An Older Print And Far Smaller Than My Original Ones, This Was A First Draft Of The Idea That Deer Girl

an older print and far smaller than my original ones, this was a first draft of the idea that deer girl has lady friends she can talk to, they are mermaids and inherently more feminine, I had toyed around with the idea that this is where the dress came from, an issue still unexplored, but everyone knows mermaids are naked, or they have little starfish as mermaid bras.

except, as I know from my association with starfish at the aquarium, they have their little horrible chompy mouths dead center, so that would be right on the nipple and a terrible idea. this is infact what these two are talking about, mermaid fashion problems.

the other half of the problem is of course that these mermaids (my mermaids) can split their tails and have legs for limited periods of time on land, so how would you have clothes that transition well between environments while still keeping the mermaid comfortably damp? (I think they'd wear rubber boots, because their feet would be tender and need shoes, and the boots would hold lots of water so they could stay on land longer without drying out)

also my mermaids are man-eating sirens. because my mermaids are cool.

so, I made exactly two of these. they were printed and carved in a flurry of last minute effort when I was putting together my BFA portfolio. I figured if there was one thing my portfolio needed (aside from more block prints to fill it out) it was a prayer.

I gave one of the prints to the European art history professor Carol Jansen, I think she liked it.

to give credit where credit is due, Christine took the block off my hands when I was in the drawing stage (when I was nearly done with the drawing stage I might add) and re-drew it for me. I gratefully carved her work and it is my carving and my printing but this piece was definitely a collaboration, I would have been lost otherwise.

obviously it is a copy of The Praying Hands byAlbrecht Dürer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Duerer-Prayer.jpg

so, here we have the ???? part of the wolves four point plan that ends in DINNER!

it is called "She Hoped That The Wolves Had A Plan, Aside From The Obvious One"

as I did not know what I was going to use this for when I made it, and I was so high on adrenaline and predinizone I only printed two, and I gave the other one to Kurt, here pictured as the hunter. because this print was made at the last possible second of applying to the BFA program (hence lack of attention to details and escher-girl butt and side boob anatomy problems) it is also absolutely against every bit of inspiration in my original very first Deer Girl print with her glomming on Bacchus.

but, it did actually happen. so there's that.

so, what happened was that in the middle of my predinizone treatment I was so hopped up and manic that I was just dancing late at night in the drawing studio. possibly to Lady Gaga's Alejandro. (senator I do not recall that infectious beat) and I turn around and there's Kurt. and he's just watching me. and I'm all "Hey Kurt!, whatcha doing?" and he's all "are you just dancing? and I'm like, "Yup!" and then he felt awkward and left. because while I had maintained eye contact through out our conversation, I NEVER STOPPED DANCING.

so I made this, because, again, I was hopped up on steroids.

during my BFA year I had to put it into sequence with the other images and it clicked into place that this would be a wolf's idea of an excellent distraction. I wish I had gone back and carved some wolf silhouettes into the woods, but it's too late now, and they are presumably behind him anyway.

I feel that the most successful part of this is how the body of the dude and the trees he is pushing apart frames the scene, the texture of the bark and his arm hair turned out nicely. I do think I should have made him blonde because his hair disappears into the black of the forest floor.

also could have just used a lot more care all over. if I was going to show this scene again it would be done radically different.

I made enough of these to give one to each member of the Pigeon Vision Collective (here depicted baked into a cozy pigeon pie) and still keep one for myself.

this slide show is about my progress putting together my fish drawing. these photos were taken over time as I worked to make the tedium of a million little textures more interesting.

Three Wolf Moon, the second relief print I ever made. I had time to do this because dude to snow and otehr problems winter quarter was too short for Ben to assign and teach my intro to printmaking class how to make Dry Point prints. probably a good thing because I was able to go into intaglio with fresh eyes and no preconceived notions about how to attack a copper plate.

anyways, I somehow had extra time even after remaking my original fish print (because I refuse to ever do monoprints ever again, even though that would have been a good thing to re-do) and I made this.

I'll be darned if I don't still rather like it.