Saiga

Lately I have had this urge to paint some antlers or horns, or both. Anyway, in the course of this exploration, I stumbled across this beautiful creature - the Saiga Antelope. Turns out his little antelope has a rough deal...not only are they critically endangered they have been experiencing mass die offs. Once plentiful, people were encouraged to hunt them for their horns in order to take the pressure off the Rhino (not that it helped). Now the demand for traditional medicine has depleted their numbers further. The therapeutic value of horns, which are made of Keratin, is no more powerful than chewing your own fingernails or hair. It's basically the same stuff. Even if it could (and it can't!) help cool you down when you are suffering menopause or increase your libido, is it really worth killing one of our fellow creatures to get that? Time to think about what we are doing, I'm afraid my kids and their kids are going to lose out in the end...anyway...I did however enjoy changing up my palette a bit and using lots of gold leaf, the phrase 'Keratin is not Medicine' is scratched into a really nice texture that I achieved through mixing glass beads with moulding paste and paint, cheers!