Off-Press/Print Restraint

It’s all getting Christmassy, so this project will continue on the 7th Jan, Seasons Greetings!

In order to complete one of the lower-body sections I need to draw out two feet. I’m not sure about you but hands and feet drawn up entirely from my imagination look like clumpy meat-sticks, as if I feel hands more than I look at them. Come to think of it the hands I have been carving so far kind of do kind of resemble Peter Howson hands…

I always try to work from source imagery for these body parts, to help with scaling and perspective. So I have started the day with a photo-shoot that resembles a bad limbo contest!

Enjoying carving individual blades of grass today (and loosing my sanity)…

I realised yesterday that I can use Photoshop to work out roughly what the image will look like, which has been a massive help after all the billboard visualisation ranting yesterday!

But before that, check out the inter-lock! Yeah, smooth.

And finally a Photoshop visualisation of the printed foreground with boots of a figure…

I’m liking the large areas of black, but it might be more appropriate to striate the large black areas to be more in-keeping with wood engraving. But then, the large areas of black will contrast well against both the sky and the colours of the figure…

I don’t know if I need a background as well? Although a small tree on a distant hill could be fun…or even a distant figure?

I made the choice to lower the level of detail on the forground, as I don’t want to take away from the sharp focus of the characters. But I’m finding that the foreground is hard to visualise as I work. Like with a billboard you almost need to stand a few hundred feet away to see what you’re actually working on!

Here are three stages of the work from today.