The following photograph-packed article is about how Takeshi
Yamada painted a commissioned 15x15 feet showfront of the Giant
Snake Sideshows for one of the major sideshow companies, Four C
Productions in Florida in 2006. This particular traveling
sideshow has been entertaining people at several dozens of
midways around the
United States
since the early 2007. Takeshi Yamada is one of the most
influential and active educators in New York City with several
dozens of awards, recognitions and nominations including two
“Key to the City” from Mayors, “Who’s Who in America”, “One
Thousand Great Americans”, “International
Educator of the Year”. He has also taught classes and
given public lectures at over 40 educational institutions
internationally. Yamada is also a prolific author of article
publications including 11 published books, and an artist with
over 450 fine art exhibitions with his paintings and sculptures
exhibited internationally in Spain, the Netherlands, Canada,
Japan and the United States.
In
addition, rogue taxidermy artworks, sideshow gaffs, large
sideshow banners and showfronts created by Yamada in the last 40
years have been exhibited at dozens of state fairs and festivals
annually even today around the nation. This manuscript was
produced by Dr. Eriko N. Bond, noted art critic and New York
City author, as told by Takeshi Yamada.
Making of
THE GIANT SNAKE SHOW
Sideshow Showfront Created by Takeshi Yamada
Article by Dr.
Eriko N. Bond as told by Takeshi Yamada
Chapter 5
Takeshi Yamada strikes a pose with the giant snake cast-off skin
and horse skull
At
Museum of World Wonders in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York.
(Photograph by Michael Rossetti. January 28, 2007. http://sideshowworld.com/TY-RossettisFilm.html)
This chapter
features a series of digital photographs for documenting the
progress of the Giant Snake Show showfront created by Takeshi
Yamada. Detailed comments for photographs were also added by
Yamada for educational purposes for enthusiastic fans of
sideshows and artworks of Takeshi Yamada. Yamada takes
education seriously, just like his parents, who were both school
teachers (now retired).
Takeshi Yamada is
one of the most decorated, internationally recognized, and
respected award-winning educator in the United States. Yamada’s
major awards, recognitions (including numerous minor
nominations) includes Key
to The City of New Orleans from the Mayor, Key to The City of
Gary from the Mayor, Who’s Who in American Education, 2000
Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century, International
Educator of the Year 2003, The Worldwide Honours List 2003,
Who’s Who in the World, 21st Century Award for
Achievement, 2000
Outstanding Intellectuals of the 21st Century, One
Thousand Great Americans,
and 21st Century Award for Achievement,
etc.
Giant Snake Show Showfront (Part 2)
Preparations
To render the figure
of the giant snake realistically, Yamada first gathered quality
visual resources immediately when he was commissioned to create
showfront of the Giant Snake Show by Jack Constantine
(President, Four C Productions) in Florida. This has been a very
important part of the creative process for Takeshi Yamada since
he created his first oil painting many decades ago in Japan.
Books borrowed from a local public library in Florida by Takeshi
Yamada for producing Giant Snake Show showfront.
Books full of large
size photographs of snakes like the ones shown above were
borrowed from a local public library to be studied and used as
reference to create Giant Snake Show showfront by Takeshi
Yamada. What Yamada was looking for in these books was the
snake’s deadly expression just before attacking. Needless to
say, Yamada also studies dozens of photographs of showfronts and
sideshow banners of snake shows used in the United States and
Mexico.
Giant python photographs taken by Takeshi Yamada directly from
the real giant snake
This gorgeous giant monster snake just shed the skin and the
color of the body is so brilliantly fresh.
At this point,
Takeshi Yamada also took many digital photographs of the actual
giant snake in the cage at the Four C Productions. This
gorgeous-looking animal (python) is nearly 20 feet long (and
nearly 300 lbs) and its body is thicker than a telephone pole.
This rather quiet giant snake is a truly impressive and deadly
monster. This animal does not have poison to kill it’s prey.
Instead, this giant beast simply strangles, suffocates, kills,
and swallows the victim. For this reason, Python (like other
giant snake) is called “Constrictor”. Constantine also told
Yamada that he was very proud of his beautiful , large snake
because no other competitors of his have had such a big snake
like his. (His sideshow company also has a giant albino python
in a separate giant cage and it is a part of the display of his
“Museum of World Oddities”, a nation-wide traveling large scale
Dime Museum.) A detailed drawing of the head of the albino
python (fig. 3) was done from the direct observation of this
giant animal in the cage by Yamada at this point.
The final painting
of the head of the snake is based on the photograph shown above,
which was taken by Yamada. In the photograph, the mouth is
closed but Yamada changed it to the opened-mouth condition in
his painting.
Based on the
resource materials, images of the giant snake were rendered with
“acceptable and believable enhancement” were done by Yamada for
making his painted snake more aggressive-looking than the real
one. Examples of such artistic enhancements were bigger fangs,
tilted dangerous-looking eyes (real snakes have cute round eyes
and they do not look deadly according to Yamada), more brighter
and vivid colors of the body, etc.
Takeshi Yamada dried the shed skins of the giant python (nearly
20 feet and 300LBS) under the Florida sun.
The snake is one of 12 sacred animals of Chinese zodiac and its
skin is a good luck charm in Japan.
(January 2006, photograph by Takeshi yamada).
To truly grasp the
“life” and “essence” of this gorgeous giant monster, Yamada
visited the giant snake in its large cage several times a day
when he painted the Giant Snake showfront. Yamada also collected
the cast-off skin of this giant python and studied its scales
closely for his painting. (These cast-off snake skins were
usually tossed out by people there.)
Giant Snake Show Showfront (Part 3)
Sketches and Drawings
Numerous sketches
and detailed drawings were produced by Takeshi Yamada first for
the productions of the commissioned 15 x15 foot Giant Snake
sideshow showfront. Five panels (three are in the front and the
rest are inside) are to be painted by Yamada. Shown below are
photographs of those drawings of Takeshi Yamada for the Giant
Snake Show showfront panels. These drawings shown below are all
produced in graphite and ball point pen on regular typing sheet
paper.
The facial
expression of the snake is the most important point of this
showfront, so, the client, Jack Constantine examined the
drawings of Yamada and gave specific suggestions and
instructions to him.
1
Fig.1. The general
design of the new Giant Snake Show showfront. Green leaves in
the background of the head of this giant snake at the top area
were removed completely later because they make the area too
busy. Yamada also thought this much of green does not work well
with vibrating deep blue background and bright yellow-gold
snake. The words “EDUCATIONAL” are also removed because they are
not important. The message must be loud and clear. The image
must be strong and powerful to fit the subject matter – a deadly
giant snake. The shading around the body of the snake was not
finalized here yet. The lettering style of the word “ALIVE” was
not finalized here yet, either.
Fig.2. This
opened-mouth drawing is based on the closed-mouth snake
photograph by Takeshi Yamada.
Fig.3. This drawing
of the head of the snake with fine details is created from the
direct observation of the albino python in a different snake
cage there.
Fig.4 and Fig.5. The
angle of the head of the snake was examined in these drawings.
Colors of the paints purchased to create this Giant Snake Show
were listed in Fig 5. (Not all of the colors listed here such as
two colors of greens were used for painting this showfront.)
Fig.6 and Fig.7. The
angle of the head of the snake was still examined in these
drawings. Cartoon-like modified snake head was drawn in Fig.6.
The proportion of each elements – picture of the snake head,
letterings of the “nearly 20 FT”, “nearly 300 LBS”, “ALIVE” are
also examined here.
Fig.8. The size and
proportion of lettering was examined here. Giant Snake Show
showfront is 15x15 feet.
Fig.9. The new
message in the inside panel is examined here. A snake head with
a different angle is also drawn for the final painting. This was
developed into the Fig.10 as shown below.
Fig.10. Detailed
drawing for the inside wall of the Giant Snake Show featuring
the snake and letterings.
Fig.11. This
detailed drawing of the snake is based on the photograph of a
dried rattle snake head. A bigger tongue and the sharper big
tooth were added to make this animal look more aggressive and
deadly. The shading around the snake head is also clearly
rendered here.
Fig.12. This drawing
contains the several different views of the snake head. Also, to
fill out the empty area above the head of the giant snake,
Yamada decided to paint a popular sideshow banner word – ALIVE
for it. Two designs of the word, “ALIVE” were drawn here. For
the final painting, the one in the left was used.
Fig.13. A paper
stencil for drawing the curvatures of number zero for the “20”
and “300” on the front side panels.
Note: Above shown
drawings were all manually drawn by Takeshi Yamada with a pencil
or ball point pen on paper at the production head quarter of
Four C Productions in Florida. Nevertheless, it is not always
the case for him. Specifically, Yamada usually uses his desktop
computer with sophisticated painting & photograph programs to
electronically produce a series of colored drawings for his
client when he works on commissioned large sideshow banner
artworks. For more information, see Making of the Cindora
(8-legged Dog) Banner by this author as told by Takeshi
Yamada.
Continue to
Chapter 6
Copyright by Takeshi Yamada, Museum of World Wonders in Coney
Island. Yamada Art Center. Brooklyn, New York, 2007. Revised in
March 2009, All Rights Reserved.
E-mail: yamada108@verizon.net
Special thanks to Dr. Eriko N. Bond, Lauren D. Travis, Seara
(sea rabbit), Maremi Kakushina and Dr. Abraham Morris.
Also
special thanks to Jack Frost (senior proofreader)
http://www.sideshowworld.com/SSA-15.html
http://www.roguetaxidermy.com/members_detail.php?id=528
http://www.horseshoecrab.org/poem/feature/takeshi.html
http://www.brooklynpubliclibrary.org/events/exhibitions/other/worldwonders.jsp
