The Final Pieces

Final magazine cover for the American project. The painting consumes the left third of the cover which is where most magazine covers place objects to attract attention and make use of the remaining space. I used my lino prints for the title although I cleaned up all the lino print marks but I made sure I removed nothing attached to the letters themselves so that it still looked authentic. If you zoom in you may be able to see what I mean! I decided to break up the remaining images by placing them at an angle. I was originally going to have them in picture frames as if the background was a wall but this looked too much like an actual composition. I followed the angles to place the date, price and edition.

Kestrel monoprint for Friday's project. This one didn't mount too well because the paper was much too thin although this was the only paper I could get a good result from in terms of monoprinting. I coloured it in with watercolour after adding the woodblock prints of the clubs and monoprinting the number 2.

Monoprint of the Jackdaw. This one really did not mount well at all, but hopefully it will go with the messy aesthetic of the print process..?! Woodblock spade and monoprinted letter J.

Lino of the Kingfisher. I am most pleased with the outcome of this one, although I think this is mainly down to nature rather than my illustration. Kingfishers are so cute!! I like the colours in this one. The design/lino itself feels like quite a tight design, although again the Kingfisher is petite anyway. Again, woodblock diamond, monoprint K and coloured in with watercolour.

Lino of the Budgie. I saw the opportunity for having the budgie on a perch within the spade as if it was a small bird cage. I made the most of the black spade by cutting out the lines rather than cutting around them. It was a bit confusing colouring this in in terms of positive/negative. Woodblock spade, monoprint letter A.

Drypoint of the Mockingbird. This took a while to draw to get it right (I had to sleep on it after doing about 4 illustrations in one night) but I like it in drypoint. As the Joker card is neither diamond, spade, heart nor club, and neither is it either black or red, I decided to offset the word 'Joker' in both black and red (monoprinted)

This is my favourite design in terms of the concept. I think this is because it was my first sketch/idea for the bird theme and it made me persue the route of illustrating birds for my playing cards. The heart slightly overlaps the beak which I didn't want it to originally, but I like the effect of having a colour printed over black. The little lines around the Hummingbird aren't really meant to be there; I think I scratched them onto the plastic to retain the mess I made when painting the original sketch. These now just look like motion lines which is rather effective, although I also still like the thought of the bird being captured in a split second motion.