Drawing+ Imaging: People- World of One’s Own

We were given an assignment in our Drawing/ Imaging class- to build a maquette based on a childhood story or memory, draw 5 sketches of different compositions, and then submit a final full tonal drawing.

I chose a very known children poem by the Israeli songwriter Yehonatan Geffen, named The Sixteenth Sheep.

Here is a translation from Hebrew I made for this project:

When I can not sleep

and thoughts are coming and going,

I sit on my bed

and count sheep (and sometimes female sheep).

The herd passes over my head

and disappears behind my back,

and every sheep that passes is exactly the same

as the last sheep that passed.

First sheep, second sheep,

third sheep and fourth,

balls of wool, all alike,

eighth and ninth sheep passing.

But when the sixteenth sheep arrives,

I know he’ll stop and wander around my room,

and I understand the sheep will stay

and has no interest to continue with the herd.

I whisper to him: “Well lamb? move!

Let me once count them all!”

But he does not move.

And the sixteenth sheep is usually

the one with whom I fall asleep.

I build the maquette from styrofoam, cotton balls, sponges and black metal wire. I wanted to try and portray as if the viewer is counting sheep in the sky, and so the maquette was hung from the ceiling.