The one about the bundle of myrrh

This is the third of my Song of Solomon prints. It is Chapter 1, Verse 13, “A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved to me, he shall lie all night between my breasts.” 

The verse conjured that post-coital moment where the man instantly crashes out and the woman is left wanting to talk about bundles of myrrh and stuff. She is of course putting a brave face on it.  

The design for the woman came together quite quickly. There is a bit of this naked woman postcard in her. He was something of a challenge though, it was hard getting him sufficiently lifeless. I quite like the Harry Potter arm thing that just happened in one of the various versions. I think it’s him starting to turn to jelly. 

I fiddled around with colour – I thought maybe some shadows because it is night, but decided to just colour the carpet/bedspread to make it more en suite with the other two prints. 

I was delighted to find that Lovis Corinth did illustrations for the Song of Solomon back in 1911. There are 28 illustrations, though it seems plenty of them are vignettes and illuminated letters. Still, I don’t think I’ll do that many. I’ve got another 3 forming in my mind that are landscape, or rather marine format. So I shall potter away at those and see if any others occur. I’ve also got another, non-Biblical picture I’m working on for a competition thing. So I need to let that one develop, too.

On being "edgy"

I’ve had my work described as “edgy” twice in the past week or so. By other artists, too.

It did surprise me. I hadn’t thought I was that edgy. I thought I was just doing art.

Maybe they meant edgy for the rural backwater I live in. Maybe the real edgy stuff happens elsewhere. Maybe its all relative. Or not.

There is for sure a mainstream art here, a very safe, don’t-scare-the-horses art. I definitely feel I don’t belong. But I always felt like that. Didn’t belong in the bank. Didn’t belong in the quango. Didn’t belong in the working class neighbourhood I grew up in. Don’t belong in the middle class one I live in now. I’ve lived my life on the edges, so edgy I guess is just normalcy for me. It’s just my human condition, isn’t it?

And I can’t resist the temptation to poke the status quo. So I added the picture above from a dozen years back when I was in a corporate world. OK. I’m edgy.

I’m also in the happy position that I don’t need to chase an income any more. So I don’t have to heed the siren calls of customers’ dollars. “Do it like this,” they say, “And we’ll buy you.” So I can say what I need to say, Put all the soul I want into it and adopt a totally take-it-or-leave-it attitude. And some people like it, and are willing to give my stuff house room. That’s all the encouragement I need. One or two people hunt me out or stumble upon me by accident, and by some miracle kinda get what I’m saying.

As irritating as it is to be out on the edge of everything, in my heart of hearts I know that I don’t want to be mainstream. I don’t want the baggage that comes with it. I don’t want the compromise and I don’t want to be on the committee. For in the mainstream, there’s always a committee.

The fig tree putteth forth her green figs….

The second of my illustrated verses from the Song of Solomon. This one is Chapter 2, Verse 13, “The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

This image evolved quite a bit during its making. I was always going to have the woman, the man and the fig, but the composition changed as I went along.

I did use the woodcut of the fig I did earlier, but I originally had in mind using it with very opaque ink, partially obscuring the couple. In the end I liked the semi-transparent green, so I overprinted the green on to a more detailed black lino print of the fig.

The woman is based on the same drawing I used for the postcard of a few days back, but simplified and reversed colour-wise. With the man, the earlier postcard print gave me the slightly gnarly look I was after. His pose came to me as I was talking to some visitors during WOS. I told them I wanted him reaching down and taking her hand, and it sounded right, so that’s what I went for.

I like the black/smooth of the woman contrasted with the white/rough of the man. It gives a bit of a yin/yang vibe to them. Deeply unfashionable, I know.

Over all, I’m pretty pleased with how this one turned out.

Man - framed

This one’s a sort of companion piece to the woman I did on Thursday. They are both practice pieces for the next Song of Solomon print. And I’ve given them both frames. I’ve tapered his, firstly to give an illusion of perspective. Is he standing in the entrance to a cellar? Or is it an empty frame he’s holding around himself? The second thing it does is emphasize his shoulders. 

So I’ve got the larger print shaping up quite nicely, but I don’t think I’ll finish it before the end of Open Studios. But that was a deadline I plucked out of the air, anyway. These things take as long as they take.

I sold the first one of these before the ink was dry yesterday. One of the Open Studios visitors spotted him hanging on the drying rack and asked if she could buy one. Some of my wife’s friends were here and liked him, too. So I can see some more naked men postcards appearing in the future.

Woman - framed

Another naked woman on a postcard. This one turned out to be a touch Vallotton-ish, I think.

In my preparation for the next Song of Solomon print, I thought I’d do some “sketches” in lino. Try outs for the bigger picture, as it were. This is a sort of try out for shapes and stuff, and is somewhat different in the final version I have in my head. I’ve got another small one in my head I hope to start on today before the bigger print which I hope to tackle over the weekend.