100 Palettes Challenge // Palette #18 // Ayers Natural Bridge by @3ofpents

Today's palette comes from a US Marines poster printed in 1917.

I was Concerned about this one. The colors are so close together I knew it was going to just turn muddy unless I was really careful about how I used them. And I'd run out of home states so I didn't have a an easy option to fall back on!

But the palette is very warm and full of earth-tones, so I figured my best bet was to focus around the mid/southwestern US with interesting landscapes and rock formations — a classic vintage travel poster subject. I hit on the jackalope as my cryptid of choice this time, since it's also these kind of mid-tone, warm earthtones and one that can totally be hopping around a daytime scene.

I knew the jackalope was a taxidermy "hoax" like the fiji mermaid. I put that in quotes because everything I've read about it suggests that the original taxidermy piece was just a fun joke and everyone was (and still is) in on it. So much so that the Wyoming Game and Fish Department actually has an information page on the jackalope. But I didn't know much more than that.

The men that created the original jackalope were hunters and taxidermists from Douglas, WY (whose town logo I love). And when I looked up Douglas in my hunt for a landscape feature for the jackalope to hang out in, I found nearby Ayers Natural Bridge Park, named for Ayers Natural Bridge, an absolutely gorgeous arched rock formation that I absolutely did not do justice to.

But I did my best! Especially with the limited palette.

Honestly? I might just play around with some rock formations in this style outside of the palette challenge. I could have doubled the amount of colors I used here on the bridge itself alone. Nevermind the river running through it and all the vegetation around it that I just wasn't able to do using only this palette.