning he woke up and thought of 

Bear. ‘I wonder if he is still there,’ Fox said to himself. ‘I’ll just go and check.’ 

So Fox went back to the ice covered pond and what do you think he saw? He saw what looked 

like a little white hill in the middle of the ice. It had snowed during the night and covered Bear, 

who had fallen asleep while waiting for Fox to tell him to pull his tail and catch a fish. And Bear 

was snoring. His snores were so loud that the ice was shaking. It was so funny that Fox rolled 

with laughter. But when he was through laughing, he decided the time had come to wake up 

poor Bear. He crept very close to Bear’s ear, took a deep breath, and then shouted: ‘Now, 

Bear!!!’ 

Bear woke up with a start and pulled his long tail hard as he could. But his tail had been caught 

in the ice which had frozen over during the night and as he pulled, it broke off -- Whack! -- just 

like that. Bear turned around to look at the fish he had caught and instead saw his long lovely tail 

caught in the ice. 

‘Phhh,’ he moaned ‘ohhh Fox. I will get you for this.’ But Fox, even though he was laughing fit to 

kill, was faster than Bear and he leaped aside and was gone. 

So it is that even to this day Bears have short tails and no love at all for Fox. And if you ever 

hear a bear moaning, it is probably because he remembers the trick Fox played on him long ago 

and he is mourning for his lost tail. 


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A story about the Beaver - How the Beaver got his tail 

(An Ojibwa Legend) 

Once upon a time there was a beaver that loved to brag about his tail. One day while taking a 

walk, the beaver stopped to talk to a bird. The beaver said to the bird, “Don’t you love my fluffy 

tail?” 

“Why, yes I do little beaver” replied the bird. 

“Don’t you wish your feathers were as fluffy as my tail? Don’t you wish your feathers were as 

strong as my tail? Don’t you wish your feathers were just as beautiful as my tail?” the beaver 

asked. 

“Why do you think so much of your tail, little beaver?” asked the bird. This insulted the beaver 

and he walked away. 

After walking for a while, he stopped for a drink by the river and saw a muskrat. He walked to the 

muskrat and said, “Hello little muskrat. What do you think about my tail?” 

“Well, it is very beautiful and big and fluffy,” answered the muskrat. “Is it also a strong tail?” 

“Why, yes it is,” the beaver answered. “Do you wish you had a tail like mine?” 

“I didn’t say I wanted a tail like yours. I just asked if it was strong,” the muskrat replied with a 

disgusted voice. 

The beaver quickly turned and began walking back to his dam. He was angry because he felt 

that the animals were being rude to him. He was very upset and decided to take out his 

frustration by cutting down trees. After cutting down a couple of trees, he came to a very large 

one. He knew that it would be a great challenge for him. So he went to it. But as he was cutting, 

he kept thinking about his tail and didn’t notice that he was cutting at a bad angle. Before he 

knew what was happening, the tree began to fall toward him. He jumped to get out of the way, 

but he didn’t jump fast enough, and the huge tree fell on his beautiful tail! He tugged and pulled 

and finally dug away the earth to free himself. When he finally pulled his tail from under the tree, 

he was horrified to see that it was flat. The beaver was very sad and started to cry. As he was 

crying he heard a voice. It was the Creator. 

“Why are you crying?” asked the Creator. 

“A tree has crushed my beautiful tail,” the beaver cried. “Now no one will like me.” 

The Creator told him that a beaver is not liked for his tail but for his kindness and wisdom. He 

also told him how to use his flat tail. “Now your tail will help you swim rapidly,” the Creator said. 

“And when you want to signal a message to a friend, all you have to do is slap your tail on the 

water.” 


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Hearing this made the beaver happy again. When the animals saw his flattened tail they were 

shocked! But the beaver said, “It’s better this way.” 

From that day on, the beaver never bragged about his tail, and all the animals liked him. 

That’s how the beaver got his flat tail. 


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A Story about the Moose - How the People Hunted the Moose 

One night a family of moose was sitting in the lodge. As they sat around the fire a strange thing 

happened. A pipe came floating in through the door. Sweet-smelling smoke came from the long 

pipe and it circled the lodge, passing close to each of the Moose People. The old bull moose 

saw the pipe but said nothing, and it passed him by. The cow moose said nothing, and the pipe 

passed her by also. So it passed by each of the Moose People until it reached the youngest of 

the young bull moose near the door of the lodge. 

“You have come to me,” he said to the pipe. Then he reached out and took the pipe and started 

to smoke it. 

“My son,” the old moose said, ‘you have killed us. This is a pipe from the human beings. They 

are smoking this pipe now and asking for success in their hunt. Now, tomorrow, they will find us. 

Now, because you smoked their pipe, they will be able to get us.” 

“I am not afraid,’ said the young bull moose. ‘I can run faster than any of those people. They can 

not catch me.’ But the old bull moose said nothing more. 

When the morning came, the Moose People left their lodge. They went across the land looking 

for food. But as soon as they reached the edge of the forest, they caught the scent of the 

hunters. It was the time of the year when there is a thin crust on the snow and the moose found 

it hard to move quickly. 

‘These human hunters will catch us,’ said the old cow moose. “Their feet are feathered like those 

of the grouse. They can walk on top of the snow.” 

Then the Moose People began to run as the hunters followed them. The young bull moose who 

had taken the pipe ran off from the others. He was still sure he could outrun the hunters. But the 

hunters were on snowshoes and the young moose’s feet sank into the snow. They followed him 

until he tired, and then they killed him. After they had killed him, they thanked him for smoking 

their pipe and giving himself to them so they could survive. They treated his body with care and 

they soothed his spirit. 

That night, the young bull moose woke up in his lodge among his people. Next to his bed was a 

present given him by the human hunters. He showed it to all of the others. 

“You see,” he said. “It was not a bad thing for me to accept the long pipe the human people sent 

to us. Those hunters treated me with respect. It is right for us to allow the human beings to catch 

us.” 

And so it is to this day. Those hunters who show respect to the moose are always the ones who 

are successful when they hunt. 


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A Story about the Rabbit (a Cree Legend) - Frog and Rabbit 

* please note: it is suggested that eduators critique/consider the following story before 

using in the classroom. 

Once, Rabbit lived with Frog. Rabbit ran around hunting. He found a Beaver lodge along a 

creek. He thought it was an evil cannibal emerging from the snow. Rabbit was really terrified. He 

ran home very frightened. Frog said to Rabbit, “Are you out of your mind? It was probably just a 

Beaver lodge.” She told him, “Let’s go over there.” She told him to take his ice chisel along. They 

left. 

Here was a Beaver lodge standing there. Frog told her husband, “Let’s try to kill the Beavers.” 

She told him, “Make a hole in the ice there.” Rabbit chiseled a hole in the ice. Frog ordered Rabbit 

to scoop out all the ice from the hole. Frog ran towards the hole and jumped in. Rabbit stood 

there and waited. 

Frog surfaced and said, “Break open your Beaver lodge now.” Rabbit broke open the lodge. 

Here were all the Beaver that were in the lodge that she had killed. Both Frog and Rabbit 

dragged their Beavers home. 

Rabbit skinned the Beaver and cooked them. After he had cooked them, he ate. Rabbit didn’t 

give any of the Beaver meat to his wife, Frog. She told him, “Feed me.” He didn’t. Frog got annoyed 

and threatened him by saying, “Hey, I’m going to tell Owl that you’re not feeding me.” 

Rabbit still didn’t feed Frog. Frog got angry and siad, “Owl, Rabbit isn’t feeding me his Beavers.” 

They could hear Owl hooting. Now, Rabbit was really frightened. He gave Frog the Beaver meat 

she was asking for. She said, “Owl, it’s OK. He is feeding me now.” 

After living together for a while, I guess they finished off eating their Beavers. Rabbit went to look 

for food again. He saw the large tracks of someone. He was really frightened again. Rabbit ran 

home. That is also why rabbits are very cowardly today. He said, “I have seen the large tracks of 

someone.” Frog said, “It must be a Moose because I had heard that a Moose is walking around.” 

She must have heard that a Moose was walking around. She said, “Let’s go track it.” They left. 

It was the tracks of a Moose. They tracked the Moose. Then they reached it standing there. Frog 

and Rabbit creeped towards the Moose. Frog told Rabbit, “Stand here.” Frog approached the 

Moose. When she got close to it, she burrowed into the snow. She emerged at the leg of the 

Moose. She carefully climbed up the leg and entered into the anus of the Moose. She went to 

the heart of the Moose and that was where she started biting and chewing at the heart. 

Rabbit was just watching the Moose standing there. Then the Moose, who just stood there not 

noticing anything, suddenly collapsed. Rabbit just stood there. Then Frog emerged from the 

nostrils of the Moose. They butchered it and took all the meat home. They had plenty of food. 

Then one night, they heard a cannibal screaming. They could hear the evil being coming closer. 


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Frog and Rabbit, continued 

Then it reached them. Rabbit jumped into the food that was on the platform. That was where 

he hid. Frog jumped into the pot of blood. The evil cannibal barged into their lodge and began 

eating their food. Then Frog heard the cannibal enjoying itself as it ate her husband, Rabbit. The 

cannibal ate Rabbit. 

The monstrous cannibal turned over the pot of blood where Frog had jumped in. She burrowed 

into the boughs and burrowed into the ground. The evil creature didn’t find out about her. It didn’t 

know where she was. Frog couldn’t be killed. That is how long the legend is. 

Jason Carter 





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A Story about the Wolf (a Cree story) - How the Indians obtained Dogs 

There lived alone one winter a hunter, his wife and thier only child, a little boy of four years. 

Deep snow covered the ground, and game was scarce. One day the hunter discovered the track 

of a buffalo and followed it but he failed to overtake the animal. Late at night he returned to his 

tipi and, before entering, stopped to scrape the snow from his moccasins. But as he stood outside 

in the snow, he heard his little boy crying from hunger within the tent, and the voice of his 

wife trying to comfort him. 

“Don’t cry, my son”, she said. “Perhaps your father has killed a buffalo. That may be why he is 

late in coming home.” 

Resolutely the man turned back into the night and prayed for help as he resumed his hunting. 

Just before dawn he came upon other buffalo tracks and followed them. Suddenly a wolf ran up 

to him, and said, “My son, why are you weeping?” 

“I am in sore need. My wife and child are starving.” 

“Hide behind these bushes here”, said the wolf, “and use my bow and arrows. I will drive the buffalo 

toward you. But be sure to use my bow and arrows, not your own.” 

The wolf disappeared, and the hunter examined the bow that had been given him. It was much 

smaller than his own, and seemingly much inferior. Yet he remembered the wolf’s instructions 

and when he heard it driving the buffalo toward him, he took up the small bow and shot six animals, 

one after another. When the seventh and last buffalo approached him, however, he took 

up his own bow and shot. The animal escaped. Now the wolf returned. 

“What luck did you have?” it asked. 

“I killed six with your bow and arrows. For the last one I used my own bow, and it escaped.” 

“I warned you not to use it”, the wolf said. “However, we have meat enough.” 

Together they butchered the animals, and at the wolf’s request the hunter set aside portions of 

two buffalo for his companion’s children. He then carried as much meat as he could pack on his 

back to his starving wife and child. 

That same evening, after they had satisfied their hunger, they dismantled their tent and moved 

to where the carcasses lay. There the wolf joined them with all its family and lingered fearlessly 

around their camp. The woman fed the animals with waste cuts of meat until they became quite 

tame. They would even allow her to harness travois to thier backs. Thereafter they always 

remained with the Indians and became their dogs. 


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Animal Studies: Grizzly Bear 

The grizzly bear is a subspecies of brown 

bear that generally lives in the uplands of 

western North America. It is thought to descend 

from Ussuri brown bears which crossed to Alaska 

from Eastern Russia 100,000 years ago, though 

they did not move south until 13,000 years ago. 

The word ‘grizzly’ refers to the ‘grizzled’ or grey 

hairs in the animals’ fur. 

Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her cub in the backcountry of 




Grizzly bears are North America’s second 

largest land carnivore, after the Polar bear. 

Size and weight varies greatly according to 

geographic location. The largest populations 

are found in coastal areas where weights are as 

much as 550 kg (1,200 lb). The females are on 

average 38% smaller than the males. 

On average grizzly bears stand about 1 

metre (3.3 ft.) at the shoulder when on all fours 

and 2 metres (6.6 ft.) on their hind legs. 

The grizzly bear’s colouring ranges widely 

depending on geographic areas, from white to 

almost black to all shades in between. Their fur is 

very thick to keep them warm in brutal, windy, and 

snowy winters. The grizzly also has a large hump 

over the shoulders which is a muscle mass used to 

power the forelimbs while digging. 

The muscles in the back legs are very powerful, providing enough strength for the bear to stand 

up and even walk short distances on its hind legs, giving it a better view of its surroundings. 

Despite their large size, grizzlies can run at speeds of up to 55 kilometres per hour. 

Grizzly bears have one of the lowest reproductive rates of all terrestrial mammals in North 

America. This is due to numerous ecological factors. First, grizzly bears do not reach sexual 

maturity until they are at least five years old. Once mated with a male in the summer, the female 

delays embryo implantation until hibernations, during which abortion can occur if the female 

does not receive the proper nutrients and caloric intake. On average, females produce two cubs 

in a litter and the mother cares for the cubs for up to two years. During this time the female will 

not mate and, even once the young leave, females may not produce another litter for three or 

more years depending on environmental conditions. Exacerbating all of this is the fact that male 

grizzly bears have large territories ranging up to 4,000 square kilomteres. This makes finding a 

female scent difficult in such low population densities. 


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Animal Studies: Grizzly Bear continued 

Grizzly bears are of the order Carnivora and 

have the digestive system of carnivores. In 

reality, however, they are omnivores as their 

diet consists of both plants and animals. They 

have been known to prey on large mammals such 

as moose, deer, sheep, elk, bison and even black 

bears. They also feed on fish such as salmon, trout 

and bass. Grizzly bears also readily scavenge food 

or carrion left behind by other animals. 

Despite the above, however, plants make up approximately 80-90% of a grizzly bears’ diet. 

They will also consume various types of insects, but only if these are available in sufficient 

quantities. Grizzly bears that have access to more protein-enriched diets, such as coastal bears, 

potentially grow larger than interior individuals. In preparations for winter bears can gain 

approximately 400 lb. (180 kg), during a period of hyperphagia before going into a state of false 

hibernation. In some areas where food is plentiful year round the bears will skip hibernation 

altogether. 

The grizzly bear has several relationships with its ecosystem. Bears are extremely 

important in the life cycle of fleshy-fruit bearing plants. After the grizzly consumes the fruit the 

seeds are dispersed and excreted in a germinable condition. This makes the grizzly an 

important seed distributor in their habitat. Also, while foraging for tree roots, plant bulbs or 

ground squirrels, bears stir up the soil. This process not only helps grizzlies access their food, 

but it also increases species richness in alpine ecosystems. Soil disturbance also causes 

nitrogen to be dug up from lower soil layers and makes nitrogen more available in the 

environment. Grizzlies also directly regulate prey populations and also help prevent overgrazing 

in forests by controlling the populations of other species in the food chain. 

Grizzly bears, while in competition with other animals for food, have no natural 

predators. Declines in the bear population, therefore, are solely the result of human-bear 

contact. Grizzly bears are found in Asia, Europe and North America, giving them one of 

the widest ranges compared to other bear species. In North America grizzly bears used to 

range from Alaska to Mexico and as far east as the Hudson Bay area. In the United States the 

species is now found only in Alaska, south through much of western Canada, and into portions 

of the northwestern United States including Idaho, Montana, Washington and Wyoming, 

extending as far south as Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. Its original range also 

included much of the Great Plains and the southwestern states, but it has been extirpated in 

most of those areas. Excluding Alaska, the United States has less than 1000 grizzly bears. In 

Canada there are approximately 25,000 grizzly bears occupying British Columbia, Alberta, the 

Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the northern part of Manitoba. In total there are 

approximately 55,000 wild grizzly bears located throughout North America. 

The grizzly bear is listed as threatened in the contiguous United States and endangered in parts 

of Canada. While all national parks, such as Banff National Park, Yellowstone and Grand Teton, 

and Theodore Roosevelt National Park have laws to protect the bears, grizzlies are regularly 

killed by trains as the bears scavenge for food along the tracks. Road kills on park roads are 


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another problem. Outside of parks, in Alaska and parts of Canada, it is still legal for bears to be 

shot for sport by hunters. In 2002 in Alberta the Endangered Species Conservation Committee 

recommended that the Alberta grizzly bear population be designated as threatened due to 

estimates of grizzly bear mortality rates that indicated that the population was in decline. The 

Provincial government, however, has so far resisted efforts to designate its declining population 

of about 700 grizzlies as endangered. 

Grizzlies are considered by some to be the most aggressive bears. Aggressive behavior by 

bears is favored by numerous selection variables. Unlike the smaller black bears, adult grizzlies 

are too large to escape danger by climbing trees, so they respond to danger by standing their 

ground and warding off their attackers. Increased aggressiveness also assists female grizzlies 

in better ensuring the survival of their young. Despite their reputation, however, grizzly bears 

normally avoid contact with humans. Most attacks which do occur result from a bear that has 

been surprised at very close range, especially if it has a supply of food or offspring to protect. 

Increased human-bear interaction has created ‘problem bears’, which are bears that have 

become adapted to human activities or habitat. The B.C. government destroys approximately 50 

problem bears each year and overall spends more than one million dollars annually to address 

bear complaints, relocate bears and destroy them. 


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Edmonton Journal article 

Friday, June 4, 2010 


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Animal Studies: Beaver 

The beaver is the second largest rodent 

in the world. Beavers are large, primarily 

nocturnal and semi-aquatic rodents. 

Beavers are closely related to squirrels 

and there are two living species: the North 

American Beaver and the Eurasian Beaver. 

The word beaver in English is probably 

either borrowed from the Old French bièvre 

or both came directly from the Celtic befros. 

The North American beaver population was 

once more than 60 million, but as of 1988 

was 6-12 million. This population decline is 

due to extensive hunting. 

Jason Carter 




Genetic research has shown that the European and North American beavers are distinct 

species and that hybridization is unlikely. Although superficially similar to each other, there 

are several important differences between the two. Eurasian beavers tend to be bigger, with 

larger, less rounded heads, longer, narrower muzzles, thinner, shorter, and lighter underfur, 

narrower and less oval-shaped tails, and shorter shin bones. Fur colour is also different. Overall, 

66 % of Eurasian beavers have pale brown or beige fur, 20 % have reddish brown fur, 8 % are 

brown, and only 4 % have blackish coats. In North American beavers, 50 % have pale brown fur, 

25 % are reddish brown, 20 % are brown, and 6 % are blackish. Finally, North American beavers 

have 40 chromosomes while Eurasian beavers have 48. 

Beavers have webbed hind-feet, and a broad, scaly tail. They have poor eyesight, but keen 

senses of hearing, smell, and touch. Beavers continue to grow throughout their lives. Adult 

specimens weighing over 25 kg (55 lb) are not uncommon. Females are as large or larger than 

males of the same age, which is uncommon among mammals. Beavers live up to 24 years of 

age in the wild. 

Beavers are herbivores, and prefer the wood of quaking aspen, cottonwood, willow, alder, birch, 

maple and cherry trees. The North American beaver’s preferred food is the water-lily. Beavers 

also gnaw the bark of birch, poplar, and willow trees; but during the summer a more varied 

herbage, with the addition of berries, is consumed. A beaver’s teeth grow continuously so that 

they will not be worn down by chewing on wood. Their four incisors are composed of hard 

orange enamel on the front and a softer dentin on the back. The chisel-like ends of incisors are 

maintained by their self-sharpening wear pattern. 


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Animal Studies: Beaver continued 

The habitat of the beaver is the riparian zone, inclusive of stream beds. The actions of 

beavers for hundreds of thousands of years in the Northern Hemisphere have kept these watery 

systems healthy and in good repair. The beaver works as a keystone species in an ecosystem 

by creating wetlands that are used by many other species. Next to humans, no other animal 

appears to do more to shape its landscape. 

Beavers fell trees for several reasons. They fell large, mature trees, usually in strategic 

locations, to form the basis of a dam. Beavers fell small trees, especially young second-growth 

trees, for food. Beaver dams are created as a protection against predators, such as coyotes, 

wolves and bears, and to provide easy access to food during winter. Beavers always work at 

night and are prolific builders, carrying mud and stones with their fore-paws and timber between 

their teeth. The ponds, created by well-maintained dams, help isolate the beavers’ homes. 

Beaver lodges are created from severed 

branches and mud. The beavers cover their 

lodges late every autumn with fresh mud, 

which freezes when the frost sets in. The 

mud becomes almost as hard as stone, and 

neither wolves nor wolverines can penetrate 

it. The lodge has underwater entrances to 

make entry nearly impossible for any other 

animals. A very small amount of the lodge is 

actually used as a living area. 

The basic social unit of beavers are families consisting of an adult male and adult female 

in a monogamous pair and their kits and yearlings. Beaver families can have as many as ten 

members in addition to the monogamous pair. Beaver pairs mate for life: however, if a beaver’s 

mate dies, it will partner with another one. In addition to being monogamous, both the male and 

female take part in raising offspring. When young are born they spend their first month in the 

lodge and their mother is the primary caretaker while their father maintains the territory. After the 

young leave the lodge for the first time yearlings will help their parents build food caches in the 

fall and repair dams and lodges. Older offspring, which are around two years old, may also live 

in families and help their parents. In addition to helping build food caches and repairing the dam, 

two-year olds will also help in feeding and grooming and guarding the younger offspring. 

Beavers maintain and defend territories, which are areas for feeding, nesting and mating. 

They mark their territories by constructing scent mounds made of mud, debris and castoreum, 

a urine based substance excreted through the beaver’s castor sacs between the pelvis and the 

base of the tail. These scent mounds are established on the border of the territory. Because they 

invest so much energy in their territories beavers are intolerant of intruders and the holder of the 

territory is more likely to escalate an aggressive encounter. 


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Animal Studies: Beaver continued 

Beavers have been trapped for milennia and this 

continues to the present day. Once the early 

European explorers realized that Canada was not the 

spice-rich Orient, the main mercantile attraction was 

the beaver, then a population numbering in the millions. 

In the late 1600s and early 1700s the fashion of the 

day demanded fur top-hats, which were produced from 

beaver pelts as the most valuable part of the beaver is 

its inner fur whose many minute barbs make it excellent 

for felting. The trade in beaver pelts proved so lucrative 

that the Hudson’s Bay Company honoured the animal 

by putting it on the shield of its coat of arms in 1678, as 

seen at right. 

By the mid-19th century the beaver was close to extinction. There were an estimated six million 

beavers in Canada before the start of the fur trade. During the trade’s peak 100,000 pelts were 

being shipped to Europe each year. Eventually, however, the fur trade declined as Europeans 

changed their fashion sense, coming to appreciate silk hats instead, and the demand for beaver 

pelts all but disappeared. 

Beaver testicles and castoreum, a bitter-tasting secretion contained in the castor sacs of male 

and female beavers, were also articles of trade. These were used in traditional medicines and 

for the production of castoreum, which was used as an analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and 

antipyretic. Castoreum also continues to be used in perfume production. European beavers 

were eventually hunted nearly to extinction in part for the production of castoreum. 

The importance of the Beaver in the development of Canada through the fur trade led to 

its official designation as the national animal in 1975. The beaver is also depicted on the 

Canadian five-cent piece and was on the first pictorial postage stamp issued in the Canadian 

colonies in 1849. 


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Animal Studies: Moose 

The moose (North America) or European elk 

(Europe) is the largest living species in the 

deer family. The word moose is a borrowing 

from one Algonquian language, with the possible 

meaning of ‘stripping off’. The word moose first 

entered the English language in 1606 with 

Captain Thomas Hanham’s Mus. European rock 

drawings and cave paintings reveal that moose 

have been hunted since the Stone Age. 

Excavations in Sweden have yeilded elk antlers 

from 6,000 B.C. 

Jason Carter 




In North America the moose range 

includes almost all of Canada, most of 

central and western Alaska, and much of 

the eastern United States. Isolated moose 

populations have been verified as far south 

as the mountains of Utah and Colorado. In 

Europe moose are found in large numbers 

throughout the Eastern European nations 

of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Baltic 

States. They are also widespread in Russia 

and can be found in Poland, Belarus and the 

Czech Republic. 

One of the most distinguishing features of the 

moose are its antlers. The male’s antlers grow as 

cylindrical beams projecting on each side of the head 

at right angles to the midline of the skull, and then fork. 

The male will drop its antlers after the mating season 

and conserve energy for the winter. A new set of 

antlers will then regrow in the spring. Antlers take three 

to five months to fully develop. They initially have a 

layer of skin, called ‘velvet’, which is shed once the 

antlers become fully grown. 


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Animal Studies: Moose continued 

The Moose is the second largest land animal in both North America and Europe. Only the 

American Bison is larger. On average an adult moose stands 1.8-2.1 m (6-7 feet) high at the 

shoulder. Males weigh 380-720 kg (850-1580 pounds) while females weigh 270-360 kg (600- 

800 pounds). The largest of all is the Alaskan subspecies which can stand over 2.1 m (7 feet) at 

the shoulder, has a span across the antlers of 1.8 m (6 feet) and averages 634.5 kg (1,396 lbs) 

in males and 478 kg (1,052 lbs) in females. 

Moose are generally solitary animals with the strongest bonds between mother and calf. 

Mating occurs in September and October. The males are polygamous and will seek several 

females to breed with. During this time both sexes will call to each other and males will fight 

other males for access to females. Female moose have an eight-month gestation period, 

usually bearing one calf, or twins if food is plentiful, in May or June. Newborn moose have fur 

with a reddish hue in contrast to the brown colouring of an adult. The young will stay with the 

mother until just before the next young are born. 

A full-grown moose has few enemies. Siberian Tigers, Brown Bears, American Black Bears, 

Cougars and Wolves, however, do pose threats to calves, juvenile moose, and sick animals. 

Moose are also hunted as game species in many of the countries in which they are found. 

Jason Carter 





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Animal Studies: Prairie Dog 

Prairie dogs are burrowing rodents native 

to the grasslands of North America. The five 

different species are: black-tailed, white-tailed, 

Gunnison’s, Utah and Mexican prairie dogs. They 

are a type of ground squirrel found in Canada, 

the United States, and Mexico. 

Prairie dogs are named for their habitat and 

warning call, which sounds similar to a dog’s 

bark. The name was in use at least as early as 

1774. The black-tailed prairie dog was first described 

by Lewis and Clark during their 

expedition of 1804. Lewis described it in more 

detail in 1806, calling it the ‘barking squirrel’. 

Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dog, 2012 



Prairie dogs are chiefly herbivorous, though they eat some insects. They feed primarily on 

grasses. They also will eat roots, seeds, fruit and buds. Grasses of various species are eaten. 

On average these rodents will grow between 30 and 40 centimetres (12 to 16 inches) long and 

weigh between 1 and 3 pounds. 

Prairie dogs mainly live in altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. The 

areas in which they live can get as warm as 100 degrees F in summer and as cold as -35 

degrees F in winter. Their regions are also prone to environmental threats such as hailstorms, 

blizzards, and floods as well as drought and prairie fires. Their burrows are thus very important 

in providing protection for the animals. Prairie dog burrows are 5-10m (16-33 feet) long and 

2-3m (6-10 feet) below the ground. The entrance holes are generally 10-30 cm (4-12 inches) in 

diameter. There can be up to six entrances which can be simply flat holes in the ground or 

can be surrounded by mounds of dirt that are either left as piles or packed down hard. Some 

mounds, known as dome craters, can be as high as 8-12 inches above ground. Others, known 

as rim craters, can be as high as 1 meter. Dome and rim craters serve as observation posts 

which the animals use to watch out for predators. They also function to protect the burrows from 

flooding. Prairie dog burrows contain chambers to provide certain functions. They have nursery 

chambers for thier young, chambers for night and chambers for the winter. They also contain air 

chambers that may function to protect the burrow from flooding and a listening post for 

predators. 

Prairie dogs are highly social and live in large colonies or ‘towns’ which can span 

hundreds of acres. The prairie dog family groups are the most basic units of its society. 

Members of a family group inhabit the same territory and a prairie dog town may contain 15-26 

family goups. The average prairie dog territory takes up 0.05-1.01 hectares. Territories have well 

established borders that coincide with physical barriers like rocks and trees. 

Most prairie dog family groups are made up of one adult breeding male, two to three adult 

females and one to two male offspring and one to two female offspring. 


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Animal Studies: Prairie Dog continued 

For black-tailed prairie dogs, the resident male of the family 

group fathers all the offspring. Mother prairie dogs do most 

of the care for the young. In addition to nursing the young, 

the mother also defends the nursery chamber and collects 

grass for the nest. Males play their part by defending the 

territories and maintaining the burrows. The young spend 

their first six weeks below the ground being nursed. They 

are then weaned and begin to surface from the burrow. By 

five months they are fully grown. 

Prairie dogs showing affection 

Females remain in their natal groups for life and are thus 

the source of stability in the groups. Males leave their natal 

groups when they mature to find another family group to 

defend and breed in. 

Juvenile prairie dogs 

The prairie dog is well adapted to predators. Using its dichromatic colour vision, it can 

detect predators from a far distance and then alert other prarie dogs to the danger with a 

special, high-pitched call. Some scientists believe that prairie dogs use a sophisticated system 

of vocal communication to describe specific predators. 

Ecologists consider the prairie dog to be a keystone species. Prairie dog tunnel systems 

help channel rainwater into the water table to prevent runoff and erosion, and can also serve to 

change the composition of the soil in a region by reversing soil compaction that can be a result 

of cattle grazing. Prairie dogs are an important prey species, being the primary diet in prairie 

species such as the black-footed ferret, swift fox, golden eagle, American badger, and 

ferruginous hawk. Other species also rely on prairie dog burrows for nesting areas. Despite this, 

prairie dogs are often identified as pests and exterminated from agricultural properties because 

they are capable of damaging crops. As a result, prairie dog habitat has been impacted by direct 

removal by ranchers and farmers, as well as the more obvious encroachment of urban 

development which has greatly reduced their populations. 


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Animal Studies: Rabbit 

Rabbits are small mammals in the family 

Leporidae. There are eight different genera in 

the family classified as rabbits, including the 

European rabbit, cottontail rabbits, and the 

Amami rabbit. There are many other 

species of rabbit and these, along with pikas 

and hares, make up the order Lagomorpha. 

Rabbits are found in many parts of the 

world. Their habitats include meadows, 

woods, forests, grasslands, deserts and wetlands. 

More than half the world’s rabbit populations 

resides in North America. Rabbits live 

in groups, and the best known species, the 

European rabbit, lives in underground burrows 

or rabbit holes. A group of burrows is called a 

warren. 

Jason Carter 




Rabbits are perfectly suited for their environments. The rabbit’s long ears, which can be 

more than 4 inches long, are probably an adaptation for detecting predators. They also have 

large, powerful hind legs. The two front paws have 5 toes while the hind feet have 4 toes. Their 

size can range anywhere from 8 inches in length and .4kg in weight to 20 inches in length and 

more than 2 kg. The fur is most commonly long and soft, with colors such as shades of brown, 

gray, and buff. Rabbits have two sets of incisor teeth, one behind the other. This way they can 

be distinguished from rodents. 

Rabbits are hervibores. They feed by grazing on grass, forbs, and leafy weeds. In 

consequence their diet contains large amounts of cellulose which is hard to digest. Rabbits 

graze heavily and rapidly for roughly the first half hour of a grazing period - usually in the late 

afternoon - followed by about half an hour of more selective feeding. Rabbits are hindgut 

digesters. This means that most of their digestion takes place in their large intestine and 

cecum. This is a secondary chamber between the large and small intestine containing large 

quantities of symbiotic bacteria that help with the digestion of cellulose and also produce certain 

B vitamins. The unique musculature of the cecum allows the intestinal tract of the rabbit to 

separate fibrous material from more digestible material: the fibrous material is passed as feces, 

while the more nutritious material is encased in a mucous lining as a cecotrope. Cecotropes, 

sometimes called ‘night feces’, are high in minerals, vitamins and proteins that are necessary to 

the rabbit’s health. Rabbits eat these to meet their nutritional requirements. 

Rabbits are prey animals and are constantly aware of their surroundings. If confronted by 

a potential threat, a rabbit may freeze and observe then warn others in the warren with powerful 

thumps on the ground. Rabbits have a remarkably wide field of vision, and a good deal of it is 

devoted to overhead scanning. They survive predation by burrowing, hopping away in a zig-zag 

motion and, if captured, delivering powerful kicks with their hind legs or by biting. 


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Animal Studies: Rabbit continued 

Rabbits have a very rapid reproductive rate. The 

breeding season for most rabbits lasts 9 months, from 

February to October. Normal gestation is about 30 days. 

The average size of the litter varies but is usually between 

4 and 12 babies, called kittens or kits. A kit can be weaned 

at about 4 to 5 weeks of age. This means in one season a 

single female rabbit can produce as many as 800 children, 

grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. A female rabbit or 

doe is ready to breed at about 6 months of age and a male 

or buck at about 7 months. 

Kits are altricial, which means they are born blind, naked, and helpless. Due to the 

nutritious nature of rabbit milk, kits only need to be nursed for a few minutes once or twice a 

day. At 10 to 11 days after birth the baby rabbits’ eyes open and they start eating on their own at 

around 14 days old. Although born naked, they form a soft baby coat of hair within a few days. 

At about 5 to 6 weeks old, the soft baby coat is replaced with a pre-adult coat. A about 6 to 8 

months of age this intermediate coat is replaced by the final adult coat, which is shed twice a 

year there after. The expected lifespan of rabbits is about 9 to 12 years. 

Mankind uses rabbits in many ways. Domestic 

rabbits can be kept as pets in a backyard hutch 

indoors. European rabbits and hares are also a food 

meat, especially in Europe, South America, North 

America and some parts of the Middle East. When 

used for food rabbits are both hunted and bred. 

Rabbit meat is source of high quality protein. It can be 

used in most ways chicken meat is used. Rabbit meat 

is also leaner than beef, pork, and chicken meat. 

Rabbit pelts are sometimes used for clothing and 

accessories, such as scarves or hats. 

Rabbits are also very good producers of manure. Additionally, their urine, high in nitrogen, 

makes some tree species, such as lemon trees, very productive. Despite their uses, however, 

rabbits have also been a source of environmental problems. As a result of their appetites, and 

the rate at which they breed, feral rabbit depredation can be problematic for agriculture. 

Rabbits appear in the culture and literature of many civilizations. Rabbits are often used as 

a symbol of fertility or rebirth, and have long been associated with spring and Easter as the 

Easter bunny. The species’ role as a prey animal also lends itself as a symbol of innocence, 

another Easter connotation. Additionally rabbits are often used as symbols of playful sexuality 

due to its reputation as a prolific breeder. 

The rabbit often appears in folklore as the trickster archetype as he uses his cunning to 

outwit his enemies. As a trickster he appears in American popular culture in the character of 

Br’er Rabbit from African-American folktales and Disney animation; and the Warner Bros. 

cartoon character Bugs Bunny. Anthropomorphized rabbits appear in such works as Lewis 

Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and the novels Watership Down by Richard Adams. 


youraga.ca


Animal Facts: Wolf 

The gray wolf is the largest wild member of the 

Canidae family. It is an ice age survivor 

originating during the Late Pleistocene era. The 

gray wolf migrated into North America from the Old 

World, via the Bering land bridge, around 400,000 

years ago. They did not become widespread, 

however, until around 12,000 years ago. A member 

of the genus Canis, which comprises between 7 

and 10 species, the wolf was once abundant over 

much of Eurasia and North America. It now 

inhabits a very small portion of its former range 

because of widespread destruction of its territory, 

human encroachment, and the resulting humanwolf 

encounters that sparked broad extirpation. 

Jason Carter 




Wolf weight and size can vary greatly 

worldwide, tending to increase 

proportionally with latitude. In 

general, height varies from 24 to 37 

inches at the shoulder. Wolf weight also 

varies geographically: on average, 

European wolves may weigh up to 85 

lb., North American wolves up to 79 lbs, 

and Indian and Arabian wolves up to 55 

lbs. Females in any given wolf 

population typically weigh 20% less than 

the males. Females also have narrower 

muzzles and foreheads; slightly shorter, 

smoother furred legs; and less massive 

shoulders. 

Wolves have bulky coats consisting of two layers. The first is made up of tough guard hairs 

that repel water and dirt. The second is a dense, water-resistant undercoat that insulates. The 

undercoat is shed in the form of large tufts of fur in late spring or early summer. Fur 

colouration varies greatly, running from gray to gray-brown, all the way through the canine 

spectrum of white, red, brown and black. These colours tend to mix in many populations to form 

predominantly blended individuals, though it is not uncommon for an individual or entire 

population to be entirely one colour. Fur colour sometimes corresponds with a given wolf 

population’s environment; for example, all-white wolves are much more common in areas with 

perennial snow cover. At birth wolf pups tend to have darker fur and blue irises that will change 

to a yellow-gold or orange colour when the pups are between 8 and 16 weeks old. The 

undercoat of fur is usually gray regardless of the outer coat’s appearance. 


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Animal Facts: Wolf continued 

Generally mating occurs between January 

and April. The higher the latitude, however, 

the later mating occurs. A pack usually 

produces a single litter unless the breeding 

male mates with one or more subordinate 

females. When the breeding female goes into 

estrus (which occurs once per year and lasts 

5-14 days), she and her mate will spend an 

extended time in seclusion. The gestation 

period lasts betwen 60 and 63 days. The pups, 

which weigh about 1 lb. at birth, are born blind, 

deaf, and completely dependent on their http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wold 

mother. The average litter size is 5-6 pups. The 

pups reside in the den for about two months. 

Eventually they become more independent and 

will begin to explore the area immediately 

outside the den before gradually roaming up to a mile away from it at around five weeks of age. 

During the first weeks of development the mother usually stays with her litter alone, but eventually 

most members of the pack will contribute to the rearing of the pups in some way. After two 

months the restless pups will be moved to a rendezvous site where they can stay safely while 

most of the adults go out to hunt. After a few weeks the pups are permitted to join the adults if 

they are able and will receive priority on anything killed despite their low rank in the pack. 

Wolves typically reach sexual maturity after two or three years, at which point many of 

them will be compelled to leave their birth packs and seek out mates and territories of 

their own. Normally a wolf pack consists of a male, a female, and their offspring, essentially 

making the pack a nuclear family. The size of the pack may change over time and is controlled 

by several factors, including habitat, personalities of individual wolves within a pack, and food 

supply. Packs can contain between 2 and 20 wolves, though 8 is a more typical size. In 

literature wolf packs are commonly portrayed as having a dominant breeding ‘alpha pair’, a 

group of subordinant ‘beta’ individuals, and the ‘omega wolf’ on the lowest end of the 

hierarchy. These descriptions, however, are based on research on captive wolf packs composed 

of unrelated animals and so cannot be extrapolated to wild wolf packs. According to wolf 

biologist L.David Mech: 

Calling a wolf an ‘alpha’ is usually no more approriate than referring to a human parent or a doe 

deer as an alpha. Any parent is dominant to its offspring so ‘alpha’ adds no information.(Gray 

Wolf - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf, pg. 6) 

Offspring of the breeding pair tend to stay with the pack for some portion of their adulthood. 

These ‘subordinate’ wolves play a number of important roles in the pack, including participating 

in hunts, enforcing discipline and raising pups. This behavior is achieved, in part, by an 

active suppression of reproduction in subordinate wolves by the breeding pair. While they 

remain members of the pack the subordinate wolves are unable to reproduce, even if there are 

other subordinate unrelated wolves in the pack. 


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Animal Facts: Wolf continued 

Wolves are territorial animals. The average 

size of a wolf pack’s territory is close to 200 

square kilometers. Wolf packs travel constantly 

in search of prey. The core of their territory is, 

on average, 35 square kilometers, in which they 

spend 50% of their time. Wolves tend to avoid 

hunting in the fringes of their territory, even 

though prey density tends to be higher there, 

due to the possibility of fatal encounters with 

neighbouring packs. 

Wolves feed primarily on medium to large 

sized ungulates. However, like most predators, 

they are opportunistic feeders and will 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf 

generally eat any meat that is available. Wolf 

packs above 2 individuals show little strategic 

cooperation in hunting large prey. Wolves typically attempt to conceal themselves as they 

approach their prey. If the prey animal stands its ground or confronts the pack the wolves will 

approach and threaten it but eventually leave if their prey does not run. Usually it is the 

dominant pair in a pack that works the hardest in killing the pack’s prey. During feeding this 

status is reinforced. The breeding pair usually eats first. Wolves of intermediate rank will prevent 

lower ranking pack members from feeding until the dominant pair finishes eating. Wolves 

supplement their diet with vegetation and, after eating, will drink large quantities of water to 

prevent uremic poisoning. 

Wolves communicate with each other in a variety of ways. They can communicate visually 

through a variety of expressions and moods ranging from subtle signals, such as a slight shift in 

weight, to more obvious ones, such as rolling on their backs to indicate complete submission. 

Howling is also extremely important. Howling helps pack members keep in touch, allowing them 

to communicate effectively in thickly forested areas or over great distances. Howling also helps 

to call pack members to a specific location and serves as a declaration of territory. Wolves will 

also howl for communal reasons. Some scientists speculate that such group sessions 

strengthen the wolves’ social bonds and camaraderie. Observations of wolf packs suggest that 

howling occurs most often during the twilight hours, preceding the adults’ departure for or return 

from a hunt. Wolves also howl more frequently during the breeding season and rearing process. 

A wolf’s howl may be heard from up to 16 kilometers (10 miles) away depending on weather 

conditions. 

Humans have had a complex and varied viewpoint of wolves. In many parts of the world 

and in many cultures wolves were respected and revered whereas in others they have been 

feared and held in distaste. Humans dislike of wolves has resulted in a great reduction in the 

wolfs’ former range and, from 1982 to 1994, the gray wolf was listed as vulnerable to extinction 

by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Changes in legal protections, land-use 

and population shifts to urban areas, and recolonization and reintroduction programs have 

increased wolf populations in western Europe and the western United States. As a result, the 

risk status of the wolf has been reduced to being of least concern. 


youraga.ca


Animals in Art and Art Movements 

Like all subjects investigated by visual artists, the treatment of animals in the visual arts 

has been influenced by the art style(s) in vogue at the time the work was created. While 

all periods of history have witnessed aspects of innovation in various realms, no period 

has witnessed such profound and rapid change in a multitude of areas as the late 

nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These centuries witnessed major technological 

advancements, changes in political and social systems, and changes in how mankind 

actually perceived the world, changes which continue to impact the world into the 21st 

century. The art realm was one segment of society which was dramatically affected by 

changes in all these areas. In art these changes were expressed through the use of new 

means of art production and new and challenging methods of art expression. 

Jason Carter describes his painting style as Abstract Contemporary Aboriginal Pop Art 

and the influences of both Abstraction and Pop Art are clearly evidenced in his paintings 

in the exhibition Urban Animals. As seen in his paintings, the bright colours and 

simplicity of shapes as utilised in Pop Art, and the simplification of ‘real’ forms, a feature 

of abstraction, are primary features of Carter’s style. 

The following analysis examines the history of modernism/abstraction in the visual arts 

as well as the art movements of Pop Art, Post-Modernism and the Woodland School of 

First Nations Art as these movements are relevant to the artistic expressions of Jason 

Carter. 

Jason Carter 

Prairie Dogs on the open road, 2012 




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Animals in Art and Art Styles: Abstraction 

Of all the arts, abstract painting is the most difficult. It demands that you know how to draw well, 

that you have a heightened sensitivity for composition and for colours, and that you be a true 

poet. This last is essential. 

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) 

Abstract Art is a term applied to 20th century 

styles in reaction against the traditional European 

view of art as the imitation of nature. Abstraction 

stresses the formal or elemental structure of a 

work and has been expressed in all genres or 

subjects of visual expression. 

Like all painting, abstract painting is not a 

unified practice. Rather, the term ‘abstraction’ 

covers two main, distinct tendencies. The first 

involves the reduction of natural appearances 

to simplified forms. Reduction may lead to the 

depiction of the essential or generic forms of things 

by eliminating particular and accidental variations. 

Reduction can also involve the creation of art which 

works away from the individual and particular with 

a view to creating an independent construct of 

shapes and colours having aesthetic appeal in their 

own right. 

Illingworth Kerr 

Untitled - Mountain Goats, n.d. 

Pastel on paper 

Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts 

The second tendency in abstraction involves the construction of art objects from nonrepresentational 

basic forms. These objects are not created by abstracting from natural 

appearances but by building up with non-representational shapes and patterns. In other 

words, in this mode, abstract works are ones without a recognisable subject and do not relate 

to anything external or try to ‘look like something’. Instead, the colour and form (and often the 

materials and support) are the subject of the abstract painting. 

Whatever the tendency in abstraction, it is characteristic of most modes of abstraction that they 

abandon or subordinate the traditional function of art to portray perceptible reality and 

emphasize its function to create a new reality for the viewer’s perception. As described by Roald 

Nasgaard in his work Abstract Painting in Canada: 

The first message of an abstract work is the immediate reality of our perception of it as an actual 

object in and of themselves, like other things in the world, except that they are uniquely made 

for concentrated aesthetic experience. (pg. 11) 


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The History of Abstraction: A Survey 

Bison Painting, 18,000 - 13,000 years B.P. 

Altimira Cave, Spain 

Clay Jaguar 

200 BC - 600 AD 

Monte Alban, Mesoamerica 

Antelope Mask 

Bamileke Tribe, Cameroon, Africa 

It is generally stated that abstraction in art was developed in the early decades of the 

20th century. The practice of abstracting from reality, however, is virtually as old as 

mankind itself. Early hunters and gatherers, as seen in the cave painting image above, 

created marvelous simplified or stylized images of the animals they depended on, both 

spiritually and in terms of sustenance, in caves throughout the world. 

The artworks produced by non-European cultures, as seen in the two examples above 

and whether pre-historic or contemporary in nature, also provide examples of various 

degrees of abstraction in both two and three dimensional forms. The development of 

abstraction in European art in the early 20th century was, in fact, fostered by the study of 

such artworks by European artists such as Pablo Picasso. 


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The History of Abstraction: A Survey con’t 

Abstraction in European Art History 

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) is usually credited 

with making the first entirely non-representational 

painting in 1910. The history of abstraction in 

European art, however, begins before 

Kandinsky in the later decades of the 19th 

century with the work of the French 

Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Paul 

Cézanne and Georges Seurat. While the work of 

these artists was grounded in visible reality, their 

methods of working and artistic concerns began the 

process of breaking down the academic restrictions 

concerning what was acceptable subject matter in 

art, how artworks were produced and, most 

importantly, challenged the perception of what a 

painting actually was. 

Wassily Kandinsky 

Composition VII, 1913 

The Tretyalov Gallery, Moscow 

Paul Cézanne 

Maison Arbies, 1890-1894 

The Tretyalov Gallery, Moscow 

Claude Monet 

Haystacks (sunset), 1890-1891 

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 

George Seurat 

A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La 

Grande Jatte, 1884-1886 

Radicals in their time, early Impressionists broke the rules of academic painting. They began 

by giving colours, freely brushed, primacy over line. They also took the act of painting out of the 

studio and into the modern world. Painting realistic scenes of modern life, they portrayed overall 

visual effects instead of details. They used short “broken” brush strokes of mixed and pure 

unmixed colour, not smoothly blended or shades as was customary, in order to achieve the 

effect of intense colour vibration. 

The vibrant colour used by the Impressionist artists was adopted by their successors, 

the Fauve artists. The Fauves were modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities 

and strong colour over the representational or realistic values retained by the Impressionists. 

This group, which basically operated from 1905 to 1907, was led by Henri Matisse and André 

Derain. 


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Henri Matisse 

Harmony in Red, 1908 

André Derain 

Charing Cross Bridge, London 1906 

National Gallery of Art, Washington 

The paintings of the Fauve artists were characterised by seemingly wild brush work and strident 

colours and, in their focus on colour over line and drawing, the subjects of their paintings came 

to be characterized by a high degree of simplification and abstraction. 

Pablo Picasso 

Les Demoiselles d/ Avignon, 1907 

Museum of Modern Art 

New York, New York 

Pablo Picasso 

Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 

1910 

While the Impressionists and Fauve artists are the direct ancestors of the abstract 

movement in 20th century art, the real creator of abstraction was Pablo Picasso. Picasso 

used primative art from Africa and Oceania as a ‘battering ram’ against the classical 

conception of beauty. Picasso made his first cubist paintings, such as Les Demoiselles 

d’Avignon, based on Cézanne’s idea that all depiction of nature can be reduced to three solids: 

cube, sphere and cone. Together with Georges Braque, Picasso continued his experiments and 

invented facet or analytical cubism. As expressed in the Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, Picasso 

created works which can no longer be read as images of the external world but as worlds of their 

own. 


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Fragmented and redefined, the images preserved remnants of Renaissance principles of 

perspective as space lies behind the picture plane and has no visible limits. By 1911 

Picasso and Georges Braque developed what is known as Synthetic Cubism which introduced 

collage into art making. Through this process these artists introduced a whole new concept of 

space into art making. 

Pablo Picasso 

Still Life with Bowl of Fruit, 1912 

Philadelphia Museum of Art 

Pablo Picasso 

Portrait of a Girl 1914 

Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre 

Georges Pompidou, Paris 

In synthetic cubism, the picure plane lies in front of the picture plane and the picture is 

recognized as essentially a flat object. This re-definition of space, so different from the 

Renaissance principle of three-dimensional illusion that had dominated academic teaching for 

centuries, would have a profound effect on the development of abstraction in art and was a true 

landmark in the history of painting. 

Wassily Kandinsky 

Composition X, 1939 

Piet Mondrian 

Lozenge Composition with Yellow, Black, 

Blue, Red and Gray, 1921 

Influenced by the practices of Impressionism, Fauvism and Cubism, artists gradually 

developed the idea that colour, line, form and texture could be the actual subjects of a 

painting and formed the essential characteristics of art. Adhering to this, Wassily 

Kandinsky and Piet Mondrian developed the first pure abstract works in 20th century art. 


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For both Kandinsky and Mondrian, abstraction was a search for truths behind 

appearances, expressed in a pure visual vocabulary stripped of representational 

references. 

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) was born in Moscow. Originally trained in law and economics, 

Kandinsky started painting at the age of 30 and, in 1896, moved to Germany to study art 

full-time. After a brief return to Russia (1914-1921) Kandinsky returned to Germany where he 

taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture until it was closed by the Nazis in 1933. He 

then moved to France where he remained for the rest of his life. 

Kandinsky’s creation of purely abstract work followed a long period of development and 

maturation of theoretical thought based on his personal artistic experience. At first influenced by 

both pointillism and the Fauve artists, by 1922 geometrical elements had taken on increasing 

importance in his paintings. Kandinsky was also extremely influenced by music as he 

considered music abstract by nature as it does not try to represent the exterior world but rather 

to express in an immediate way the inner feelings of the human soul. He was also influenced by 

the theories of Theosophy expressed by H.P. Blavatsky. These theories, which had a 

tremendous influence on many artists during the 1920s, postulated that creation was a 

geometrical progression beginning with a single point. Kandinsky’s mature paintings focus on 

geometric forms and the use of colour as something autonomous and apart from a visual 

description of an object or other form and through relinquishing outer appearances he hoped to 

more directly communicate feelings to the viewer. 

The most radical abstractionist of the early 

20th century was Piet Mondirian (1872- 

1944). Born in Amersfoort, the Netherlands, 

Mondrian began his career as a primary 

teacher. While teaching he also practiced 

painting and these early works, while definitely 

representational in nature, show the influence 

various artistic movements such as pointillism 

and fauvism had on him. Mondrian’s art, like 

Kandinsky’s, was also strongly influenced by 

the theosophical movement and his work from 

1908 to the end of his life involved a search for 

the spiritual knowledge expressed by 

theosophist theory. 

Piet Mondrian 

Composition with Yellow Patch, 1930 

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein- 

Westfalen, Dusseldorf 

In 1911 Mondrian moved to Paris and came under the influence of Picasso’s cubism. While 

cubist influences can be seen in his works from 1911 to 1914, however, unlike the Cubists 

Mondrian attempted to reconcile his painting with his spiritual pursuits. In this pursuit he began 

to simplify elements in his paintings further than the cubists had done until he had developed a 

completely non-representational, geometric style. In this work Mondrian did not strive for pure 

lyrical emotion as Kandinsky did. Rather, his goal was pure reality defined as equilibrium 

achieved through the balance of unequal but equivalent oppositions. By 1919 Mondrian began 

producing the grid-based paintings for which he became renowned and this subject motivated 

his art practice for the rest of his life. 


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Modernism according to Clement Greenberg 

Clement Greenberg (1909-1994) was an influential American art critic closely associated with 

Modern art in the United States and Canada. He helped to articulate a concept of medium 

specificity and championed abstraction in the visual arts. In 1940, in an influential piece in 

Partisan Review, Greenberg argued that the value of art was located in its form, which is 

inseparable from its content. In his first essay on modernism, written in 1960, Greenberg gave 

what has been described as what may be the most elegant definition of modernism in 

existence. In the essay Greenberg defined modernism as: 

...the use of characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself, not in order to 

subvert it but in order to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence. 

According to Greenberg’s essay, all the arts, in order to not be devalued in society, had to 

demonstrate that the kind of experience they provided was valuable in their own right and not 

to be obtained from any other kind of activity. As a result, what had to be exhibited was not only 

that which was unique and irreducible in art in general, but also that which was unique and 

irreducible in each particular art. 

In this process it quickly emerged that the unique and proper area of competence of 

each art coincided with all that was unique in the nature of its medium. In criticizing itself, 

it became art’s task to eliminate from the specific effects of each art any and every effect that 

might be borrowed from or by the medium of any other art. Through this each art would be 

rendered “pure” and in this “purity” it would find the guarantee of its standards of quality. 

In painting, the limitations that constitute the medium of painting - the flat surface, the shape of 

the support, the properties of the pigment - were traditionally treated as negative factors that 

could be acknowledged only implicitly or indirectly. In an Old Master painting, for example, one 

tends to see what is in the painting before one sees the picture - the paint itself, the works 

format - itself. Traditionally artists attempted to create an illusion of space in depth that the 

viewer could imagine oneself walking into. Modernism in painting reversed this. Through 

stressing the flatness of the surface, the flatness of the picture plane being the only 

thing unique and exclusive to pictorial art, Modernist artists created a situation where 

the viewer sees a Modernist picture as a picture first. In a modernist painting, the illusion 

created can only be seen into and can only be traveled through, literally or figuratively, with the 

eye. In other words, the painting is an object itself, not merely a vehicle for a story or an 

illusion. 

Modernism in the visual arts is closely linked to the concept of formalism. Formalism is the 

concept that a work’s artistic value is entirely determined by its form - the way it is made, its 

purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such 

as colour, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context and content. In visual art, 

formalism posits that everything necessary to comprehending a work of art is contained 

within the work of art. In formalist theory, the focus is on the aesthetic experience gained from 

the piece. 


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Post-painterly Abstraction 

Morris Louis 

Where, 1960 

Magna on canvas 

Hirshhorn Museum 

Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by 

art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an 

exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County 

Museum of Art in 1964. It is a broad term that 

encompasses a variety of styles which evolved in 

reaction to the painterly, gestural approaches of 

Abstract Expressionism. Greenberg characterized 

post-painterly abstraction as linear in design, bright 

in colour, lacking in detail and incident, and open 

in composition (inclined to lead the eye beyond the 

limits of the canvas). While post-painterly works were 

cleaner in composition and utilised sharper forms 

in reaction to Abstract Expressionist works, others 

utilised softer forms and a decorative character. 

The works of art termed post-painterly ushered in a 

variety of new directions in abstract art and these, 

combined with the Pop Art movement, led the way 

to the contemporary art of the 21st century. 

Jack Bush 

Big A, 1968 


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Colour Field Painting 

Abstraction in the visual arts has taken 

many forms over the 20th century. One of 

these is Colour Field Painting. 

Colour Field painting emerged in New York 

City during the 1940s and 1950s. Inspired by 

European modernism and closely related to 

Abstract Expressionism, colour field 

painting is characterized primarily by large fields 

of flat, solid colour spread across or stained into 

the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface 

and a flat picture plane. The movement places 

less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and 

action in favour of an overall consistency of 

form and process. 

Henri Matisse 

View of Notre Dame, 1914 

Oil on canvas 

Museum of Modern Art, New York 

The use of large opened fields of expressive colour applied in generous painterly portions, 

accompanied by loose drawing, was first seen in the early 20th century works of Henri Matisse 

and Joan Miró. These artists, along with Pablo Picasso, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Piet 

Mondrian directly influenced the Abstract Expressionists, the Colour Field painters and the 

Lyrical Abstractionists. During the late 1950s and 1960s Colour Field painters emerged in 

Great Britain, Canada, Washington, D.C. and the West Coast of the United States. Using 

formats of stripes, targets, simple geometric patterns and references to landscape 

imagery and to nature these artists began to break away stylistically from abstract 

expressionism; experimenting with new ways of making pictures and new ways of 

handling paint and colour. The artists associated with the Colour Field movement moved 

away from the violence and anxiety of Action Painting toward a new and ‘calmer’ 

language of colour. 

An important distinction that made colour field painting different from abstract 

expressionism was the paint handling. Colour Field painters revolutionized the way paint 

could be effectively applied as they sought to rid art of superfluous rhetoric. In this aim 

they used greatly reduced formats with drawing essentially simplified to repetitive and 

regulated systems, basic references to nature, and a highly articulated and 

psychological use of colour. In general these painters eliminated overt recognizable imagery 

and sought to present each painting as one unified, cohesive, monolithic image often with series 

of related types. Unlike the emotional energy and gestural surface marks and paint handling of 

abstract expressionists, colour field painters sought to efface individual marks in favour of large, 

flat, stained and soaked areas of colour. 


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Colour Field Painting continued 

Helen Frankenthaler 

Mountains and Sea, 1952 

Oil stain on canvas 

One of the reasons for the success of the colour field movement was the technique of staining. 

In this method artists would dilute their paint in containers, making a fluid liquid and then pour 

it onto raw unprimed canvas. The paint could also be brushed on or rolled on or thrown on and 

would spread into the fabric of the canvas and artists would often draw shapes and areas as 

they stained. Many artists, such as Helen Frankenthaler, found that pouring and staining opened 

the door to innovations and revolutionary methods of drawing and expressing meaning in new 

ways. 

Colour field became a viable way of painting at exactly the time that acrylic paint, the new plastic 

paint, came into being. Oil paints, which have a medium quite different, are not water based and 

so leave a slick of oil around the edge of a colour whereas acrylic paints stop at their own edge. 

Acrylics were first made commercially in the 1950s with water soluble artist quality acrylic paints 

becoming commercially available in the early 1960s. These proved to be ideally suited for stain 

painting as water soluble acrylics made diluted colours sink and hold fast into raw canvas. 


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Pop Art: A Brief Analysis 

Pop Art refers to an art movement that 

began in the mid 1950s in Britain and 

in the late 1950s in the United States. 

From the very start its imagery was 

largely based on American mass media 

and the movement thus had a special 

appeal to American artists. The Pop Art 

Movement reached its fullest 

development in America in the 1960s. 

Pop Art challenged tradition by asserting 

that an artist’s use of the mass-produced 

visual commodities of popular culture is 

contiguous with the perspective of Fine 

Art. Pop Art is aimed to employ images 

of popular as opposed to elitist culture in 

art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy 

elements of any given culture. As such, 

pop art employs aspects of mass culture 

such as advertising, comic books, and 

mundane cultural objects as art subjects 

such as hamburgers and ice-cream 

cones. Pop Art is also associated with the 

artists’ use of mechanical means of 

reproduction or rendering techniques 

such as the commercial advertising 

technique of silk-screening. 

Jasper Johns 

Flag, 1954-1955 


Patrick Caulfield 

Still Life with Dagger, 1963 

Tate Gallery, London U.K. 

In the United States Pop Art was initially regarded as 

a reaction to Abstract Expressionism because its 

exponents brought back figural, representational 

imagery and made use of hard-edged, quasiphotographic 

techniques. Early Pop artists, such as 

Jasper Johns, used the energetic brushstrokes and 

boldly abbreviated shapes of Action Painting, but Pop 

artists differed in that their paintings are about 

something beyond personal symbolism and 

‘painterly looseness’. 

Pop artists were often labeled Neo-Dadaists because 

they used commonplace subjects such as comic strips 

(Roy Lichtenstein), soup tins (Andy Warhol) and 

highway signs which had affinities with Marcel Duchamp’s ‘ready-mades’ of the early 20th 

century. 

Artists associated with the Pop Art Movement are not unified in their artistic approaches but, 


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Pop Art: A Brief Analysis continued 

generally speaking, Pop Art works can be defined in style by the use of simplified imagery 

and the use of bright colours. 

Keith Haring (1958-1990) 

Keith Haring Button 

Roy Lichtenstien (1923-1997) 

Drowning Girl, 1963 


Andy Warhol (1928-1987) 

Campbells Soup, 1968 


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Post Modernism: A Brief Analysis 

The paintings of Jason Carter in the exhibition Urban Animals are most clearly influenced 

by the art movements of abstraction/modernism and pop art. The simplification and 

emphasis on the flatness of the picture plane, seen in many of his works, speak to 

modernism while the use of bold flat colours are a hall-mark of pop art. In all of his works, 

however, he also demonstrates clear influences from the territory of Postmodernism in 

the arts. 

Postmodern Art is a term used to describe 

art movements which both arise from, and 

react against or reject, trends in 

modernism. The traits associated with the 

use of the term postmodern in art include 

bricolage, the use of words prominently as 

the central artistic element, collage, 

simplification, appropriation, depiction of 

consumer or popular culture and 

Performance Art. 

Al McWilliams 

Appearances, 1986 

Photograph on board 


In painting postmodernism reintroduced representation and traditional techniques to art making. 

Postmodernism rejects modernism’s grand narratives of artistic direction, removes the 

boundaries between high and low forms of art, and disrupts genre’s conventions with collision, 

collage, and fragmentation. 

Specific trends of modernism generally cited are formal purity, medium specificity, art for art’s 

sake, authenticity, universality, originality and revolutionary or reactionary tendencies, ie. the 

avant-garde. Many institutions argue that being visionary, forward-looking, cutting-edge, and 

progressive are crucial to the mission of art. Postmodernism, on the other hand, rejects the 

notion of advancement or progress in art per se, and thus aims to overturn the ‘myth of the 

avant-garde’. It also rejects modernism’s grand narratives of artistic direction, eradicating the 

boundaries between high and low forms of art, and disrupting genre’s conventions with collision, 

collage, and fragmentation. Irony, parody and humor are important ingredients in postmodern 

works. 

Many movements and trends in art throughout the 20th century are seen as precursors to 

postmodernism. With the introduction of the use of industrial artifacts in art and techniques such 

as collage, avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Dada and Surrealism questioned the 

nature and value of art. These movements in turn were influenced by new artforms such as 

cinema and the rise of reproduction as a means of creating artworks. Other modern movements 

influential to postmodern art are Pop Art, Minimalism, conceptual art and the use of techniques 

such as assemblage, montage, and appropriation. 

Unlike modern art, with its constant reinvention, postmodern art has a number of 

movements within it. One of these is a return to classical painting and sculpture. A second 

movement is termed Conceptual art. Conceptual art is sometimes labelled postmodern because 

it is expressly involved in deconstruction of what makes a work of art ‘art’. Because it is often 


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Post Modernism: A Brief Analysis continued 

designed to confront, offend or attack notions held by many of the people who view it, 

conceptual art is regarded with particular controversy. 

A third trend in Postmodern Art is termed lowbrow art. Lowbrow art is a widespread populist 

art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, 

and other California subcultures. It is also often known by the name pop surrealism. Lowbrow 

art highlights a central theme in postmodernism in that the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’ art 

are no longer recognized. Another trend in art which has been associated with the term postmodern 

is the use of a number of different media together. One of the most 

common forms of ‘multi-media art’ is the use of video art. 

Finally, the re-emergence of an allegorical impulse is characteristic of postmodern art. 

This impulse is linked to appropriation in art which debunks modernist notions of artistic genius 

and originality and is more ambivalent and contradictory than modern art. 

Jason Carter 

The Prairie Dogs on the Open Road, 2012 



Characteristics inherent to Postmodern Art are 

evidenced in all of the paintings by Jason Carter in 

the exhibition Urban Animals. Carter’s emphasis 

on representation, simplification of forms, the 

introduction of narrative, the elevation of ‘low’ art 

forms (illustration and comic book elements), and 

the mix of modernist and pop art concerns all 

mark his work as going in a different direction than 

either strict modernism or Pop Art. Also central to 

some of the paintings in the exhibiiton are the 

elements of irony and humor. These elements are 

expressed most clearly in the paintings The 

Prairie Dogs on the Open Road and The Man 

Hole. 


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Animals in Art and Art Styles: 

The Woodland Style 

While First Nations peoples have been 

creating visual imagery for millennia, it was 

not until the 1960s that their imagery was 

recognized by the Canadian Art establishment 

as anything more than cultural artifacts or 

records. The first First Nations artist to 

achieve any recognition in Canada was 

Norval Morrisseau who developed what has 

come to be termed the Woodland School of 

art. In 1973 Morrisseau joined artists Alex 

Janvier, Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray, Eddy 

Cobiness and Joe Sanchez, to form a group 

which came to be called the ‘Indian Group of 

Seven’ whose mission was to spread the word 

about Native woodland art. This group has 

had a tremendous influence on the First 

Nations artists who have followed them. 

Jason Carter 




Morrisseau’s influence is evident in the paintings of Jason Carter in the exhibition 

Urban Animals. Utilising bright, flat colours outlined by heavy dark lines, hall-marks of 

the Woodland style as developed by Morrisseau, Carter creates strong images which 

speak to the importance of animals both to First Nations peoples and to humanity as a 

whole. 

Norval Morrisseau 

Norval Morrisseau (1932-2007) was one of Canada’s foremost aboriginal artists and founder 

of the Woodland Style of painting. Born near Thunder Bay, Ontario, on the Sand Point Reserve, 

Morrisseau was an Ojibwa shaman and self-taught artist who painted for more than 50 years, 

gaining an International reputation as one of Canada’s original master artists. Morrisseau was 

brought up by both of his maternal grandparents. His grandfather was a shaman who schooled 

him in the traditional ways of his culture while his grandmother, a Catholic, made sure he 

was familiar with Christian beliefs. According to accounts, it was the conflict between the two 

cultures that influenced Morrisseau’s outlook and became his art. 

Morrisseau was known for taking traditional icons expressed in his native culture in rock art 

and birch bark scrolls and translating these images in the Western media of easel painting and 

printmaking. He was also fascinated with modern European painting, which he was exposed to 

by his first Anglo-Canadian patrons in 1959. 


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The Woodland Style continued 

Morrisseau’s first exhibition was in 1962 and throughout his career he received numerous 

distinctions. In 1970 he became a member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Art. In 1978 he 

was made a Member of the Order of Canada and also received honorary doctorates from McGill 

University in Montreal and McMaster University in Hamilton. In 1995 The Assembly of First 

Nations presented him with its highest honour, a presentation of an eagle feather. In 2006 

Morrisseau had the only native solo art exhibition in the 127 year history of the National Gallery 

of Canada. Shortly before his death Morrisseau had a major solo exhibition entitled 

Norval Morrisseau: Shaman Artist, at the National Museum of the North American Indian in 

New York City. As stated by Assembly of First Nations National Chief Phil Fontaine following 

Morrisseau’s death: 

Norval Morrisseau’s courageous and often controversial approach to his work was 

instrumental in encouraging First Nations people to know their spirituality, history and 

culture in order to better understand themselves. 

Norval Morrisseau could lay claim to being the creator and spiritual leader of the Woodland 

Indian art movement, not only in Canada but in the northeast United States. He developed his 

style independent of the influence of any other artist and was the first to depict Ojibwa legends 

and history to the non-native world. In Morrisseau’s work there is little attention to figurative 

modelling, and no delving into the problems of perspective or pictorial depth. Instead, he 

presented stylized versions of what he knew: the bears, loons, fish and other animals and the 

people in the town around him. The rudiments of Woodland, also called the pictographic 

style or x-ray style, paintings are expressive formline; a system for transparency and 

interconnecting lines that determine relationships in terms of spiritual power. For 

Morrisseau, the use of bright, contrasting colours were also a key resource in his 

repertory of symbols. His manner of separating form into areas of distinct colour is reminiscent 

of stained glass and may have been a result of his conversion to Christianity and frequent 

trips to a Catholic Church when he was recovering from tuberculosis in his early 20s. He used 

connecting lines to depict interdependence between forms and colours. Three generations of 

native artists have followed in Morrisseau’s footsteps, producing variations of the Morrisseau 

style using heavy black outlines to enclose colourful, flat shapes. As expressed by Morrisseau 

himself: 

I want to make paintings full of colour, laughter, compassion and love....If I can do that, I can 

paint for 100 years. 

Norval Morrisseau 

Fish Unity in Cosmic Sea, n.d. 

Serigraph on paper 

Art Gallery of Alberta Collection 


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Animals in Alberta Art: A Survey 

Paul Kane 

Assiniboine Hunting Buffalo,1851-1856 

Oil on canvas 

Collection of the National Gallery of Canada 

Alberta is a young province, and the 

practice of Euro-Canadian artistic modes 

of expression is thus a relatively recent 

phenomena in the province. The first 

Euro-Canadian artist to practice in the 

prairies was Paul Kane (1810-1871) who, in 

the 1840s, travelled from Toronto to Fort 

Edmonton and on to Fort Victoria. Kane’s 

focus was on recording, in a romantic 

fashion, the land and human inhabitants 

(especially the First Nations peoples he 

encountered) of the vast western regions for 

his eastern patrons. In this pursuit he 

naturally recorded the fauna he found in his 

travels as well. 

A second early Canadian artist also 

interested in the fauna of the west was 

Frederick Verner. Born in Sheridan, Ontario, 

Verner (1836-1928) admired the work of Paul 

Kane, with whom he later became friends. 

Because of this admiration, Verner decided 

to become a painter himself. Emulating Kane 

he travelled west to paint Indian scenes and, 

by 1873, was the most popular artist 

working in Toronto. Like Kane he also 

artistically explored the fauna he found in the 

west. 

In the late 19th century, as expressed 

in the work of Kane, Verner, and a small 

handful of other artists, three main 

themes were explored in prairie art: First 

Nations (and early Euro-Canadian) 

peoples and lifestyles; the landscape; and 

the animals of the west. 

Frederick Verner 

Buffalo Stampede,1882 

Oil on canvas 


While animal imagery has continued to be an aspect of Alberta’s artistic heritage since 

the 1800s, for most of the 20th century this investigation was an undercurrent as animal 

imagery came to have little status in the serious art world. As stated by curator Elizabeth 

Brown: 

There is a feeling, held by many artists and critics, that there is something over-sentimental or 

superficial in their (animals) portrayal. 

While animal images were produced by various artists in the early decades of the twentieth 


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Animals in Alberta Art continued 

century, such as seen in the drawings of 

Illingworth Kerr, such imagery was not given 

much attention in art circles. It is only since the 

early 1990s that animals have emerged as a 

theme worthy of serious exhibition within the 

province. In her book An Alberta Art Chronicle: 

Adventure in recent & contemporary art, author 

Mary-Beth Laviolette provides two key influences 

on this re-emergence. First is the emergence 

of a generation of First Nations artists, such as 

George Littlechild and Joane Cardinal-Schubert, 

who readily employ such imagery in compelling 

ways. 

Joane Cardinal-Schubert 

Self-Portrait - Warshirt - Secrets,1991 

Mixed-media on paper 


A second reason for the increased respectability of animal imagery is the emergence of the 

environmental movement and ‘New Age’ attitudes. Both environmentalists and ‘New Agers’ 

venerate nature and enoble animals and, as environmental themes have come to the fore in 

many art practices, animal imagery has risen in esteem. Finally, due to the enduring culture of 

animal husbandry on the prairies, there is a tremendous empathy for animals among both the 

viewing public and artists themselves. Contemporary artists, such as seen in the work of 

Maureen Enns, place animals in less traditional compositions, giving them a context linked with 

contemporary art practices since the 1970s. Enns, for example, is interested in such formal 

issues as realism, abstraction, collage, decorative patterning, depth versus flatness etc., all 

contemporary painting concerns. These result in unconventional animal portraits which, while 

approachable, still present artistic challenges to the viewer and, while evoking contemporary 

painting practices, are also very potent symbols of place. 

Maureen Enns 

Dolly-Divide Pass, 1991 

Charcoal on paper 

Collection of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts 


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An Urban Animal Story 

CBC news - October 31, 2012 


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Visual Learning 

and Hands-On 

Art Activities 

Jason Carter 





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What is Visual Learning? 

All art has many sides to it. The artist makes the works for people to experience. They in turn 

can make discoveries about both the work and the artist that help them learn and give them 

pleasure for a long time. 

How we look at an object determines what we come to know about it. We remember information 

about an object far better when we are able to see (and handle) objects rather than by only 

reading about them. This investigation through observation (looking) is very important to 

undertanding how objects fit into our world in the past and in the present and will help viewers 

reach a considered response to what they see. The following is a six-step method to looking 

at, and understanding, a work of art. 

STEP 1: INITIAL, INTUITIVE RESPONSE The first ‘gut level’ response to a visual presentation. 

What do you see and what do you think of it? 

STEP 2: DESCRIPTION Naming facts - a visual inventory of the elements of design. 

Questions to Guide Inquiry: 

What colours do you see? What shapes are most noticeable? 

What objects are most apparent? Describe the lines in the work. 

STEP 3: ANALYSIS Exploring how the parts relate to each other. 


What proportions can you see? eg. What percentage of the work is background? Foreground? 

Land? Sky? Why are there these differences? What effect do these differences create? 

What parts seem closest to you? Farthest away? How does the artist give this impression? 

STEP 4: INTERPRETATION Exploring what the work might mean or be about 


How does this work make you feel? Why? 

What word would best describe the mood of this work? 

What is this painting/photograph/sculpture about? 

Is the artist trying to tell a story? What might be the story in this work? 

STEP 5: INFORMATION Looking beyond the work for information that may further 

understanding. 


What is the artist’s name? When did he/she live? 

What art style and medium does the artist use? 

What artist’s work is this artist interested in? 

What art was being made at the same time as this artist was working? 

What was happening in history at the time this artist was working? 

What social/political/economic/cultural issues is this artist interested in? 

STEP 6: PERSONALIZATION What do I think about this work? (Reaching a considered 

response). 

© Virginia Stephen 


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The following pages provide definitions and examples of the elements and principles of art that 

are used by artists in the images found in the exhibition Urban Animals. 

The elements of art are components of a work of art that can be isolated and defined. They are 

the building blocks used to create a work of art. 

*Use this tour to better understand the purpose of the artist’s choices! 

LINE ! 

SHAPE! 

COLOUR! 

TEXTURE! 

SPACE!



LINE: An element of art that is used to define shape, contours and outlines. It is also 

used to suggest mass and volume. 

See: Mother Bear and her cub in the back alleys of Alberta, 2012 by Jason Carter 

What types of lines are there? How can you describe a line? What are some of the 

characteristics of a line? 

Width: thick, thin, tapering, uneven Length: long, short, continuous, broken 

Feeling: sharp, jagged, graceful, smooth Focus: sharp, blurry, fuzzy, choppy 

Direction: horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curving, perpendicular, oblique, parallel, radial, zigzag 

Now, descibe the lines you see in this image. Follow the lines in the air with your finger. 

What quality do the lines have? How do the lines operate in the image? 

Most of the lines in this image are diagonal, horizontal, or vertical in nature. Diagonal lines are 

seen on the roadway and on the bear cub. The diagonal lines of the road lead the viewer’s eye 

back to the house at the ‘top’ of the picture. The diagonal lines of the bear cub create a sense of 

movement and give the appearance that the cub is walking. The vertical lines of the tree trunks 

and the brown buildings on the right of the picture lead the eye from the bottom of the picture 

plane to the top and, as the trees receed in the distance these lines move closer together, 

adding to the idea of distance in the work. The horizontal lines (Mother bear’s body; roadway; 

roof tops) lead the eye across the image and help tie one part of the painting to the other. 

Line can also be a word used in the composition meaning the direction the viewer’s eye 

travels when looking at a picture. How does line in this image help your eye travel within 

the composition? 

The lines created in the composition allow our eyes to travel around the work in a very dynamic 

way. The number of lines and variety of lines create a sense of energy in the work which may 

reflect the actual movement of the bears through this urban space. 

AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479 

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SHAPE: When a line crosses itself or intersects with another line to enclose a space it 

creates a shape. Shape is two-dimensional. It has height and width but no depth. 

See: The Wolf and Oil, 2012 by Jason Carter 

What kind of shapes can you think of? 

Geometric: circles, squares, rectangles and triangles. We see them in architecture and 

manufactured items. 

Organic shapes: a leaf, seashell, flower. We see them in nature with characteristics that are 

freeflowing, informal and irregular. 

Static shapes: shapes that appear stable and resting. 

Dynamic shapes: Shapes that appear moving and active. 

What shapes do you see in this image? What shapes are positive and negative? 

The composition is primarily composed of ‘loose’ geometric shapes - squares/rectangles/ 

triangles. Even an organic form like the wolf is made up of angular segments. 

How do the shapes operate in this image? 

Shapes are repeated in the image. The repetition of the rectangular buildings with blue-square 

windows lead our eye back into space while the thin rectangular shapes in the background lead 

our eye across the picture plane. 

What quality do the shapes have? Does the quality of the shapes contribute to the 

meaning or story suggested in the work? 

Geometric shapes are those that are man-made in nature. The concentration or emphasis on 

these shapes center the scene in an urban environment and may give the work a ‘harsher’ or 

more oppresive feeling or mood than seen in other works in the exhibition. 


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COLOUR: Colour comes from light that is reflected off objects. Colour has three main 

characteristics: Hue, or its name (red, blue, etc.) Value: (how light or dark the colour is) 

and Intensity (how bright or dull the colour is) 

See: The City Moose, 2012 by Jason Carter 

What are primary colours? Do you see any? Point to them in the drawing. What 

secondary colours do you see? 

Colour is made of primary colours, red, blue and yellow. Secondary colours 

are created from primary colours and include green, orange and purple. We see all primaries, 

red, yellow, blue and secondaries orange and green. 

Where is your eye directed to first? Why? Are there any colours that stand out more than 

others? 

Our attention is directed to the intense warm colour of the orange tower in the centre of the 

painting and then across the picture plane to each of the other orange towers. These towers are 

the most vivid in the work and, by being placed next to large areas of the complementary colour 

blue, are made to stand out. The red and yellow buildings also stand out because they are also 

warm colours and placed next to the complement of red which is green. 

What are complementary colours? How have they been used to draw attention? 

Complementary colours are those across from each other on the colour wheel and are 

placed next to each other to create the most contrast. The orange and other warm colours of 

the buildings (red, yellow) stand out against the cool colours (blue and green) and so direct 

the viewer’s eye. Contrasting colours are used to create a strong sense of deep space and 

emphasis in the work. 


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SPACE: The area between and around objects. It can also refer to the feeling of depth 

in a two-dimensional artwork. 

See: Habitat for a Beaver, 2012 by Jason Carter 

What is space? What dimensions does it have? 

Space includes the background, middleground and foreground. It can refer to the 

distances or areas around, between or within components of a piece. It may have two 

dimensions (length and width) or three dimensions including height or depth. 

What do you see in this work? What is closest to you? Farthest away? How do you know 

this? 

In this work we see trees, a beaver, a beaver lodge, a lake and background trees and 

mountains. The trees on the far right are closest to the viewer. This is shown by them being 

larger than anything else and by the fact that the viewer can not see their bottoms. The 

mountains on the top right are farthest away. This is shown by their light grey colour and the 

lighter colour of the trees ‘in front’ of them. 

In what other way has Carter created a sense of space? 

The artist has used a variety of lines to help develop a sense of space in the work. The 

horizontal lines of the lake and in the mountains lead the eye from the left side of the picture 

to the vertical lines of the trees on the right. The vertical lines of these trees lead the eye ‘up’ 

the picture to the mountains, which are farthest away. The artist also uses overlapping shapes 

and changes in size to create space and depth. The beaver at the ‘front/bottom’ of the picture 

overalps the horizongal bands of water and appears in front of the beaver lodge, which in turn 

overlaps the bands behind it and so appears closer than the mountains. The horizontal bands 

are also different tones of colour which lead the eye back into the space. 

What else in the work may create a sense of depth? How does it do this? 

The artist has deliberately used a wide tonal scale from dark black to pure white to create 

contrast in the work. Placing a dark green shape of ground in the foreground attracts our 

attention and we notice the contrast of the beaver’s tan coloured body on the dark surface. The 

light tan of the beaver’s body is similar in colour to the beaver lodge whch causes the viewer’s 

eye to jump to the middle of the picture plane. Finally, the changing tones of green for the lake 

and background trees create further space/depth in the work. 


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Reading Pictures Program 

Grades 4-12/adults 

Objectives: 

The purposes of this program are to: 

1/ Introduce participants to Art and what artists do – this includes examinations of art styles; art 

elements; the possible aims and meaning(s) in an art work and how to deduce those meanings 

and aims. 

2/ Introduce visitors to the current exhibition – the aim of the exhibition and the kind of exhibition/ 

artwork found. - the artist(s) - his/her background(s) 

- his/her place in art history 

3/ Engage participants in a deeper investigation of artworks. 

Teacher/Facilitator Introduction to Program: 

This program is called Reading Pictures. What do you think this might involve? 

-generate as many ideas as possible concerning what viewers might think ‘Reading Pictures’ 

might involve or what this phrase might mean. 

Before we can ‘read’ art, however, we should have some understanding what we’re talking 

about. 

What is Art? If you had to define this term, how would you define it? 

Art can be defined as creative expression - and artistic practice is an aspect and expression of a 

peoples’ culture or the artist’s identity. 

The discipline of Art, or the creation of a piece of art, however, is much more than simple ‘creative 

expression’ by an ‘artist’ or an isolated component of culture. 

How many of you would describe yourselves as artists? 

You may not believe it, but everyday you engage in some sort of artistic endeavor. 

How many of you got up this morning and thought about what you were going to wear today? 

Why did you choose the clothes you did? Why do you wear your hair that way? How many 

of you have tattoos or plan to get a tattoo some day? What kind of tattoo would you choose? 

Why.....? How many of you own digital cameras or have cameras on cell phones? How many of 

you take pictures and e-mail them to other people? 


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Reading Pictures Program continued 

Art is all around us and we are all involved in artistic endeavors to some degree. The 

photographs we take, the colour and styles of the clothes we wear, the ways we build and 

decorate our homes, gardens and public buildings, the style of our cell phones or the vehicles 

we drive, the images we see and are attracted to in advertising or the text or symbols on our 

bumper stickers – all of these things (and 9 billion others) utilize artistic principles. They say 

something about our personal selves and reflect upon and influence the economic, political, 

cultural, historical and geographic concerns of our society. 

Art, therefore, is not just something some people in a society do – it is something that affects 

and informs everyone within a society. 

Today we’re going to look at art - paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures – and see what art can 

tell us about the world we live in – both the past, the present and possibly the future – and what 

art can tell us about ourselves. 

Art is a language like any other and it can be read. 

Art can be read in two ways. It can be looked at intuitively – what do you see? What do you like 

or not like? How does it make you feel and why? – or it can be read formally by looking at what 

are called the Elements of Design – the tools artists use or consider when creating a piece of 

work. 

What do you think is meant by the elements of design? What does an artist use to create a work 

of art? 

Today we’re going to examine how to read art – we’re going to see how art can affect us 

emotionally... and how an artist can inform us about our world, and ourselves, through what he 

or she creates. 

Tour Program: 

–Proceed to one of the works in the exhibition and discuss the following: 

a) The nature of the work - what kind of work is it and what exhibition is it a part of? 

b) Examine the work itself – What do visitors see? 

– How do you initially feel about what you see? Why do you feel 

this way? What do you like? What don’t you like? Why? 

–What is the work made of? 

–How would you describe the style? What does this mean? 


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–What is the compositional structure? How are the shapes and colours etc. arranged? Why are 

they arranged this way? 

–How does the work make them feel? What is the mood of the work? What gives them this 

idea? Discuss the element(s) of design which are emphasized in the work in question. 

–What might the artist be trying to do in the work? What might the artist be saying or what might 

the work ‘mean’? 

c) Summarize the information. 

• At each work chosen, go through the same or similar process, linking the work to the 

type of exhibition it is a part of. Also, with each stop, discuss a different Element of 

Design and develop participants visual learning skills. 

At the 1st stop, determine with the participants the most important Element of Design 

used and focus the discussion on how this element works within the art work. Do the 

same with each subsequent art work and make sure to cover all the elements of design 

on the tour. 

Stop #1: LINE 

Stop #2: SHAPE 

Stop #3: COLOUR 

Stop #4: TEXTURE 

Stop #5: SPACE 

Stop #6: ALL TOGETHER – How do the elements work together to create a certain mood 

or story? What would you say is the mood of this work? Why? What is the story or 

meaning or meaning of this work? Why? 

Work sheet activity – 30 minutes 

•Divide participants into groups of two or three to each do this activity. Give them 30 minutes to 

complete the questions then bring them all together and have each group present one of their 

pieces to the entire group. 

Presentations – 30 minutes 

•Each group to present on one of their chosen works. 

Visual Learning Activity Worksheet * Photocopy the following worksheet so each 

participant has their own copy. 


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Visual Learning Worksheet 

Instructions: Choose two very different pieces of artwork in the exhibition and answer 

the following questions in as much detail as you can. 

1. What is the title of the work and who created it? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

________________________________________________________________________________________ 

________________________________________________________________________________________ 

2. What do you see and what do you think of it? (What is your initial reaction to the 

work?) Why do you feel this way? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

3. What colours do you see and how does the use of colour affect the way you ‘read’ 

the work? Why do you think the artist chose these colours – or lack of colour – for this 

presentation? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

___________________________________________________________________________________ 

__________________________________________________________________________________ 

4. What shapes and objects do you notice most? Why? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

___________________________________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 


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5. How are the shapes/objects arranged or composed? How does this affect your feelings 

towards or about the work? What feeling does this composition give to the work? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

6. How would you describe the mood of this work? (How does it make you feel?) What 

do you see that makes you describe the mood in this way? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

________________________________________________________________________________ 

7. What do you think the artist’s purpose was in creating this work? What ‘story’ might he 

or she be telling? What aspects of the artwork give you this idea? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

_____________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

8. What do you think about this work after answering the above questions? Has your 

opinion of the work changed in any way? Why do you feel this way? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

_________________________________________________________________________________ 

________________________________________________________________________________ 

9. How might this work relate to your own life experiences? Have you ever been in a 

similar situation/place and how did being there make you feel? 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________________________________ 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 

______________________________________________________________________ 


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Perusing Paintings: An Art-full Scavenger Hunt 

In teaching art, game-playing can enhance learning. If students are engaged in learning, through 

a variety of methods, then it goes beyond game-playing. Through game-playing we are trying to 

get students to use higher-order thinking skills by getting them to be active participants in learning. 

Blooms’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, which follows, is as applicable to teaching 

art as any other discipline. 

1. knowledge: recall of facts 

2. comprehension: participation in a discussion 

3. application: applying abstract information in practical situations 

4. analysis: separating an entity into its parts 

5. synthesis: creating a new whole from many parts, as in developing a complex work of art 

6. evaluation: making judgements on criteria 

A scavenger hunt based on art works is a fun and engaging way to get students of any age to 

really look at the art works and begin to discern what the artist(s) is/are doing in the works. The 

simple template provided, however, would be most suitable for grade 1-3 students. 

Instruction: 

Using the exhibition works provided, give students a list of things they should search for that are 

in the particular works of art. The students could work with a partner or in teams. Include a blank 

for the name of the artwork, the name of the artist, and the year the work was created. Following 

the hunt, gather students together in the exhibition area and check the answers and discuss the 

particular works in more detail. 

Sample List: 

Scavenger Hunt Item Title of Artwork Name of Artist Year Work Created 

someone wearing a hat 

a specific animal 

landscape 

a bright red object 

a night scene 

a house 

*This activity was adapted from A Survival Kit for the Elementary/Middle School Art Teacher by Helen D. Hume. 


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An Art-full Scavenger Hunt Template 

Scavenger Hunt Item Title of Artwork Name of Artist Year Work 

Created 


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Geometry Animals K-3 

Objectives: 

Geometry Animals is a good project for young students to identify colours, textures, forms, 

and subjects in the environment. Students are expected to construct recognizable animals from 

shapes using a variety of colours, forms, and lines as well as use their imagination and creative 

expression to invent new forms. 

Begin by examining the shapes seen in any of the paintings by Jason Carter in the 

exhibition Urban Animals 

Materials: 

• Glue 

• Coloured paper 

• Paper shapes 

• Crayons, coloured pencils or markers 

• Example reproductions of animals 

http://www.lessonplanspage.com/MathScienceArtLAMDGeometryAnimalsK1.htm 

Procedure: 

1.Get materials ready before lesson starts. 

2.Introduce photographs or reproductions of recognizable animals and introduce basic shapes of 

the animal with students. 

3.Point out shapes and ask kids to identify them. 

4.Show them the example animal you made. 

5.Discuss materials and proper gluing technique. 

6.Tell students that they will now be constructing their own animals using shapes. 

7.Hand out materials or have students grab them from your small group table or another table in 

the room. 

8.Allow time for students to work on their animals. 

9.Walk around the room asking students about their animals and encourage students to add 

texture onto their shapes using coloured marker. 

10.Have students count and write how many shapes they used and what colour they are. 

11.If you would like to, have students share. 

Closure: 

•Ask students how many shapes they used. 

•Ask them what colours they used. 

•Ask students about their animals. 


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Basic Shapes - Grades 3-5 

Jason Carter 

Portrait of a Cub 


Image courtesy of the Bearclaw Gallery, Edmonton 

Art in Action, pg. 12 

Almost all things are made up of four basic shapes: circles, triangles, squares and 

rectangles. Shapes and variation of shapes - such as oblongs and ovals - create objects. 

Jason Carter’s paintings are created by reducing objects to their basic shapes, outlining 

these shapes in heavy black lines, and then filling in the areas with solid colour - much 

like what is done in comic book illustrations or stained glass windows. In this lesson 

students will practice reducing objects to their basic shapes and then filling in the areas 

with colours ‘natural’ to the central object and complementary to the background. 

Materials: 

- drawing paper 

- pencil and eraser 

- magazines 

- paints and brushes 

- mixing trays 

Instructions: 

1/ Have students look through magazines for pictures of objects made up of several shapes. 


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Basic Shapes continued - Grades 3-5 

2/ Direct students to choose one object and determine the basic shapes which make up that 

object. 

3/ Have students draw their one object using the basic shapes which make up the object. 

4/ Students to simplify their drawing further - removing any overlapping/extraneous lines so that 

the object is broken into simplified shapes/forms. *see works by Jason Carter for clarification 

5/ Students to decide on colour scheme for work. Review the colour wheel and the concept of 

complementary colours. 

- what is the dominant colour of your object? - use tints/tones of that colour to paint the object, 

keeping shapes separate through the use of heavy black lines. 

- what is the complementary colour of your main object’s colouring? - paint the background area 

the complement of the objects colour. 

Art in Action, pg. 12 

Extension (for older students) 

- when students have completed their first painting have them re-draw the basic shapes of their 

object again, but this time have them soften the edges, change shapes and add connecting lines 

where necessary so their drawing resembles the original magazine image. 

- have students paint this second work using ‘natural’ colours for both their object and for the 

background. 

- display both of students’ drawings and then discuss. 

Discussion/Evaluation: 

1/ Which shapes did you use most often in your drawing(s)? 

2/ Explain how identifying the basic shapes in your object helped you make the second drawing. 

3/ Which of your paintings appeals to you most? Why? 


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Charcoal Cave Drawings K-6 

Background 

Begin by examining animal drawings found in a variety of prehistoric caves throughout 

the world. Discuss with students that, in drawing the animals prehistoric peoples hunted, 

the artists used simplified shapes and expressive lines to create their images. Such 

techniques are similar to the basis used for the images by Jason Carter found in the 

exhibition Urban Animals. 

Cave artists applied paint to the walls in a variety of ways. They were as creative in developing 

their techniques as they were in their illustrations. They used their bodies and whatever else 

was available in simple ways such as finger-painting, brushing, smearing and dabbing, and in a 

more sophisticated manner by stencilling or spraying. When large areas of colour were needed 

they speeded up the work with pads of lichen or moss. 

Blending Techniques used by cave artists: 

Brush the colours carefully with a feather 

Paint with paint brushes made from horse hair 

Spray paint through the hollow bone of a bird 

But cave artists weren’t satisfied with ‘just colour’. Cave artists blended colours together directly 

on the wall, in various ways, to create more accurate or more interesting colours. 

The Drawings 

Cave artists weren’t satisfied with ‘just lines’, either. They produced a variety of expressive lines 

by drawing with twigs, and if a line was particularly significant they planned it in advance, 

marking it out with dots which they joined up later. They also used the natural hollows of the 

stone surface to give a more 3D effect, planning their paintings in advance to take advantage of 

the shadows produced by the angle of the incoming light. 

Cave artists carried out their amazing art work in the darkness of the cave, illuminated only by 

oil lamps, or sometimes by a shaft of light which might penetrate a cave close to the outside at a 

certain time of day. Some of their paintings were on a huge scale. Ceiling paintings - which were 

sometimes vast - required teamwork, and scaffolding structures to enable the artists to reach 

the painting surface. 

Student example of Lascaux Cave drawings 


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Charcoal Cave Drawings K-6, continued 

Procedure: 

1. Give the student some background information on Cave Art by reading the background 

information provided in the ed kit or doing internet searches on “Lascaux Caves France”. Or, 

you can check out books at the library that have pictures for the student to reference. 

2. Prepare Drawing Surface: Use brown paper grocery bags for the drawing surface. Make one 

cut down the side of the bag and cut off the bottom, to make the largest drawing surface. Use 

the inside of the bag because it will not have advertising printed on it. Flatten out the bag into a 

drawing surface. Tear off some of the straight edges of the bag so that it will look natural. Now, 

wrinkle up the bag into a big ball, unfold it and flatten with your hand to create the ridges that 

might be found on a cave wall. 

3. Drawing with Charcoal: Have students put on smocks to protect clothing from charcoal dust. 

(NOTE: The charcoal creates “dust” so remind the students not to blow it off the paper as they 

work. They can carry the paper to a wastebasket to shake off the dust.) Ask the students to 

draw some of the animals that they observed on the cave walls at Lascaux, France. They can 

start by drawing the outline of the animal, mimicking the textures of the drawings that they saw. 

Then, fill in all or just part of the body. Use thick lines, thin lines, drag the side of the chalk to 

make rough texture on the bumpy paper surface, or use fingertips to blend the charcoal into a 

smooth texture. Practice blending the different colours together. 

4. Completion: When students are satisfied with their drawing, ask them to describe it. Ask what 

techniques they used (thick or thin lines, blending or rough textures) to achieve the effects that 

they wanted. Then take the paper to a well ventilated location and apply fixative or hair spray to 

keep the charcoal or chalk from smudging too much. 

Materials: 

a variety of types of charcoal (brown, black and white) 

brown paper grocery bags 

photos of cave art in library books, OR from the internet 

moist paper towels 

spray fixative 

smocks, aprons or old shirts 

kids.inmatlock.com/origins/cave-painting.php 


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Giraffe Collage 


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Giraffe Collage continued 


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Experiments in Colour - Grades 3-9 

When artists create a composition, they plan their colour combinations very carefully. 

Colour can serve many functions in a work of art. It can be used to create the illusion of 

space; it can be used to provide focus and emphasis; it can be used to create 

movement; and it can be used to create a certain mood. In his paintings, as seen in the 

exhibition Urban Animals and in the following examples, Jason Carter uses bold colours 

to serve all of these functions. In the following project students will examine the use of 

complementary colour relationships to create the illusion of space and mood within a 

painting. 

Materials: 

Colour Wheel Chart 

Paper 

Paints and brushes 

Mixing trays 

Water container 

Paper towels 

Pencils/erasers 

Still life items or landscape drawings 

Magazines/ photographic references 


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Experiments in Colour continued 

Methodology: 

1/ Through an examination of the colour wheel 

provided, discuss with students the concepts of 

complementary colours and splitcomplements. 

Questions to guide discussion: 

Jason Carter 

Enter Jasper - Fall 



- What is the lightest colour on the colour wheel? 

- yellow 

- What is the darkest colour on the colour wheel? 

- violet 

- What is the relationship of these two colours? - 

the colours are opposite each other. 

Colours that are opposite each other on the colour wheel are called complementary colours. 

- What are the colours next to violet? 

- red-violet and blue-violet 

These colours are called split complements because they are split, or separated, by the true 

complement of yellow. Complements can be split one step further to become a triad, three 

colours equally spaced on the colour wheel. 

Complementary colours can be used to create focus, emphasis, and the illusion of space. 

Brighter (warm) colours in the colour wheel tend to appear in front of - or come forward 

on the picture plane - compared to darker (cool) colours. 

Jason Carter makes use of this principal in his paintings. In the painting Enter Jasper - Fall, for 

example, the bright red/orange fields stand out against the grey of the mountains and the blue 

sky and so appear ‘closer’ to the viewer. In examining the colour wheel, it can be seen that 

orange and red are complements of blue. This use of complements is also seen in the paintings 

Jasper Parkway - Fall 2 and Bear Looks Up on the following page. 


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Experiments in Colour continued 

Jason Carter 

Jasper Parkway - Fall 2 



Jason Carter 

Bear Looks Up 



Instructions for Creating Art 

1/ Distribute paper, pencils and erasers to students 

2/ Instruct students to make several sketches of ideas for their painting - they may base their 

work on a still-life arrangement or create a landscape based on magazine or photographic 

sources 

3/ Have students choose a sketch they like and then plan their colours by first examining the 

colour wheel. Students to first choose their dominant or main colour and then pick the split 

complements or triad to that colour. 

4/ Students to use their colour scheme to paint their painting. 

Questions for discussion 

1/ What are the split complements and triad colour schemes used in your work? 

2/ What is the colour relationship of the colours used in your painting? 

3/ Why have you used these particular colours? 


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Painting Animal Portraits 

Observing and Thinking Creatively 

Throughout history, artists have painted pictures of animals. Ancient European cave 

dwellers painted bison and deer to gain power over them in the hunt. Clans among North 

American Indian tribes honored their animal protectors, who came to them in visions or dreams, 

by representing them on totem poles. Other artists, like Englishman Edwin Landseer, painted 

portraits of favorite pets. 

Landseer painted animals in a realistic style. The dogs shown here not only look like a hound 

and terrier, but they seem to have the qualities of dignity and impudence. Observe the details in 

their faces. Notice the lines and shading around the eyes which show the dogs’ unique 

expressions and personalities. Which dog shows poise and nobility? Which may be a bit rude on 

occasion? Landseer has made it obvious. 

The personality of an animal or human can best be seen in a portrait which shows the subject’s 

face. In this lesson you will paint an animal portrait. You will increase your awareness of details, 

and you will experiment with shape, form, colour, proportion and brushstrokes to show the 

animal’s personality. 

Sir Edwin Landseer 

Dignity and Inpudence, 1839 

Tate Gallery, London 


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Painting Animal Portraits continued 


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Draw a Bunny 

Objectives 

– All shapes can be reduced to basic shapes; i.e.,circular, triangular, rectangular. 

– Animals and plants can be represented in terms of their proportions. 

– A horizontal line can be used to divide a picture plane into interesting and varied proportions of sky 

and ground. 

– Details, patterns or textures can be added to two-dimensional works. 

– Use drawing tools to make a variety of lines—curved, straight, thick, thin, broken, continuous. 

– Use drawing tools to make a variety of shapes—open, closed forms; straight, curved forms; 

geometric (rectangles, squares, circles and triangles) and free form. 

– Make drawings from direct observation. 

– The direction of shapes determines the static or dynamic quality of the work. 

Materials 

drawing paper 

pencils 

magazines 

Procedure 

Arctic Hare, c. 1841, John James Audubon 

24 x 34 ¼ inches 

Pen and black ink and graphite with watercolour and oil on paper 

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 

1. CHOOSE A PICTURE When learning how to draw animals, it’s a good idea to start with a real 

model or a reference photo. Choose a clear, large photo to draw that has a good amount of detail. 

2. MAKING IT SIMPLE How do we begin to draw such a complicated thing as a rabbit? One 

popular method is to look for big, simple shapes. A simple start is to look for a couple of big circles in 

the rabbit’s body and a smaller circle - usually with joining parts of circles - for the head. Below you 

can see the simple shapes when looking at this rabbit. 

3. DRAW BASIC SHAPES Here’s what the bunny’s basic shapes look like on paper. First, draw 

a vertical line to help keep your circles straight. Then draw two overlapping circles, one above the 

other, then an big oval underneath, touching the first circle. Then draw a bigger oval at an angle. 


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Draw a Bunny continued 

They don’t have to be perfect - you can draw them freehand, or use coins or a circle template if 

you have one. Draw these lines lightly with your pencil. 

4. ADD EARS, FEET AND TAIL Now draw the the bunny rabbit’s ears - quite straight, narrowing 

at the top. The main thing here is to look carefully at your photo, and remember the shape. Draw 

curving-in lines for the bunny’s front legs, then add the back leg and tail. 

5. DRAWING THE RABBIT’S FACE Erase the extra parts of the circles that are not needed for 

the finished rabbit drawing. Now add the face and eyes. The eyes are on the side of the bunny’s 

head, so are seen from the front as half-circles. To complete the face, draw the rabbit’s nose like 

a letter Y, adding the mouth, chin and cheeks. 

6. ADD TEXTURE AND WHISKERS Gently erase some of your outlines so that you can just 

see them. Look at the rabbit reference photo to see how the fur looks, and use a combination 

of long and short lines along your outlines, to create the effect of soft fluffy rabbit fur. Where you 

can see lines or dark areas on the rabbit’s body, you can add some scribbly fluff too. Try using a 

varity of lines and marks. Add long whiskers on the face and eyebrows. 

7. CREATE AN ENVIRONMENT FOR YOUR BUNNY Draw a horizontal line to give the 

impression of sky and land. 

1 2 

3 

4 5 6 


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Textured Animals K-6 

Background 

In art, frottage (from French frotter, “to rub”) is a surrealist and “automatic” method of creative 

production developed by Max Ernst. In frottage the artist takes a pencil or other drawing tool and 

makes a “rubbing” over a textured surface. The drawing can be left as is or used as the basis 

for further refinement. While superficially similar to brass rubbing and other forms of rubbing 

intended to reproduce an existing subject, and in fact sometimes being used as an alternate 

term for it, frottage differs in being the creation of art by chance and random in nature. 

It was developed by Ernst in 1925. Ernst was inspired by an ancient wooden floor where the 

grain of the planks had been accentuated by many years of scrubbing. The patterns of the 

graining suggested strange images to him. He captured these by laying sheets of paper on the 

floor and then rubbing over them with a soft pencil. 

Objectives: 

Students will represent surface qualities of objects and forms. 

A. Texture is a surface quality that can be captured by rubbings or markings. 

B. Textures form patterns. 

Students will decorate items personally created. 

A. Details, patterns or textures can be added to two-dimensional works. 

B. Details, patterns or textures can be added to the surface of three-dimensional works. 

Print Making 

Make lifts or transfers, using wax crayon or fabric crayon. 

Explore the use of print-making materials and the application of paint, using brushes and rollers 

(brayers). 

Explore found object printing and the making of pattern through stamping. 

Use print-making images in making pictures or compositions. 

Procedure: 

1. Start with sheets of newsprint and have students cover the entire surface using pencil crayon 

by exploring as many different surfaces as possible creating textures. 

2. Students may wish to combine colours or work with one colour. 

3. Using the newsprint, students will cut out shapes to glue onto their background. 

Student examples of frottage animals 


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X-Ray Painting Lesson 

Famed Canadian First Nations artist Norval Morrisseau’s artistic influence is evident in the 

paintings by Jason Carter in the exhibition Urban Animals. Like Morriseau, Carter uses bright, 

flat colours with heavy dark outlines. Examine his technique with students before beginning 

this lesson. 

Possible characteristics for Woodland Paintings include: 

− human and animal imagery, myths and legends, visions 

− bold black outlines to define animal shape and interior shapes 

− interior shapes helped to tell story 

− interior shapes of other animals, spirits, visions, man, and even internal organs and skeleton 

− bright, intense colours 

http://www.curriculum.org/tcf/teachers/projects/repository/AboriginalArt.pdf 

Objectives: 

In this lesson, you will have an opportunity to look at some of the works created by Norval 

Morrisseau. As well, you will have the chance to create a work of art in a style much the same as 

Morrisseau himself. 

Background: Before you begin painting, look at some of Morrisseau’s works. Think about what the 

symbols mean and how the titles help us to understand what is going on in the work. Also, discuss 

how the work makes you feel. Remember ... there are no wrong answers. Don’t be afraid to brainstorm 

and share ideas and opinions because everyone will have a different way of looking at the 

work. The most important thing is to express how you feel about what you see, and why you feel that 

way. 

Materials: 

• Heavy paper or cardboard (about 12” x 14” per student) 

• Tempera paint 

• Paintbrushes & water 

• Examples of Morrisseau’s art 

• Images of animals for reference 

Procedure: 

1. Norval Morrisseau uses what is referred to as an X-Ray technique when he paints a work 

of art. Not only do you see the person or animal that has been painted, but you also see the energy 

within the animal or person. 

2. Have your students choose a subject for their painting ... a fish, a bird, a turtle, etc. 


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X-Ray Painting Lesson con’t 

3. Students can then sketch the outline of their subject on their paper. 

4. Next, students should think about the interior of their subject - the energy and emotion 

inside. 

5. Students can then draw lines (using ink, crayons, oil sticks, oil pastels etc), colours (using 

paint, oil pastels, cut up paper etc.) and shapes inside the subject ... the more the better. 

6. Let imagination take over as the paper is filled with paint. 

**You can also try this lesson using crayons or pencil crayons instead of paint 

One Step Further: 

• Ask your students to seek out symbols in Morrisseau’s work and create a story based on 

what they see. 

• Next, have your students create their own “symbol story”. Have them tell a story on paper 

using absolutely no words. Then pass the symbol stories around the room to see how other 

students “read the work”. 

Vocabulary: 

Image - An image is essentially a picture ... something seen in a work of art. In Morrisseau’s 

work, we see images of people and animals. 

Ground - This is what the artist has created his work on ... this could be birch bark, paper, 

canvas or wood. 

Media or Medium - This is what the artist uses to create his/her work. Paint (tempera, acrylic, 

watercolour, oil), pencil, crayon, conte chalk ... all are known as media. 

Symbol - A symbol is a picture or image that tells a story without using words. Ask your students 

to think about “everyday” symbols like the pictures seen on men’s and ladies washrooms, no 

smoking signs or the Big “M” of McDonalds. How many other symbols can you think of? 

Some examples of Symbols in Morrisseau’s work: 

Circle - The circles in Morrisseau’s work tell us about the life cycle, the sun, the moon and 

directions (North, South, East, West). 

Lines - Spirit Lines appear a lot in Morrisseau’s work, as do Energy Lines. You can see them 

extending from the hand or the body of a figure. Sometimes they are connected ... sometimes 

they are alone or isolated. 

Eyes - Large eyes that see all can be found in Morrisseau’s work. These eyes are a symbol of a 

shaman or medicine man. 

X-Ray - This is a style attributed to Morrisseau. The X-Ray technique shows the interior as well 

as the exterior of a figure. The various parts of a body for example are expressed with different 

colours and lines. 


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X-Ray Painting Lesson con’t 

Norval Morrisseau: Observation of the Astral World (1990) 

ACTIONS AND VIEWPOINTS: 

Students will increase the range of actions and viewpoints depicted. 

Concepts 

A. Movement of figures and objects can be shown in different ways. 

B. An X-ray view shows the inside of something. 

C. Forms can be overlapping to show depth or distance. 


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Endangered Species Public Awareness Project 

Background: 

Read and discuss the article Grizzlies at ‘risk’: province, and address the following questions: 

–What does “endangered” mean to you? 

–Why are some animals endangered? 

–Which animals do you know that are endangered? 

–What responsibility do people have to protect endangered animals? 

–How are they trying to protect these animals? 

–What can you do to protect endangered animals? 

–Why do you think some artists choose endangered animals as subjects for their works of art? 

Activities: 

1. Have students analyze artworks that deal with endangered species. Some artists include 

Andy Warhol, A.E. London, Linda G. Fisher, John Banovich. 

2. Have each student choose one species assessed by Alberta’s Endangered Species 

Conservation Committee (ESCC). Their endangered animal research project should be based 

on the following questions: 

How and why did the animal become endangered? 

What (if anything) is being done to help the animal survive? 

What else can we do to help the animal survive? 

3. The students should also include background information about their animals such as diet and 

habitat. 

4. After the written research is completed, have students create works of art about their animals 

as a “Public Awareness” piece to be displayed with their research findings. Possible art media 

may include: watercolour, linocut, charcoal, collage, etc. 

Vocabulary: 

Define the following terms used by the Endangered Species Conservation Committee: 

species at risk 

extinct 

extirpated 

endangered 

threatened 

species of special concern 

data deficient 

The peregrine falcon is making a remarkable 

comeback in Canada. Once extirpated east of the 

Rocky Mountains and south of the Boreal forest, 

this species is now set to come off the list of 

endangered and threatened species in Canada. 


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GLOSSARY 

Jason Carter 

Mother Bear and her cub in the back alleys of 





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Glossary 

Abstraction: Is a term applied to 20th century styles in reaction against the traditional European 

view of art as the imitation of nature. Abstraction stresses the formal or elemental structure of a 

work and has been expressed in all genres or subjects of visual expression. 

Aerial perspective: Or atmospheric perspective is used to add the illusion of depth in painting. 

The use of retreating colours and less focus helps to achieve this effect. 

Animism: attribution of conscious life to nature as a whole or to inanimate objects. 

Anthromomorphism: an interpretation of what is not human or personal in terms of human or 

personal characteristics. 

Complementary colour: Colours that are directly opposite each other on the colour wheel, for 

example, blue and orange. These colours when placed next to each other produce the highest 

contrast. 

Composition: The arrangement of lines, colours and forms so as to achieve a unified whole; 

the resulting state or product is referred to as a composition. 

Contemporary artists: Those whose peak of activity can be situated somewhere between the 

1970’s (the advent of post-modernism) and the present day. 

Cool colours: Blues, greens and purples are considered cool colours. In aerial perspective, 

cool colours are said to move away from you or appear more distant. 

Elements of design: The basic components which make up any visual image: line, shape, 

colour, texture and space. 

Exhibition: A public display of art objects including painting, sculpture, prints, installation, etc. 

Expressionism: A movement in the arts during the early part of the 20th century that 

emphasized subjective expression of the artist’s inner experiences. 

Fauve: Fauvism was a French art movement, led by Henri Matisse, spanning from 1869-1954. 

Fauves is French for “Wild Beasts”. This name was used because the artists used intense, 

almost violent colours in an unnatural way. 

Geometric shapes: Any shape or form having more mathematical than organic design. 

Examples of geometric shapes include: spheres, cones, cubes, squares, triangles. 

Gradation: A principle of design that refers to the use of a series of gradual/transitional changes 

in the use of the elements of art with a given work of art; for example, a transition from lighter to 

darker colours or a gradation of large shapes to smaller ones. 


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Glossary continued 

Iconography: A set of specified or traditional symbolic forms associated with the subject or 

theme of a stylized work of art. 

Impressionist: A theory or style of painting originating and developed in France during the 

1870s, characterized by concentration on the immediate visual impression produced by a scene 

and by the use of unmixed primary colors and small strokes to simulate actual reflected light. 

Mythology: The body of myths (sacred stories) of a particular culture, or of humankind as a 

whole; the study and interpretation of such myths. 

Organic shapes: An irregular shape; refers to shapes or forms having irregular edges or 

objects resembling things existing in nature. 

Pop Art: A 20th century art style focusing on mass-produced urban culture: movies, advertising, 

science fiction. In the USA Pop Art was initially regarded as a reaction from Abstract 

Expressionism because its exponents brought back figural imagery and made use of hardedged, 

quasi-photographic techniques. Pop artists employed commercial techniques in 

preference to the painterly manner of other artists. 

Positive shapes: Are the objects themselves. They are surrounded in a painting by what are 

called the negative shapes or spaces. 

Primary colours: The three colours from which all other colours are derived - red, yellow and 

blue. 

Shade: Add black to a colour to make a shade. Mix the pure colour with increasing quantities of 

black making the colour darker in small increments. If you add gray to a colour, you produce a 

tone. 

Symbolism: The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic 

meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships. 

Tint: Add white to a colour to create a tint. Mix the pure colour with increasing quantities of 

white so that the colour lightens. 

Warm colours: Yellow and reds of the colour spectrum, associated with fire, heat and sun. In 

aerial perspective warm colours are said to come towards you. 

Woodland Style: Is a genre of graphic design and painting among First Nations artists from the 

Great Lakes area - including northern Ontario and southwestern Manitoba. Founded by Norval 

Morrisseau, this visionary style emphasizes outlines and x-ray views of people, animals, and 

plant life using vivid colour. 


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Credits 

SPECIAL THANKS TO: 

Jason Carter 


Bridget Ryan 

Syncrude Canada Ltd. 

The Alberta Foundation for the Arts 

Art Gallery of Alberta 

SOURCE MATERIALS: 

Medieval Beasts - http://getty.edu/art/exhibitions/medieval_beasts 

Oxford Companion to Art, Oxford University Press, 1970, Pop Art - pg. 894 

Pop Art - History of Art, Second Edition, H.W. Janson, Harry N. Abrams, Incorporated, New York, 1977, 

pp.675-678 

Pop Art - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art 

Animals in Mythology: Explore the Mythological Attributes of Animals - http://www.buzzle.com/ 

editorials/3-19-2002-14972.asp 

Animals in Mythology - http://www.jrank.org/cultures/pages/4918/Animals-in-mythology.html 

Animals in Mythology - http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Am-Ar/Animals-in-Mythology.html 

Animals in Christian Art - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01515b.htm 

Animal Symbolism - http://www.writedesignonline.com/assignments/maksks/animalsymbolism.htm 

Native American World Mythology and Legend: Animal Symbols and Their Meaning - http://www. 

gods-heros-myth.com/asymbols.html 

Animal Mythology - http://www.nativeonline.com/animal.htm 

Animals in Alberta Art - An Alberta Art Chronicle: adventures in recent & contemporary art, Mary-Beth 

Laviolette, Altitude Publishing Canada Ltd., Canmore, AB., 2006, pp. 62-67 

Grizzly Bear - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly_Bear 

Beaver - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver 

Moose - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moose 

Prairie dog - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_dog 

Rabbit - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit 

Gray Wolf - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf 

Knight’s Canadian Info Collection: The Canadian Beaver - http://members.shaw.ca/kcic1/beaver. 

html 

Hbc Heritage: The HBC Coat of Arms - http://www2.hbc.com/hbcheritage/collections/images/ 

coatofarms/ 

The Usborne Book of Art Skills, Fiona Watt, Usborne Publishing Ltd., London, 2002 

Art in Action, Guy Hubbard, Coronado Publishers Inc., United States, 1987 

Modernism - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism 

Modern Art - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_art 

Postmodern art - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_art 

History of Art, H.W. Janson, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1977, ppt. 557-590 

Canada’s First Nations: Native Creation Myths - http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/ 

firstnations/myths.html 

How the Indians obtained Dogs - http://www.calverley.ca/Part06-Legends/6-001.html 


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Credits 

Native American Bear Meaning - http://www.whats-your-sign.com/native-american-bearmeaning.html 

Native American Animal Symbols: The Bear and the Native American - http://www.supportnative-american-art.com/Native-American-Animal-Symbols-Bears.html 

How the People Hunted the Moose - Civilization.ca - Storytelling: The Art of Knowledge - 

Metis-Cree - http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/aborig/storytel/crme2eng.shtml 

How Bear Lost His Tail - http://www.ilhawaii.net/~stony/lore22.html 

How the Beaver got his tail - http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html_Legends/HowTheBeaverGot 

HisTail-Ojibwa.html 

Native American Rabbit Symbols - http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/usa/nativeamerican-animal-rabbit-symbols/2262 

Native American Wolf Mythology - http:L//www.native-languages.org/legends-wolf.htm 

Native American Animal Symbols - http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/articles/usa/nativeamerican-animal-symbols/2260 

First People - The Legends - Frog and Rabbit - http://www.firstpeople.us/F-Html_Legends/ 

FrogAndRabbit-Cree.html 

This exhibition was developed and managed by the Art Gallery of Alberta for The Alberta 

Foundation for the Arts Travelling Exhibition Program 

Funding for this exhibition provided by Syncrude Canada Ltd. 

Shane Golby – Program Manager/Curator 

AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Region 2 

Sherisse Burke –TREX Assistant 

Front Cover Images: 

Top Left: Jason Carter, The Rabbit, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, Collection of the artist 

Bottom Left: Jason Carter, The Wolf and Oil, 2012., Acrylic on canvas, Collection of the artist 

Top Right: Jason Carter, The Country Moose, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, Collection of the artist 

Bottom Right: Jason Carter, Mother Bear and her Cub, 2012, Acrylic on canvas, Collection of 

the artist 


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Urban Animals - Art Gallery of Alberta

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