Monday, November 23, 2009

Werebeer

I've been thinking about making beer again. I still have a lot of my old labels, but I'm going to need new ones if I make a different beer. Where to next, then?




Thursday, November 19, 2009

Some Trajectories

I was involved with an excellent culture site until very recently, when it was taken down for reasons of artistic objective. I just made that up, I don't exactly know why it's down. I suspect it may be for good, though, so I'm going to repost a few things that left with the site.

I actually had a link up to the last one before – clearly recognizable if you've already checked out my other beast prints. I wrote a sweet blurb about it for So:
I want to read little-known secrets penned by well-known scholars of some forgotten caliphate; elaborated from a Pharaohnic death manual, a bound vellum volume captured during Alexandrine campaigns into The East, or both. The text in question will show certain influences, peculiar in their combination – Vedism, Kabbalah, the Island of Mu, and traces here and there recognizable only to those versed in the ways of the Incan khipu kamayuq. Impartial records will indicate the grimoire's passing inexplicably from Turkish petty-khans to the well-to-do of the Low Country; optimally, it will have been procured from the Nazis before the fall of Berlin.

To fulfill this desire, I must know a minimum of eight dead languages – no less than two of which I am to have invented myself.
Editor went with something else. Oh well – I'm like, halfway on the dead languages thing.


I go nuts for manticores. They're rockin'.


Cyclopes, too. What's up, in-the-plura~l?


This language has already been displaced by a successive script.

Sandwiches

There's a better/best one drying this very minute to my right, but I don't have a large enough scanning bed to accommodate it. And it's not dry.

I'm either part seal, or I'm wearing a snuggy.

Damn, dog, you even talk to yourself while you draw.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Signed & Sealed

Working on inscriptions to keep the genies in for good. I misplaced a sheaf of seals, but fortunately that led to some good developments in my thinking.



Monday, October 26, 2009

Animal / Vegetable

These are for a companion project to the Bestiary; I posted the front-plate for this section a while ago. These are just proofs to get an idea of how the plates are lining up. (not always reliably, as you can tell from the third test; but we'll figure it out).



Saturday, October 24, 2009

Genies

These prints represent the completion of what has been a long-term, multi-part project.

I noticed that something in my apartment causing bad luck, so I decided to take steps to remedy the misfortune. By chance I had several tins of six-month-old dried garlic on the window sill; because of garlic's special arcane properties, these pungent heads of allium had already gone a long way to absorbing the malefic essences – I just had to give them form.

So the garlics were sealed in plates (with glue, clearly), and plasticized (plastic also has strong anti-luck properties), and the genies then materialized on paper. That really just made them more dangerous, since before there'd only been an immaterial presence. Now the concentrated force manifested as a proper genie. This was, of course, necessary for the final stage of the process, where seals were applied to the papers. Without material form the unlucky genius would have continued to pervade my apartment, but once located it can easily be bound.

These sealed genies are still dangerous; like, if I burned the papers, they'd get out, and that'd suck. But it was the right thing to do. I shouldn't keep them all in one place, though – too powerful – so if you want a genie get in touch with me and we'll discuss your stewardship of evil. You could take them and burn them in your ex's apartment or something and release the evil there, but don't go blaming me for any consequences that might arise from that.

A seal.

An evil genie.

Another evil genie.

Another evil genie, again.

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Pen & Ink

This is for a project I have no affiliation with whatsoever. That said, it inaugurates an exciting return to pen & ink for not-me, and the equally exciting advent of scanned images that look better and don't require massive level adjustments in Photoshop just to be visible.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Fruitful

It didn't exactly take me all month to finish these guys – just to get the right posted. If you astutely observed that I'm missing one from the preps I posted, give yourself a cookie.


Friday, September 4, 2009

Crayon Proof

I've been carving a lot lately, but saving the plates for later. Still, crayon rubbings help me keep track of how it's going – and when you snap them in Photo Booth they suffer a very convenient horizontal flip to let you see how they'll print.

Front Plate for the Botanical Section – may become two-color as originally planned, but I kind of like it like this.

Yesterday's beast print – one more to go to meet the quota.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Planning

Some sketches for the next beast plate. Actually I just carved something completely different today, from much older plans; but this one's on the heater.



Monday, August 31, 2009

Koya Hijiri

My undergraduate thesis dealt with a 19th century Japanese Gothic short story, Izumi Kyoka's Koya Hijiri (The Holy Man of Mt. Koya). Half of the project involved analytical writing, and the other half was a comic book adaptation of the story. Oh man, Wikipedia has an excellently concise-to-the-point-of-disservice blurb:
Eccentric and superstitious, Kyōka developed a reputation for writing about the grotesque and the fantastic. "The Holy Man of Mount Kōya" (高野聖, Kōya Hijiri), is a tale about a monk's journey through a mountainous wilderness, encountering inexplicable and unsettling experiences. Borrowing and embellishing themes from Edo period popular fiction, folklore and Noh drama, more than half of Kyōka 's works incorporate some form of supernatural element. Kyōka's narrative style borrows from traditional rakugo storytelling, and also uses dramatic dialogues similar to that used in kabuki drama.
Hoo... that second sentence. Kyoka's definitely worth reading, don't let Wikipedia dissuade you. These four pages are just about at the end.




Thursday, August 27, 2009

Collaprints

I know what I think these look like; but I don't want to say – it'd ruin the prints' value as a Rorschach test.





Saturday, August 15, 2009

Album Covers

Part of a series for a collaboration about biomes with Clifton Ingram.


Another project in a similar vein, about predators and prey.


Knight School's The Poor and Needy Need to Party.


Beau Alessi's upcoming Monster Island EP2.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Bestiary II

Someone was asking me the other day what I wanted to do with the bestiary once it's done. I guess scan it, so I don't have these blurry images from my camera.


Thursday, July 30, 2009

Accordion Book

These are some early shots of a project that was meant to explore continuous narrative in the form of an accordion book. I want to do another draft, and optimally make the book itself.



Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Homemade

Doug models a shirt I made as part of a set for his band.

Doug models the back of the shirt.

Werebeer models itself. Part of the incentive behind making beer is making labels for it afterwards.

Bestiary

These are part of a linoleum cut series I've been working on. I'm really into the Voynich Manuscript. Although I haven't taken the time to explore it in any depth, I like the idea a lot. (this is true of my attitude towards many books). Monsters have also been a lifelong inspiration, so I settled on a Bestiary as a good project to explore carving.

The plates are written in an English alphabet loosely based on Hangul. I say loosely because English doesn't group its syllables gracefully into blocks, so it's highly imperfect.