Wildlifeart » Mammoth steppe diorama

Building zoological dioramas

admin — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 19:50:32 +0000

Several readers have asked how Helsinki Zoological museums dioramas were build. There is not enought pictures of those diorama paintings that I made, but museum has made videos of building process of bear diorama. Seppo Polameri does the painting work and museum conservators the rest.

You can see glimpse of me around 1 minute.

In this video museum staff builds African drinking pond wiev. It took 2,5 months!

Winter bird feeder diorama painting

admin — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:35:44 +0000

Talvisten lintulaudalla vierailevien lintujen taakse tarvittiin luminen kaupunkinäkymä. Kerrostalon sisäpiha voisi näyttää taltä kunnon lumipyryn jälkeen.

Bird feeding is very popular in Finland. In Helsinki Zoological museum there is window scene with most common feeder visitors. I painted city wiev after snowstorm.

Huge Mammoth steppe painting

admin — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:33:28 +0000

This is the largest painting so far that I have made. It is all together 36 square meters! This painting tells of East Siberian mammoth steppe. Museum did not have any mammoths so they had to be painted.

First I red some books to get better idea what kind of place mammothsteppe was. Soon I found out that in different parts of Eurasia they were different looking.

Huge animals would take most of the space in the painting so we decided that the painted space should be as open as possible.

Sky

Sky and clouds

It is supposed to be late august. Continental climate is dry and the dust coming from glaciers makes the air hazy. Sky was painted mostly with painters mitten. It is made of lambskin and it is exelent tool for blending paint.

Mountains and ground

In the center of the painting is platau made of sand and dust that melting waters have brought from glacier. Old eroded volcano is closest mountain and in horizon higher mountains are visible.

Mountains and steppe

15 liters of paint was used.

How to make illusion

The difference of painting and real foreground should be ass small as possible in lowest part. From vievers angle the line between painted and real ground could be in visible.

Matching grass colour

Animals

Mammoths

Wild horses

Diorama is getting ready

Foreground is being build by conservators

Saiga antilopes