Chauvet Rhinos
Airbrush and sgraffito on gold sandstone
Size varies by stone; approx. 11" x 15" ( 27.94 x 38.1 cm)
I have admired these rhinos of Chauvet cave since their discovery 15 years ago, but hesitated to recreate them because I thought their naturalistic style would be difficult to render on stone. It was just as tricky as I feared. It blows my mind that the original cave art is around 30,000 years old, yet looks absolutely modern in execution and was done on an unforgiving stone wall in the dark. Most of the paintings in Chauvet cave, including these rhinos are black. Grey was made by thinning the paint, rubbing off some pigment, or mixing stone scrapings together, for an affect that looks like it was done in art class on rag paper rather than on raw rock.