When it came to choosing an artist to illustrate the third game game of This Way, it didn’t take me long to ask my mother what she thought.
My brother Hugo and I have always been big fans of her paintings; they’ve been with us forever! What’s more, I’d been thinking for several years about collaborating with my mother on a professional project, so it clearly made sense here.
I will now hand over to our mother, Christine Aubertin, the artist behind the magnificent illustrations on the fauna cards – with illustrations from several pages of her notebook devoted to Arctic wildlife:
In September 2022, This Way commissioned me to create 160 illustrations of animals living in the Arctic. I did a lot of research, which I found fascinating.
The animals of the Far North brave the extreme cold and icy winds of the ice sheets. They roam the desert expanse of the ice floes. They probe the infinite depths of the 15 seas that make up the Arctic Ocean. During the long summer days and long winter nights, they inhabit islands, mountains, forests, tundra, and taiga. They swim, fly, hunt, overwinter, hibernate, and raise their young. 🐾
Most of them cover territories of several hundred square kilometers. Some migrate twice a year to the other side of the earth!
Millions of square kilometers of marine and terrestrial ecosystems, their territory, are seeing their balance weakened by the growth of mining, oil and gas exploitation, plastic, chemical and noise pollution, maritime trade and fishing. 🦈
These proud descendants of distant dinosaurs, reindeer and musk oxen, bears and wolverines, wolves and foxes, lemmings and snow hares, snowy owls and ptarmigans, indigenous since prehistoric times, must now also face the climate change of our mother planet. 🌎
The fauna illustrations in Arctica are my tribute to these valiant wonders.
I spent more than two thousand hours in their company. I eagerly scrutinized photos and videos on my computer screen, read and reread amazing publications, and reveled in courageous and relevant films and documentaries.
Life in the Arctic awakens our imagination. Its fantastic wildlife has populated my dreams. I sketched the movements of these animals, their expressions, their coats and plumage. I created settings that were familiar to them, in keeping with their environment.
I drew all these heroes in dry pastel, a medium as fragile and powdery as snow. I conveyed what I thought I saw in their eyes and what that inspired in me.
My gratitude goes out to the many patient and passionate photographers, both amateur and professional. Informed and inspired by their work online, I was able to deliver my interpretation of these magnificent models.
I bow to three authors, delicate poets who love nature: Jean-Albert Lièvre, director of the documentary film Les Gardiennes de la planète (Guardians of the Planet); Wilfried N’Dondé, author of Héliophéra, Fille des Abysses d’amour et de plancton (Héliophéra, Daughter of the Abyss of Love and Plankton); and Vincent Mugnier, author of the photographs in Tibet: Minéral animal: sur les traces de la panthère des neiges (Tibet: Mineral Animal: In the Footsteps of the Snow Leopard).
Thank you to my grandchildren for their curiosity and wonder. Their visual acuity is unmatched! Their interest in all forms of life allows us to envision a better tomorrow! 🥰
Before concluding this immersion into the world of Christine Aubertin, I would like to share with you a sneak preview of the final card designs… 👀
