Operation: Riding Mount

Week one-fourty-four of Operation Graphite – theme: Riding mount.

Into battle, across great distances, and plowing though the field, many animals have carried humans on their backs. After millennia, it is mostly machines that now carry us, and yet we sometimes think of our trusty vehicle as a being. We are so ingrained in treating our ride with animal husbandry, we give it a name, we pamper it with hot wax and detailing, and also fret when it gets the smallest scratch. We love our cars, maybe because our ancestors loved their horses, oxen and pack animals. While innovation has saved millions of horses from servitude, some still long for that connection with their beast of burden.

Shock – Mounted Soldier

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Week 144: Riding Mount

The theme selected for week one-fourty-four of Operation Graphite will be: Riding Mount.

Early in human history, someone saw a creature larger than them and thought, “here I am walking like a chump, I could just get on that things back, and it could do the walking for me.” Thus began the slow and painful recovery, after a primitive human ancestor tried to climb on the back of a mastodon. It also marked the beginning of humans taming animals who were bigger, faster and stronger than they were. While the horse remains the dominant mount, reindeer, elephants, alpacas and many other creatures have been adapted to allow lazy, weak humans to ride on their back. And then there is the fantasy realm, where Dragons, Big Cats, Hippogriffs, and Gryphons carry both heroes and villains on their journeys.

Please submit any drawing or painting, using traditional or digital media, that fits the theme: Riding Mount.

All art work is due on Thursday, 12.4.14 Submissions will be published the following Friday, 12.5.14.