#ichnite

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Today's evening post time brought to you by: "I put this word on the prompt list mostly because I like dinosaurs and (not unlike my reasoning for Day 2) I'm amused that it sounds kind of like 'ignite,' not because I actually had any ideas of what to do with it artistically."

And also like...one of the previous days—I can't remember which one and I don't have time to go back and read every description to figure it out—this is one word I think may have benefitted more from my usual mini-magnet approach that the mandala one...But, then again, maybe not. I'm less sure than I was for that previous day, but I do think I'd still maybe like to eventually revisit this one with the magnets and see what they can do with it.

In any case, my biggest worry when I sat down to get started was that I could really only think of 2 distinct images for "trace fossils" like this word describes. And to be clear, that is a little bit of a "my bad" on this one—Technically, the definition is supposed to cover more than just footprint/track fossils specifically and somehow I glossed over that when I put the definition list together; It can also cover things like fossilized burrows or like, fossilized vegetation prints, etc.

I mention that because I tried not to stray too far from footprints and tracks because that was all I covered in the definition, but the two distinct I alluded to a moment ago were: 3-toed dinosaur prints and what I now know are called ammonite fossil imprints—Kind of like the classic swirly-fossil shape you might be familiar with if you've played an Animal Crossing game. [Animal Crossing isn't the only way I'm personally familiar with fossils like that; Somehow they just got buried in the general "fossils and dinosaur things" folder in my brain, Animal Crossing just seemed like an easy reference other people might understand.]

Ammonites are technically, usually ichnites—at least as far as I know, and I'm not a palentologist—but as far as I understand, I don't see why the impression left behind by an ammonite couldn't be considered one. It would be a "trace" of the creature, after all.

Either way, whether ammonites—or imprints they left behind—have anything to do with ichnites or not, I went ahead with the idea anyway because the swirl shape works so well with some "more traditional" mandala techniques, and otherwise I would've been pretty lacking in those here. And I don't know if you Sparklers were able to gather or not, but over the last few mandalas I've noticed how I sorted drifted away from more typical mandala motifs and ideas, and I want to try and drift back towards them.

But I still did my best to make more "proper" ichnites the focus. Obviously, that started with the nice big 3-toed...They're probably not actually to-scale for this, but we'll call them T-rex prints because that's definitely the dinosaur I was thinking of for them. Those served as my starting point that I build the either rest of the mandala around.

You'll notice I fit some human-ish prints inside of the T-rex prints. They're only human-ish because it was a little too cramped for me to get 5 full toes in there and I didn't want to size my brush down to do it at that stage. That said, it's worth noting I hadn't even considered this word might call for barefoot prints when I made the decision to go for shoe prints instead back on Day 15, but I'm definitely thanking past-me for that decision now!

I don't think I necessarily would have had too much of a problem of today and Day 15 feeling too similar if I had still gone with barefoot prints at that time, just because of all the other differences, but it does make me feel better knowing they have that one extra degree of separation between them.

That said, I did still want to re-use the idea of having some footprints "walk around" the mandala because I just think it's a cute one. But to aide the separation even further, I ended up going with something more like—if the chart I found via Google is to be believed and my doodle version retains any integrity to the proper shape—Velociraptor prints. If they don't really look like velociraptor prints, we'll just call them prehistoric bird prints and be done with it. 😆

Although, kind of ironically I think they came out looking a bit like flying bird silhouettes, which I had considered using somewhere on Day 15 but ultimately decided against. [Now I'm thinking that was maybe another good call to help keep this one separate that past-me wasn't even thinking about!]

But before I put the 'raptor prints in, I spent a lot more time trying to fill more of the space with the ammonite-esque swirls I mentioned before. I definitely spent way longer on those than anything else because getting the base swirls just right proved for more difficult that I anticipated—even more so for the ones towards the edge rather than the ones towards the center.

And then I maybe went a bit overboard trying to make the swirls towards the outer edge a little more interesting. In hindsight, I may have overdone them a bit, but after I spent so long on them I very much did not have it in me to go back and try to figure out how to "un-over-do" them. So they are what they are. 🤷‍♀️

I did however also decide to fill some space and accent a bit with one other kind of more proper trace fossil—My very simple approximation if what I think were snake trails that I kept seeing pop up in my search for ichnite references. I saw at least a few that really did look look that lines-with-V's-down-the-center that I drew along the outer edge and just a bit in the center.

They also ended up kinda going along with some of the more decorative lines around those outer swirls, which was nice.

Oh, and the line that weaves between the 'rapot prints was both a last-might attempt to just fill more space and also I think is a nice nod to the cracks and crevices I personally associate fossil imagery with.

There was kind of a trade-off in that this was one of the mandalas where I spent a lot of time on the lines, because this was probably the simplest color scheme so far. I just smashed browns and tans like the color of both fossils and the dirt/rock their buried in together and tried to get the contrast to enhance the footprint ichnites in a reasonable way.

I did have a little trouble getting the amount of brightness just right like I did yesterday, but yesterday's was still worse in that regard.

Ultimately, I think I was right to be worried about how this one turned out...However, this is one of the ones that ended up surprising me with the results. 😊 It turned out much stronger than I was expecting even though here are things I'm second-guessing like you more or less heard me mention (and other ones I'd rather not call specific attention to).

This one is also probably helped a bit by the fact that I wasn't in quite the frenzy to finish it that I was yesterday's. 😅

That said, I think I covered everything I wanted to and I've still got to get to cross-posting...And I have no clue what song I'm going to pick for the Instagram post, which will definitely slow me down. 🙃 So I'll leave off here while we all ponder the footprints of the past and hope for a tomorrow that turns out at least as well as these did. 😉

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Artwork © me, MysticSparklewings

Obscutober Concept Inspired by nikolas_tower

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