Something a bit less heavy for today, haha. This is a color theory exercise that I did a while back. Each of the six sides of the cube depicts an extinct species, using a different formal color scheme. It was a fun challenge to figure out ways to make the scenes ‘interlock’ along the edges! Featured are:
Cool Facts- The quagga was a subspecies of plains zebra that lacked stripes on its back half. Unfortunately, we don’t know a whole lot about quagga behavior. It is believed they gathered in herds of up to 50 individuals and spent their lives constantly on the move as they searched for fresh grass. It is unknown why quagga lacked stripes on their booty, although it could have been for dissuading biting flies from landing on them. Quagga have been found in cave art going back to the Pleistocene and were important to the San people of Southern Africa. Overhunting of quagga by colonists resulted in their population plummeting. The last quagga died in Amsterdam’s Natura Artis Magistra zoo, resulting in the only photographs of a quagga. Plains zebras today are threatened from competition for grass with livestock and habitat loss. Conservationists are making plans for sustainable livestock practices and wildlife corridors for plains zebras with the hope of their population making a full recovery.
Rating- 12/10 (A captive breeding program was attempted but unfortunately failed.)
I was looking through some of my colored pencil sketchbooks, and found this little Quagga friend. A subspecies of the plains zebra, the Quagga used to live in massive herds in South Africa, until it was hunted to extinction by European invaders in the 1800s (some say, before the hunters realized how special it was). Today, there are breeding programs trying to resurrect the Quagga’s phenotype, but our knowledge of the animal’s natural history remains murky. Drawn in colored pencil, 6x7 inches.