Curriculum Vitae - a trilogy

 Another set of three prints, but this time I'm putting them in a single post, mostly because each print contains two-thirds of the elements contained in the next. And they tell a story. As you can see, the idea for these originated in me thinking about ancient Greek red-figure vases. And within them, the basic story of so many myths:

1. To take the maiden. The monster, driven by baser instincts, seeks to drag the maiden to his lair and ravish her.

2. To sheath his sword. The maiden seeks to tame and disarm the hero. Domesticate him. I did think of her chasing with a spindle and distaff in a nod to Heracles. Or maybe more explicitly, she could be holding the sheath for his sword, cuz we all know the Latin for sheath. But all that was too much detail.

3. To slay the monster. The duty of every young man. The beast within, maybe. The adventure that marks his entry into maturity, and so be deserving of the maiden.

I also mixed up my Greeks and Romans here, so my use of the Latin. It always amused me that our modern understanding of curriculum comes from schooling or the corporate world, but for a Roman it was the kind of course where you raced your chariots. So it has a kind of circularity to it, and gives the idea of the three racing round in circles.

PS Those of you who are more observant will recognise the reappearance of the fire exit woman, slightly modified in this one

Brotherhood

 

Another view of the town. The building here is called, "Brotherhood House" and it has been left derelict for maybe 20 years. The council are currently eyeing it up as part of their regeneration of the town. It is seen as being part of a "cultural quarter" which is something that everyone seems to want right now. Not sure whether anything will come of it or if I'll live to see it, so here it is as a challenge.

The man and dog are based on someone who lives nearby and who walks past with the dog pretty much every day. So I thought brotherhood applied to them, too. They look out for each other.

Having done this one I feel this may draw a line under this particular series. At least for now.

J, Yellow in Blue

 The third of the three "mini-prints". As I mentioned elsewhere, I worked on these in parallel. First I worked on the drawings, reducing them and translating them to work with quite broad lines. I also made some adjustments so that they each had the same amount of "information" as I wasn't concerned with them being some kind of set when I was doing the drawings. 

I cut the three "drawings" and transferred each on to a separate block where I then cut out the figure's silhouette and then roughly brushed ink over the block and roughly cut these to give the "brushstrokes" in the back ground. I used the same yellow block over all three as a kind of hardly-noticeable unifying theme.

J, Yellow in Green

 

The model for the original drawings for these three prints is Julie, hence the J in the titles. I did a lot of agonising over titles, but in the end I opted for something descriptive as I usually do when I'm stuck. One of the things I like about quick poses in life drawing is not being hung up about detail and measurement. They're usually the closest I get to "gestural" drawing, conveying something quite energetic, even in straightforward poses like this.

J, Yellow in Pink

 I've been wondering whether to post about these three separately or together as I have been working on them in parallel. I've plumped for separate as they are "stand alone" pieces, I guess.

Anyway, another "mini-print" exhibition came across my radar a couple days ago. Leamington this time, not juried, but in my back yard. I had it in my mind to try a few little prints along these lines, so it was enough impetus to give it a go. Due to the exhibition rubric, they are smaller than my usual small at 10x10cm - though technically the same area as the 12X8s I did for the Leicester show, the square format seems more constraining somehow.

These prints are again based on quick (2min) life-drawings like the painting in Painting Stacey. The original drawings were big (A2) and scribbly but had a dynamism to them I wanted to try and translate to a different medium in small scale.

Painting Stacey

 

Another print based on life drawings. From this August, this time. Two drawings of the same model (Stacey) - the one on the easel was a quick 2-minute drawing without lifting the charcoal from the paper, and the other was a bit longer, emphasising shadows. I like the slightly confrontational hands-on-hips stance, it gives her a vibe that hints at, "I'm naked and it's cold, is that the best you can come up with?" I tried out several colours before opting for the light blue. I feel it reads well as shadow and as coldness in contrast to the world inside the picture inside the picture. If you know what I mean.

This one has turned out quite well, I think, probably the best offset of the colour blocks I've done. Or at least most unstressful.. And I've made the mistakes seem deliberate, so I'm happy with that. Pretty sure this will be one of my entries for the Rugby Open this year.

London Calling

 Number 3 in the series of scenes about town. A few months back I walked past this bar and saw two fed-up looking women at one of the outside tables. The bar is called London Calling, so I thought maybe London was calling to them, calling them to be elsewhere. Now that's way too subtle an idea to get over in a small print, so I thought I'd just do it straight, as it were and see how it comes out.

So here it is. The architecture is somewhat edited, but that's art isn't it? And the two women here were sitting in our garden, but they work.