First up we have my mono-print which I neglected to include an image of in my last post;
As an actual piece of art, I don't think this was all that great, but it was good to go into mono-printing with a cohesive image to work at as opposed to just messing about like before. Good preparation for further stuff then, particularly my nerve map thing.
Here's the three woodblock prints I made t'other day;
Honestly, I'm quite happy with these prints. They're the first woodblocks I've done, and I really found this medium much more easy and enjoyable to work through than lino-printing. I actually found the wood (fakey kinda glue-and-sawdust stuff I know, but y'know) way easier to carve than the lino, and also the fact it's not in any way warped or liable to bend all over the shop was a bonus.
Though it's hard to see with the lighting in these shots, there are slight grain marks from the wood. Initially I was pretty unhappy with this, but after the black was printed the look of 'em really improved. Particularly on the last one; the orange really stands out and I really like the slight static-like graininess; it gives it a weird, slightly creepy feel which is always a good thing!
Anyways, returning to where I think I left off last post, updates on the Jim-Sized Nerve Thing (working title)!
Since I drew in the nerves the other day, I've been looking at a lot of stuff by Alex Grey. He's rather awesome by the way, and applies to my project in a seriously big way. Examples? Of course:
This is some of the best artistic imagery I've seen or at least been able to find depicting the anatomy of the human body, particularly within a setting of some kind of 'space'; in this case mainly the spiritual or personal space.
After seeing Alex Grey's works, I had a bit of a spurt of creativity; I went back to and have begun developing a brief idea I had a couple of weeks ago of drawing the nerves of whatever body parts (hands at the time) extending out of the body, into the physical space the body is occupying. Literally sensing your space. So yesterday I marked up and carved out a fresh woodblock of a head with the nerves flying out the top, hopefully not like in The Thing....
...and also sorted out Jim-Sized Nerves Thing Mk. II in this vein of thought. I think it looks way cooler now.
It's strange, I've tried to move a bit away from the whole nerves being like tree thing a bit since Michael Canning voiced his cautions about it last week, but to be honest it just seems to occur naturally; the two things are undeniably similar, especially when you go outside the restrictions of the natural layout of nerves and start putting them wherever the feck you like.
So yeah, I started doing the mono-prints for this today, and managed to get the head and shoulders done; images next post when they're dry!
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