Arctic Wolpertinger

 

 

“The Arctic Wolpertinger is a curious thing

Caribou antler and snowy owl wing

Found under the Aurora’s glow

Where few are found to go

No brown hare of cousins south

Fur snow white from tail to mouth

Teeth from cats of the distant past

Catch a glimpse, it’s gone fast”

Original poem, 2024

 

 

A couple of years ago I picked up several stickers, and an original painting at the local Renaissance Faire, from the booth of MysticAK.com. Since then, I have loved their images of an Artic Wolpertinger, and a Fae Fox. The contest of "Cryptids in Any Mode" was the perfect opportunity to do a piece inspired by one of them. So, I set about gathering paper and supplies, for a paper and ink contest entry.

Figure 1: Inspirational sticker on one of my water bottles.

Figure 2: Beginning the layout.

The Worpltinger has been around for a fair amount of time, but I was not able to pin down a date range. They come from the woods of Bavaria (southern Germany) and were described to tourists. Many versions were made for sale, with head, horns, wings, and tail of various small animals attached to each other.

 

Figure 3, A and B: Wolpertinger edited from Young Hare, a painting of a hare by Albrecht Dürer 1502. I was unable to find the date or the artist of the edited version.

 

Figure 4: Starting the inking.

I've dabbled in calligraphy for many years. Played with marker pens, cartridge pens, dip pens, and the occasional quill. Currently I have some nice goose quills on order, and have been looking at the different ways to prepare them to be used as pens. Until then though, I have metal dip pens in my supplies. Out of the more modern pens, I have always gravitated to dip pens. I find them easier to use. Also, there is something about dipping a pen into ink that is so satisfying.

Figure 5: A sampling of clam shells from an otter's midden. I am finding the shells to be very intuitive to use.

Clam shells are a more recent addition to my supplies. I got to go on a trip some miles to the south, and found the midden heap of a sea otter. It was great fun wandering the shores of a tiny island inlet to find empty shell halves. The clam shells have been a nice addition. They are a great shape, and for the most part I only needed a drop or two of the various colored inks. This kept the rest of the bottles uncontaminated by stray ink that might not have been rinsed out of the pens well.

Figure 6: Main structure done. It still needed detail work.

Was getting close to completion when disaster struck! My hand dragged through a bit of ink that hadn't dried yet on the ornate capital. Well, time to try out the brand-new pen knife. It worked really well. Not perfect, I was being a bit cautious, and it was ink soaked into paper instead of a thicker paint sitting on top of the surface. After erasing with a sharp edge, I then went on to make the border more ornate and cover the remnants of the smear. I do think it turned out for the better.

Figure 7: My hand dragged! So close to completion.

Figure 8: Scrape scrape scrape with the pen knife. Worked well to help with the smear. Modified the aurora while the smeared ink was drying.

Figure 9: Final detail for ornate capital and aurora. The smear feels like it should be classified under "Happy little accident", as the end result is much improved.

I really enjoyed this project. It was fun getting out my calligraphy supplies and skills after so long a hiatus. “Painting” with inks resulted in finer details than I had previously achieved. Additionally I found the white ink details made the piece pop more than any of my previous works.