Felt I could share some badger drawings I did back in january!
European badgers are my favorite animals, but I adore mustelids in general. I just don't draw them enough, so I'm trying to make up to them! Hope you'll like it.
Just felt I could share those mustelids drawings I did back in january!
The pine marten is my least favorite, I didn't really nail their anatomy, but I'll try again! Stoats are incredibly fun to draw, I love their shapes so much! And badgers have been my favorite animals for many years now.
Hope it's OK to share them here! If not, no problem, I'll remove my post.
40 years. That’s officially 40 years. Four decades ago, and at the dawn of an increasingly connected world where all information is just a click away, the Soviet propaganda back then remains as vivid as ever. The lies are sung and repeated as the golden word, the pseudo-scientists themselves are content with the old fable of "Xenon poisoning" or "violations of safety rules," even though the regulations in force in 1986 were vague and sometimes contradictory, and the operators were accustomed to sailing in troubled waters.
But it is so much easier to blame a few men than to question an entire system. Beyond the collapse of the Soviet Union, questioning was not chosen. Taking dubious shortcuts, an alternative version of the facts has become obvious to the world. Relayed by popular media, where historical facts are distorted, exaggerated, and reinvented. One would think that reality is not sensational enough for our brains anaesthetized by the bombardment of the horrors of the world. It leads me to believe that the public’s sensitivity only demands slanders and fictions disguised as accuracy. The true version, the authentic one, no one knows in its entirety, and few are inclined to dig to see a fragment of it. Because digging requires titanic efforts. Because digging requires us to move away from the usual passive way of consuming information that we are flooded with. Sorting out truth from falsehood seems to have become a luxury. Are we ready to be fooled, even if it means putting our critical thinking aside? Is this the bright future we offer to our humanity?
In the name of science, in the name of progress, how much bullshit will we be inclined to swallow? How many sacrifices will seem acceptable to us before realizing that we are headed straight for disaster? I believe that we all have a duty to remember. For future generations, for those who, like me, were not born on April 26, 1986, and who will always struggle to gather the exact facts of this tragedy. With every mistake, valuable lessons can be learned. While lessons on nuclear safety and security seem to have been assimilated, those on mass disinformation and the damage of propaganda are forgotten. Yet they are just as important. A lie repeated a thousand times does not become truth. But when a certain number of people believe it, it becomes chronic defamation. When a plethora of information and fake news overlap and intersect, isn’t this the right time to sharpen our distrust of easy information, "fast-info"?
I refuse that the memory of the true heroes that night be soiled by the crass ignorance of those who claim to know everything. Whether firefighters, operators, engineers or other workers present, they did their best to stop the fire and avoid an over-accident. The hundreds of thousands of liquidators who succeeded them sacrificed their health, and often their lives, to contain a government’s mistakes. The operators in the control room number 4 have served as easy scapegoats for this same government. To them goes all my gratitude, with all my heart I wish them to rest in peace.
Because, against the grain, formidable women and men, curious and eager for understanding, dig and dig again. Compared to the masses, they are few, but they helped me to emerge from the fog of lies. They allowed me to throw Grigory Medvedev into oblivion, to take an interest in INSAG-7, in Anatoly Diatlov and to improve my English along the way. On a more personal level, they also helped me to regain some faith in humanity. As long as the defenders of true science, questioning and verifiable and sourced facts exist, humanity will stand a chance to face its own contradictions, and to move forward without distorting its tormented past.
Because real people in the flesh like you and me have taken the trouble to shorten their lives so we can live as well as possible, they deserve an effort from us to understand what really happened. Their memory is worth much more than a TikTok made in a hurry for the fashion effect. I solemnly pray today and hope that you will join me, alongside all those who have suffered and are still suffering from this disaster. Nuclear deaths may not be as numerous as coal deaths, but it is unconscionable to denigrate them. Because the accident that was supposedly impossible (thank you Aleksandrov and your kind for your misplaced faith) happened, and the victims are very real. The long-term consequences of chronic ingestion of contaminated food by affected populations are not yet well known. It must be added that the Soviet government did not hurry to carry out epidemiological studies... It was easier to call people "radiophobic".
I would like to say that after 40 years, Chernobyl is over. But it’s probably very far from the truth. We still don’t know how to dismantle a nuclear reactor. So a destroyed one... I naively wish that one day, humanity could solve the problems it has caused itself. Eternal memory to all the victims of this industrial, economic, ecological, medical and social tragedy.
About the painting itself, it measures 33 by 46 centimeters (about 13 by 18 inches), I used acrylic for the first layer, and I finished with oil. I had some problems with my medium so the result isn’t as good as I’d expected, but I did what I could. I spent 14-15 hours on it in total.