Mother earth research sketches

After quite a bit of time reading up on goddesses, mother earth, father sky I produced some sketches in my book. I spent lots of time looking at different cultures and the way they saw the world. Some of the ideas were similar pointing to the earth as a female entity and how she grows and gives birth to everything in our world. The main points seem to be that we are just a blink of an eye but we have to remember to respect the land and everything in it, to leave it well for our children.

Some of the cultures i looked into were Navajo Native Americans, African, Hawaiian and Aboriginal and Maori cultures, legends and myths. The importance of the earth and the stories that have been handed down through the generations. 

Each culture has its own characters in their stories with roles and responsibilities. These stories can be quite complex as i have found during my research of this subject. Some becoming so over complicated simplifying them into picture book form would be quite difficult. 

The Yoruba religion has quite a long plot involved before the earth is form and creation happens. 

The chinese creation story  was one story i thought that could be used for the book. 

It refers to a cosmic egg made up of two balanced opposites: yin and yang. Panku the devine embryo grew until it burst his shell. He then set to work creating the earth by carving out rivers, valleys and piling up mountains. Eventually his body became part of the earth and mankind.

I quite like the visual ideas that sprang to mind but still did not feel that It was the right narrative for me to work with.