Time- Extinct Dodo

Illustration Friday- Challenge for 2/6/2009- "Time."
For my challenge I tried a little something different. I painted a piece of 20" x 24" slate (plaster cast) with acrylic Liquitex paint and then used Sakura archive ink to draw detail. This is the first in a series of slate pieces entitles "Extinct-guished." Here I reflect on the "time" that was taken from an entire species...The Dodo.
dodo n., an extinct flightless bird, once a native of the island of Mauritius. Discovered 1598, extinct by 1681.In the year 1598 AD, Portuguese sailors landing on the shores of the island of Mauritius discovered a previously unknown species of bird, the Dodo. Having been isolated by its island location from contact with humanity, the dodo greeted the new visitors with a child-like innocence. The sailors mistook the gentle spirit of the dodo, and its lack of fear of the new predators, as stupidity. They dubbed the bird "dodo" (meaning something similar to a simpleton in the Portuguese tongue). Many dodo were killed by the human visitors, and those that survived man had to face the introduced animals. Dogs and pigs soon became feral when introduced to the Mauritian eco-system. By the year 1681, the last dodo had died, and the world was left worse with its passing.

source: http://www.davidreilly.com/dodo/