Medusa’s pumpkin head

Despite building emergencies and Christmas fairs, work has progressed on the etchings for the Medusa Calendar (for 2014). But I have been so busy with stuff I have not had time to post about stuff, so here is the next etching, printed yesterday… for October, of course: Quite pleased that this is both scary and jolly at the same time! On the technical side, if you are interested, the foreground stuff is created by etching the plate heavily and burnishing the highlights back in, in the manner of a Mezzotint print (except the actual white of the faces – that’s metal…

Medusa, and the pumpkins on my front wall

Another sketch for the 2014 Medusa calendar. For October, obviously… I like the idea that, because one cannot look at Medusa’s face without turning to stone, it is safer to look at her with a frightful pumpkin-head instead. But then, it seemed a better contrast, since she is apparently scary, to have her surrounded by frightful pumpkin heads, and her holding the only smiling one. If that makes sense. And if it doesn’t, probably the rest of my pictures won’t either… The picture does in fact look very like the front of my house at present! This was the wall…

Finished painting: The Pumpkin Fairies

…and barely pausing for breath (though I did in fact pause to prune several small apple trees) I have another painting finished! Click on the image and click again and you will be able to see it in quite some detail. Here’s the whole thing: It may be the picture for October in my calendar, but it seems very appropriate for the time of year we have now. Apparently we are moving into autumn without really having paused for summer. It’s that kind of time when there are strange fruits lurking in the garden waiting to be picked. The spiders…

Pumpkin Fairies again…

I skipped life drawing today, on the basis that I was so busy that I would either like to relax (it being Saturday) or get on with some artwork that I actually had to do. Certainly not take a day off and do extra artwork… As it turned out I have been hard at work painting. Here is the painting after its turn under the shower: I have been getting on rather quickly at this point on account of using only three colours for the ‘colouring in’ stage. Now, many washes of more colour later and it looks like this:…

Pumpkin Fairies

The painting of the October picture continues…. I am tempted to paint the whole thing orange after this initial ‘shading’ work – orange pumpkin and orange fairies as if they have emerged from the substance of the pumpkin. I made the inside of the pumpkin dark so that their faces would show up looking out, rather than have the innards of the pumpkin glow as in a traditional Jack o’ Lantern, as then I would have to paint all their legs and everything standing around in the pumpkin, which didn’t seem at all the sort of way it looked in…