Artwork, etc.: phase 6 update

If you're a regular blog reader (Thank you!), and you may be wondering:"Wait, didn't we already see these?" Yes and no - I'd printed the blocks and arranged these (The first 90%), but this week, I glued them down, sewed them to the paper, and added shadows and reflected color (the last 10% is tough :) ).

I added real buttons; I especially

like this one because it repeats

the shape of the central figure's collar.

There are stitches in the upper and lower folds
of the eyelid. Even though it's all equally paper,
it feels a little weird stitching so close to the eyes.

I worked on the details of the features to try to improve the likeness - they're both based on me, but I'm not sure whether they read as different views of the same person or not(?)

a before and after example - on the left, without drawing; on the right, I drew in the shadow that the head would cast and emphasized the folds to make it look more 3D

an example of drawing in the reflected light where color from one thing would spill onto the things around it - like red on the underside of the white sleeve here.

another a good example - adding green from the bird to the outside of the thumb and far side of the wrist across from it, and adding the lavender to the white as it gets close to the edge of the gloves.

The back - I kind of like it, which cracks me up to admit because I can totally imagine, if I were a student, an exchange that would go something like this:

[professor or indoctrinated classmate]:"Can you flip it over so we can see the back. (Flips, Pause.)...
O, you know, I actually think it's a stronger piece this way - it starts to address absence and negation."

[Me]: (blink, blink)

Lol it's funny now (in a "don't feed the super-ego!" kind of way :P).

proof

But refocusing...maybe I'm a little worried because refining is challenging, and I'm not sure it makes much difference in photos (even in the close up shots with a caption - Eep.) In the end, I hope it makes the pieces feel different, and maybe that sense of "not quite able to pinpoint why" is part of the magic?

Shaking things up, I started a fun new project - bunny bucks. I've mentioned my love of Durer's Hare (and Alice in Wonderland). I've been wanting to apply what I learned studying engraving last summer with the American Numismatic Association to making money-themed artwork. I like the idea of creating abundance by printing money (the fantasy of something from nothing), but then enjoy humor/absurdity of it's being worthless (the total failure of that fantasy to materialize - the dream revealed as a dream (but still beautiful as a dream?)) - sort of like an art-version of the quest for the philosopher's stone).

I wanted to include writing. Even though I can draw in reverse, I already get a little confused about the letters, so I didn't think I'd be very good at carving the text in reverse. I worked around it by carving a block in the correct orientation. On the one hand, it's more work, and this block won't lead directly to any prints (because all the text would be backwards)...but it is very good for one (and only one) thing - printing block to block: