Calypso

 

 A companion piece to Circe. Poor Calypso weeping at Odysseus' departure on his raft. Prefering the risks of the open seas for the possibility of a return to Ithaca over immortality and her love.

Circe

 This year's Rugby Artists Group exhibition is on the horizon, with a theme of "Voyages". There's nothing in my recent oeuvre that speaks to me of voyaging so I had to come up with something. Classical literature is always a good source so the Odyssey seemed ideal. 

Circe was the first that came to mind, with some of the cursed sailors. The play of white and black areas is something thatt has come from the workshops that Eric Gaskell and I run. So I need to get it out of my system. I've got a couple of 10x8 frames in stock that will take this print and the companion piece of Calypso that I'm working on next.

Unser täglich Brot

 Gieb uns heute.

An old bread board. Instead of throwing it out, or burning it, I decided to make a woodcut. I went for Uncle Death again, because he looks like he could use a sandwich...

I was channeling a lot of artists here. Tal R with the breadboard, though mine was a boring rectangular one. But also Naoko Matsubara and Shiko Munakata, because I decided to cut directly into the block without any preparatory drawing - and let it just take the shape it wanted to.

It's not a great piece, but it's somehow better than it deserves, having taken shape during what I guess Tal R means by "free falling". I tried different papers, too. First the card I normally use, then some Shoji paper which better shows the grain and the cuts and gouges in the board surface.

Tiger Dancer. Card for the Year of the Tiger

 I found it hard to come up with an image for this year. Tigers in pictures can just look way too cuddly to convey the appropriate sense of danger. In the end I stumbled across Nolde's Dancing in front of the Golden Calf, which seemed suitably crazy to me. So I stole one of his dancers ad gave her a tiger skin. That's the year ahead I'm seeing. Risky and somewhat bonkers.

Linocut hand coloured with pink and yellow ink.

Godiva of Coventry

 

I imagine this as a companion to the Guy of Warwick print. Both characters are engaged in risky acts of heroism, Guy risking life and limb and Godiva risking her reputation. I’m always thinking as I draw and compose and cut these things, telling myself stories about what I’m doing. Putting myself in the heads of the people I’m working on. The larger and more elaborate the composition, the more I’m thinking and explaining things to myself. 

Here are some of the things that went through my mind that impacted on the over all design. 

I wanted an elevated viewpoint, partly to help compositionally and partly representing a Peeping Tom’s eye view. That viewpoint also helped me add other people, so it was not just Godiva and the horse. 

Nuns seemed right to me, but they had to be blindfolded. I imagined Leofric (like all governments) tied in knots by his own edicts. So yes, nuns could lead the horse, but they couldn’t be allowed to see. Luckily Dobbin is the milkman’s horse, so knows the way. I also wanted the nuns to show their character in how they go about their task. The one holding the cross to her breast and putting her whole faith in God (who is maybe acting through the horse). The other feels her way along the wall while trying to see what she can of the ground from under the blindfold. I didn’t use it as a specific reference, but there’s a definite influence of Pontormo’s Annunciation with the nuns. That abstract shape of the robes, with the bare foot extending out the bottom. 

I got a slightly damaged 1/12 scale model horse cheap from ebay that I used with one of my poseable figures as the model for Godiva. This enabled me to get the perspective/foreshortening to my liking. I gave Godiva a bit more weight around the middle than the figure, cuz maybe she’s already had kids, so she could talk to Leofric with the authority of the mother of his heir, whereas a younger, probably more compliant Godiva wouldn’t have challenged him.

Guy of Warwick does it again!

 

I got the news that my Guy of Warwick print has got a place in Wright Hassall’s 175th Anniversary Calendar. I’m so pleased. 

Having my work in the calendar certainly hints at there being a lot of variety in it. I can’t wait to see what else got in. 

As I hinted in my “making of” post, I’ve been working on a Lady Godiva companion print which is almost done. So that should be posted here soon.

Another Tea card: Venus/Aphrodite

I’ve got a wee plaster bust after the Venus de Milo that occasionally serves as a model for drawing. Very traditional. I thought I’d try one as a print – a kind of exercise in chiaroscuro. 

I find it useful to do these small things in between larger projects. It keeps my hand in with wielding the tools, and is a chance to try things out without risking a big bit of lino or paper.

Candle Dancers of Death

Totenkerzentänzerinnen?? With apologies to Emil Nolde. Not that he was much given to apologising himself. 

I always loved the energy of Nolde’s candle dancers. So when I wanted a dance of Death with a frenetic vibe, his painting/woodcut seemed the natural source. 

Last year when I began bringing Uncle Death into my work, especially the Trigger Warning series, I approached the subject with a sense of sadness. Almost an especial sadness for all those deaths overshadowed by the coronavirus hysteria, But now, I am more frightened of the world. Not frightened of disease, or death. More the collective madness that has overtaken us. An enthusiasm with sweeping everything away. It reminds me of the enthusiasm with which the youth of Europe marched off to war in 1914. 

So this. Not Uncle Death. More the Death Sisters, cutting abstract shapes before a miniature model of Hell.

Guy of Warwick slaying the Dun Cow

I’ve done this for Wright Hassall’s 175th anniversary calendar competition. The theme is Warwickshire and the deadline 30th September so still plenty of time to get your picture in. So... Well… This.

It’s a stupid story, I know. But it’s spoken to me as I made the picture. The Big Question it provokes in me is, “How can you be a hero when the Age of Dragons is over?” It’s a big, Big Question and really relevant to young men today who wish to win the hand of fair Felice.

I don’t have an answer, but I feel this is a way of asking the question.

 

Ghostly Maenir

I felt that the original Maenir print didn’t achieve quite the vibe I wanted, but I thought recently there was maybe a smaller print in there, trying to get out. So I’ve brought her back for an experiment, printed against a roughly-cut and gnarled-up block, around 10”x8” in size.

I like the background block. There’s something that says pine forest to me, or some kind of mountain landscape maybe. Or pines on a moor. (It’s just occurred to me that pine moor is “Matsubara” – my favourite Japanese woodblock artist). A good place for this standing stone.

This rendition makes her more ghostly. And some of the early impressions came out even more so. She looms out of the subtle broken-up landscape, like out of a fog. Maybe she’s more like Kate Bush’s poor, dead Cathy here, “Heathcliff, it’s me, your Cathy, I’ve come home. I’m so cold. Let me in your window.”

Olympia

Another naked woman on a postcard.

I did a bit of organising of the big sheaf of art postcards we’d collected over the years. (Who knew we had so many Madonna and Child postcards?) Anyway, among the nudes/Venuses was the Venus by Titian in the Uffizi (I think it was previously called the Venus d’Urbino, so was probably in the hands of the Montefeltro family at some point). The painting was the inspiration for Manet’s Olympia, so I thought I’d do my own version.

The young woman in Manet’s painting looks like a girl I was at school with, so I’ve always felt a bit weird about it. Also her hand is definitely more “Keep Out!” than the Titian. So Titian it was. I thought I’d portray her with eyes closed here, putting her in her own internal world. Enjoying whatever fantasy is on her mind.

Death and the Bibliophile (book plate)

I don’t think I’ve ever lent a book and got it back. The only book I remember coming back was one I had given to somebody only to have it returned after their death. It bore an inscription to me on the fly leaf, so his executors gave it back to me.

I’ve always loved book plates. I like to see them in an old book, little memorials to previous owners.

Any book that I paste one of these inside is unlikely to get lent out. But maybe when the Davies Library is dispersed, people in the future can wonder about me. And the faint-hearted can worry that I may have cursed the book, wishing upon them a visit from Uncle Death himself.

I’ve been thinking about this image for about the last month. It started out with her facing forward and fainting away at Death’s touch. The composition was much more four-square and had something of a Jugendstil Death and the Maiden about it. I’ve come back to the idea off-and-on over the month and it has developed in a more expressionistic direction. Yesterday I felt I’d got the drawing of the reader right, flinching yet unwilling to be torn from the book. I’ve been drawing some of the Deaths from Holbein’s Dance of Death, and that’s where his vibe has come from. I like that he seems quite importunate, and maybe a bit lizardy.

Year of the Ox/Europa and the Bull

I thought I’d get in early with a card to celebrate Chinese New Year 2021. I didn’t have any time to think about it last year.

The impending year is Year of the Ox, but I’ve stretched it to Europa and the Bull for the forthcoming arrival of Brexit, too. A kind of message to my friends in the EU saying, “don’t get carried away by the Bull.” I know what I mean, anyway.

The Davies Collection contains a woodcut print, Europa and the Bull by Gustav Heinrich Wolff. He used the black bull/white woman motif, but in that print Europa looks much more up for it than old Zeus. When I first thought of doing this, I’d got one of Albrecht Dürer’s Eves in mind, though she turned out to be more frontal than I wanted. So I plugged away trying to get the angle right, and the arm and hand, and the turn of the head. The bull/ox shaped up very quickly, and appeared almost fully formed at the start.

I’m really pleased with the composition. The circularity of the arm leading to the bull’s body, turned back up by the horns, through her body back to the arm. There’s a kind of Yin and Yang thing going on, too. And the horn pointing at her crotch says, “Danger!”

I think I shall print some cards like this, then remove the year for more general use….

Dance of Death: The video!

To round the challenge off, I've put all the postcards into a slideshow, along with all the proofs so the images "develop" somewhat. All set to the soundtrack of me reading my verses. ("Oh, please! Not that!" you say), Hope you like it.

Postcard 13: Vanity Fair

Finished! Well, I say finished but I have grown the idea in my head that I should make all these into a book with the verses carved in blocks to show on the page facing each print. Well, that's the idea, though it's scaring me a bit right now.

And with this verse:

Go smooth your skin, go dye your hair.

Go chase your youth, lost long back. Where?

You duck and dive, what vanity,

To try to dodge your dance with me!

Death's final dance turned into a tango in the end. Strangely...appropriate. My original scribbles suggested a much more raucous affair. But as the series developed, this seemed to work better for my Death.

But then other influences came into play. Munch who was a big influence on the dress. And Gauguin's print, "Te Faruru" from which I took the position of the two heads and the draped arm. I also called on the team again to strike up the pose.

He dropped her, so is having to apologise. But I got this drawing in before the accident.

The first proof was over 90% of the work, so little change once I got the outline down.

And twelve of these printed.

Postcard 12: Can't Breathe

Postcard 12!! When I started this challenge, I thought it was achieveable. I'd got some rough ideas for most of the songs, and I'd previously done some postcard sized linocuts in a couple of hours. So. No worries, eh?

I've got one more to do with a couple of days to spare, so achieveable it was. But boy, am I tired. Some of them took longer than I imagined, and some of the designs changed considerably from what I'd originally thought. Getting up early helps, though. Ideal time of year for it.

Anyway, here's the postcard.

Back to the "double portrrait" like in postcard 2. I really like the variety this challenge has allowed.

Here's the verse for this one:

That hardly noticed rhythmic flow

Has stopped, and instantly you know.

Remove the panic from your face

And relax your bones for my embrace.

I've enjoyed writing these, too. The image and the verse and the original song all play off each other in my head. Hence the whole thing is more than just illustrations of the songs.

Anyway. Here are the proofs...

And 12 printed off.

Postcard 11: Please Die

This one took quite a bit of effort. It could be the sheer act of having a violent image in your head and wanting to convey that in the execution. Quite tiring. For those of you of a nervous disposition, rest assured that the picture is *really* me gurning while holding a mirror over my head.

And here's today's verse:

Some wish for me upon a star

That I come soon to where they are

And take away in vultures guise

The source of blight that scars their lives.

Here's the original rough idea that occurred to me, then another getting closer to the final image.

And here are the various proofs showing how I cut the different parts. You can see that the background was there from the start, as opposed to other images where it developed as I cut the block.

And another 12 in the bag...

Postcard 10: Not a man

I didn't notice this was going to happen until yesterday. I started on Day 1, and have pretty much had my head down working on these in album order. So. Not a Man arrives on the anniversary of Danielle Miller's death. Death was always going to wear a frock in this one. But, in honour of Dani, it's a PROPER FROCK.

I certainly feel I've learnt a lot doing this challenge. And gained in confidence. Putting yourself out there is the life lesson I've learned from Dani. So here I am, doing things I wouldn't have imagined a year ago.

This is the verse to accompany it:

Width of hip and weight of jaw.

Bones to pick to prove your law.

My mysteries are beyond mere science’ play,

So this box I’ll tick, “I prefer not to say.”

Here's the block and proofs. Once I'd got the basics down, it all just flowed. I only added 3 or 4 mrks to finish.

And printed off.

Postcard 9: Medusa (Part 2)

And finished. Only subtly different from the version in Part 1. Think I'm right to leave out drapery and stuff.

The verse that goes with this one is:

The mobs that jeer and spit your name.

None survive their bile and blame.

Take heart as I take you to your rest,

No-one escapes my final test.

Some dainty features in this one which made it a challenge to achieve. And having a suitably sad-looking Death.

Postcard 9: Medusa (Part 1)

A few days ago, whenever it was, when I was working on the background for "Restart from Zero", I wrote alongside some of the sketches I was making, "Medusa. Death as Pieta." That was to remind me of tthe image thatt had just come into my head of Michelangelo's famous sculpture with Death taking Mary's place and Medusa from Cellini's Perseus in the place of Christ. I enlisted these guys to help me cobble the picture together.

Because Cellini's Medusa is quite twisted on the shield and cushion arrangement, I needed a more relaxed lower body for this pose. This is where I've got so far. The upper body and arm is based on Cellini.

I was going to have drapery over whatever it is Death is sitting on, but I'm inclined to leave everything black. But I'm working out how to do a suggestion of blood dripping from the neck into a pool on the floor.